Category Archives: Politics – international

Why Obama stayed home

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Why did Obama stay home? a number of people have asked. This is John Hinderaker’s answer:

I offer two possible explanations. The first is incompetence. The second is that if it didn’t seriously occur to Obama that he should go, it may simply not have occurred to him to send anyone else.

He also canvasses five other possibilities:

1. Incompetence: This theory should always be on the table when government at any level is involved. And it can explain why Obama didn’t have a top level official appear at the Paris rally.

2. Security: Don’t make me laugh. When Obama wants to do something, he doesn’t let security issues interfere.

3. Terrorism, what terrorism?: The estimable Byron York posits that Obama skipped Paris because he wants to downgrade the issue of terrorism. John finds this theory plausible, and I do too.

4. No sympathy for colonialists: This is a crude summary of an elaborate theory offered by Lee Smith. It’s worth considering, but very speculative. I think Smith may be over-thinking this.

5. He’s too cool: This, in essence, is the theory the White House is now providing.

Others have said that he stayed home to watch the football, which is plausible, although I was able to watch the games easily enough here in Australia. That, too, is not why I think he stayed home.

Here’s my answer. He didn’t go because he supports the other side. He did not want to add even so much as an ounce of support for those who are fighting the Islamists since he wants to see them succeed. I would be happy to entertain some other answer as the real one were it not for the fact that there is not a single position Obama has taken, at any time in his life, that would make me think he is on my side of any important ideological question, and this one least of all.

And having written this, I came across this, by Roger Simon: Is the White House a ‘Sleeper Cell’?. The idea is so obvious, and has been for so long, that I assumed that no one has put two and two together because the conclusions are not just terrible for the politics of it, but is vastly discrediting for the American system of government. Let me go to how Simon ends his article before coming back to the point:

A “sleeper cell” in the White House? It would certainly explain Obama’s not going to France, which was a decision that hurt the USA, hurt the effort against Islamic terror and hurt the president’s already tarnished reputation into the bargain. There are so many other things that the existence of a White House “sleeper cell” would explain that I couldn’t even begin to count them. And as you know, a cell doesn’t have to be violent to be active. There are many ways to do damage.

But who would be a member of this cell? Is it one or all of them? Well that, I am sorry to say, I cannot tell you. I do not have the proper clearance. You are, however, free to guess. Who would stop you?

Simon has clearly come to the same conclusion as I have, but won’t say it. It is just too terrible to have to admit. A Parliamentary system can be subverted, I suppose. But anyone who gets to the top has had to go through the proving ground of the Parliament itself. You must stand your ground on innumerable occasions, being asked questions by people whose interests are to find a flaw in your policies, that being the members of the opposition parties. This is a crucible that simply does not exist in a republican presidential system, and especially one in which the media is as corrupt as that found in the US.

Obama has never had to face serious questioning at any stage of his rise, nor does he now that he has reached the presidency. No one knows who he is, really is, nor has anyone probed him to find out what he truly believes. But you would have to have been born an idiot not to understand exactly what he stood for even before he was elected. Since that time, there has never been an instance that he has stood up to any radical Islamic government. The only time Egypt, for example, caught his interest was after Al-Sisi successful coup. Then, but only then, he was set to punish the Egyptians. Nor did he provide any support of any kind, not even ideological, when the Iranian people tried their own counter-revolution.

This is not a first-time instance, either. The near-as-certain certainty is that the FDR White House was riddled with Stalin’s agents. Not spies who tried to steal secrets, but the actual policy advisers who ran the government. This is the final paragraph of my review of Diana West’s American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character which I titled, with good reason, America, the Big Dumb Ox. This is where the title comes from:

As a result of reading West’s book, I now look on the United States as a big dumb ox, led around by a cabal of its enemies whose intent is to take the beast out to slaughter. It is a very large beast and will not go quietly. But given what you will learn from this book, you will be in some despair in trying to work out what can be done. This is a very troubling book which I nevertheless encourage you to read.

When I see the Obama White House, my attitude is, so what’s new? And what has been the most troubling part in reading West has been the effort made by the “elites” on the conservative side of politics in the US to discredit everything she wrote. The only conclusion vast enough to make sense of it all is the notion of progressive internationalism, whose most important ideal is bound up in the notion of open borders. If Islam, as peaceable as most of its adherents no doubt are, has within it a core of violent primitives, who cannot be contained by the more civilised notions that have been painfully and slowly accumulated in the Judeo-Christian West, then this entire progressive internationalist enterprise is a planetary disaster that will bring on a new Dark Age. But the vision will not disappear, and on we go.

So let me say this straight out. Wherever you are, wherever you are reading this right this minute, you cannot know what political system and religious values will prevail one hundred years from today. You may have your preferences, and you may find it inconceivable that Sharia may dominate the planet. But if the US can elect an Obama in 2008, don’t you tell me what will not happen by the year 2115.

We’re all in this together

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There are barbarians about, but they cannot be easily identified. You cannot tell them by the colour of their skin, by their country of origin or by their religion. And it the rest of us, the defenders of our civilisation, who are from all cultures, races and religions, who will have to work together to fix what is a very great problem. This is from Claire Berlinski, who lives in Paris, discussing “Why is every journalist in the world getting everything wrong? Where are all these idiot ideas about what’s going on in Paris coming from?”. It is never a surprise to me when journalists get things wrong, usually because the truth they perfectly well recognise does not happen to be what they would prefer to have been the actual case in hand. Claire discusses four untruths, of which this is the first.

Untruth 1: Muslim Silence

If another person tells me that “No Muslims are speaking out against this,” I will personally insert the entire Grand Mosquée de Paris in his orifices. How many more Jews do French Muslims have to save from terrorists — as one did at that Kosher deli (and fifteen of them, at that) — before people stop slandering them this way? Was the death of a cop who happened to be a Muslim and died trying to protect the victims of these animals not enough of a statement?

Is this enough? Or this? How about this:

In case you don’t understand, he is describing them as Satans. He is denouncing them as barbarians, criminals; he is saying we cannot stop weeping; he is saying they attacked liberty and the people who protect us; he is saying there can be no excuse, no qualification; that it is a disaster; they have outraged everything we treasure … and then he had to stop speaking, because he couldn’t keep from crying in public.

What more do you want? Have the people who keep saying Muslims refuse to denounce terrorism no decency? And why — in the first place — should every Muslim in the world be repeatedly insulted by the demand that they say they oppose murder? As far as I’m concerned, unless someone is either a murderer or someone who has clearly stated that he approves of murder, he or she is entitled to the presumption that he or she is opposed to it. Particularly if he or she is a member of a community that has recently been the object of it, not merely its subject.

Does France have a lot of home-grown, Islamist filth who murder or, at least, approve of murder? Indeed it does. I saw that with my own eyes folks, and in a particularly unpleasant way, so don’t don’t tell me it’s not true.

Does it also have many more Muslims who are appalled by this, outraged, and speaking up as loudly as they know how, to the point of screaming and wailing? To the point that it breaks my heart for them? It does: I saw thousands of them yesterday, too, perhaps tens of thousands. Do not tell my my eyes are lying. They are French citizens! They were born here. They have nowhere else to go.

And do not tell me they do. Not until you have personally spoken to one of them. One who has told you why she was born here. And I assure you, once you have, you will understand why he or she cannot go back. Does “Every one of my classmates was massacred by the Muslim Brotherhood in Algeria and I was the only one who survived, and only because my father had a shotgun” sound like a good enough reason? Do you want to look that woman in the face and say, “You have somewhere else to go to?” Well do it, if you want, but not in front of me.

How surprised by this are you?

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obama you let the whole world down

From Drudge:

‘We can live together’…
Netanyahu, Abbas attend Paris mass rally…
Largest in French history…
KISS-OFF: USA represented only by ambassador?
Officials skipped Washington ‘Charlie’ rally, too…
Gunman appears in chilling video, declares loyalty to Islamic State…
WIRE: Both brothers had weapons training in Yemen…
Afghanistan rally hails attackers as ‘heroes’…
FEINSTEIN: Terrorist sleeper cells are in USA…
FBI Assuming Larger Surveillance Role…

MEANWHILE BACK IN AUSTRALIA: This is titled, Our Gutless Surrender, is written by Roger Kimball, is published at PJ Media in the US, but begins:

The Melbourne-based journalist and television commentator Andrew Bolt is celebrated and reviled by all the right (i.e., all the left) people throughout his native land. He’s been threatened, sued, and otherwise harassed by the politically correct establishment that, despite the great Tony Abbott in the prime minister’s seat, holds sway in Oz. Along with the writers associated with Quadrant magazine in Sydney, Bolt is one of only a handful of people who have effectively challenged the sclerotic orthodoxy of establishment opinion on all matter of issues, from the Aborigines and immigration to the virtues of free-market economics to the cesspool of hatred that is the ideology of radical Islam.

It does require a special kind of brave, which unfortunately not everyone has.

Bolt is back

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Actually, he is still in Holland. But in case you missed them, there are two new posts up at his blog. The first is, No, you are not all Charlie. Here is the whole thing:

I am in Holland and the other night, in Groningen, passed one of those demonstrations now held all over Europe in support of the magazine Charlie Hebdo and the journalists murdered this week by Islamists. Many people held up the sign seen at all these demonstrations: Je suis Charlie. I am Charlie.

Pardon me, but those signs are just not true. Charlie Hebdo was selected by al Qaeda for attack precisely because almost no one else was Charlie Hebdo. It was almost alone in newspapers and magazines to mock the ideology that so many other journalists fear. That is why it was the target, and, say, The Age, The Guardian or the New York Times not.

And I suspect this attack will work. There will in fact be fewer Charlie Hebdos than ever. More on this in tomorrow’s Sunday Herald Sun, once the lawyers have carefully checked what I am permitted to say under our already absurd laws against free speech.

The second is his column in the Herald Sun today, Are we really all Charlie? No, no and shamefully no. Here are the first two paras:

PROTESTERS around the West, horrified by the massacre in Paris, have held up pens and chanted “Je suis Charlie” — I am Charlie.

They lie. The Islamist terrorists are winning, and the coordinated attacks on the Charlie Hebdo magazine and kosher shop will be just one more success. One more step to our gutless surrender.

UPDATE: Perhaps more than just a one-week wonder: French Premier Declares ‘War’ on Radical Islam as Paris Girds for Rally:

Prime Minister Manuel Valls declared Saturday that France was at war with radical Islam after the harrowing sieges that led to the deaths of three gunmen and four hostages the day before. New details emerged about the bloody final confrontations, and security forces remained on high alert.

“It is a war against terrorism, against jihadism, against radical Islam, against everything that is aimed at breaking fraternity, freedom, solidarity,” Mr. Valls said during a speech in Évry, south of Paris.

We’ll see. Check back in about a week.

#je suis aussi juif

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A very angry post by Phyllis Chesler, #JE SUIS JUIF (I AM A JEW). It’s a reaction to the #I’llRideWithYou hashtag about the willingness to protect Muslim women even when they are threatened by no one. Her point is that nothing of the sort has occurred on behalf of Jews, even while they have been under a constant and increasingly murderous threat, both in Israel and in the West. They cannot, of course, live anywhere else. These are her concluding words, but you should read it all:

I am waiting for France to make the connection between “Israel,” and “humanity,” to comprehend that Israel is a symbol for the West; to understand that Arab Jews and Arab Christians were at the mercy of such Muslim barbarians for millennia; that the state of Israel “provoked” the age-old Islamic hatred of infidels and that the Jihad against the Jews has been going on since the beginning of the 20th century.

A sovereign Jewish state has “provoked” those Muslim terrorists who believe that the entire world should be Muslim and ruled by Sharia law. And, the Western world is now in their gun-sights.

In the last fourteen years, non-Israeli Jews, French Jews, have been mocked, followed, literally tortured, stabbed, raped, robbed, shot down, stoned, and blown up. And today, they are being held hostage in a Kosher supermarket in France.

Today, I am a Jew, “#Je Suis Juif.”

To which may be added, When push comes to shove, isn’t it curious how it’s always about the Jews?. To quote from the very end:

As Damian Penny, a proud Newfoundlander and my new god, Tweeted Friday: “Jews control the media. Jews control the government. Jews are all-powerful rulers of the world. SO WHY THE F— DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING?”

Bernard Maris

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This is a post I have written for The Conversation on Bernard Maris, who was murdered in the offices of Charlie Hebdo.

What are economists for? To make people laugh

My own introduction to the murders at Charlie Hebdo came via an email I received that morning from the Research Network on Innovation, which shares with me a deep interest in the economics of the entrepreneur. I had been invited to the first ever conference on Jean-Baptiste Say and the Entrepreneur in July last year, held at the university in Boulogne-sur-Mer. This was the note, which came in both French and English, sent out by its director.

“Dear colleagues,

“I have been shocked to learn that our colleague Bernard Maris was murdered in the office of the journal “Charlie Hebdo”, Paris. From the beginnings of Innovations, Bernard (uncle Bernard) has been a major scientific support for our journal. He has been a member of the Scientific Committee, author and advisor of the Editorial Board of Innovations.

“Best regards”

Bernard Maris is seldom named as among the victims in English-language reports. Whether I had met Maris I do not recall, as there was a very large number of economists at the conference. But he was well known in France, as the first line of this obviously recently updated Wikepedia entry shows.

“Bernard Maris (23 September 1946 – 7 January 2015) was a French economist, writer and journalist who was also a shareholder in Charlie Hebdo magazine. He was murdered in January 2015, in the Charlie Hebdo shooting at the headquarters of the magazine in Paris.”

Everything I am about to say about Bernard will therefore be stitched together from other sources, since my only association is via his work on innovation and entrepreneurship which is only a small part of what he did. But the one word description that does come out in what I have read is “iconoclast”. That he was so closely associated with Charlie Hebdo makes that very clear. And brave as well, as undoubtedly he understood the risks, as did each of the others. This is from an AFP write up that I came across yesterday (my translation assisted by Google).

“As a recognized researcher, he was familiar to many for his many appearances on radio, television and in the press.

“Shareholder of Charlie Hebdo since 1992, he wrote a weekly satirical weekly column signed “Uncle Bernard”. And what illustrated his talents as a difficult-to-categorise populariser was his frequent description as a “journalist-economist”.

“He had written numerous books with evocative titles including, in 1998, Ah that economic Lovely War!, and in 2010, Marx, Marx oh, why have you forsaken me? But it was his Anti-saving manual, released in early 2000, in which the first volume is devoted to the ants and the second to the grasshoppers, that was his most successful publication.

“He was a member of the scientific board of Attac, and the Green candidate in the 2002 legislative election. In 2011, the President of the Senate, Jean-Pierre Bel, was surprised that Maris had been asked to join the General Council of the Banque de France.”

Another side to Maris has been provided this morning by his fellow Frenchman, Alain Alcouffe, on the Societies for the History of Economics online discussion forum.

“Among the victims of the attack against Charlie Hebdo magazine was Bernard Maris, (January 8th). He was a well-known figure in the world of economics and especially among historians of economics as he has devoted several essays to Keynes and economic methodology. His wit and irony were directed against any bigotry and pedantry and contemporary economists were not spared.

“Among his last books one was coauthored with Gilles Dostaler, Capitalisme et pulsion de mort : Freud et Keynes [Capitalism and death drive] (2009). As far as I know, few of his publications have been translated into English (if any).”

There is no doubting that our economic visions were vastly different – he was a great admirer of John Maynard Keynes, to whom he dedicated a book, Keynes ou l’économiste citoyen. But the soul of our societies is that we are able to discuss our own views with each other in a spirit of good will, and with the aim of finding the truth, as best we can find it. At the conference I attended in July, I was amongst roomsful of individuals, like Maris, who are on the opposite side on matters I hold very dear. But the conference was one of the most enjoyable I have ever been to, filled with interesting people saying interesting things, and a paper of my own has been solicited and will be published later this year.

I will finish with something written by Maris that was translated into English by Alain Alcouffe as a tribute to Maris’s memory. It is from the last pages of Maris’s 1999 book, Lettre ouverte aux gourous de l’économie qui nous prennent pour des imbéciles (Open letter to the gurus of economics who take us for idiots). And for that title alone, I feel even more deeply the loss to the world of this brave man, who stood by the values of the enlightenment against a darkness that threatens us all.

What are economists for?

If economics is the science of the market, they are useless – we have known it for a long time (since Keynes), and we get confirmation now from the most ultra orthodox (Debreu).

If the economy is a science that predicts the future, then the greatest economist is Madame Soleil [a famous French astrologer]

If economics is the science which deals only with “trust”, then the greatest economist is Freud. If economics is the science which deals only with “transparency”, then the greatest economists are accountants, policemen, customs officers or judges.

If economics is a religion, then Camdessus is the high priest of it, but the best economist will remain Pope John Paul II.

If economics is only gossip and chatter, many journalists can aspire to be awarded the Golden Palm.

Every activity has a social utility. Even parasites are useful: they allow us to highlight the so-called “useful” people. Just as there is nothing “harmful” in ecology – except in empty heads of hunters – it is rare to be unable to associate a utility to a part of the social body. The parable of Saint-Simon, which showed that the wealth of France would not decrease if we removed many lazy people, writers and others, is questionable, and the same holds for the uselessness of the ancient Greek and music taught at University. So … What are the casuists of utilitarianism for?

Unquestionably the “experts”, the merchants of economic tales have a function of exorcism of the future. In a world without religion, they have the same function as gurus and cult leaders – and many of them combine the two businesses. They also play the role of bards, shamans or witch doctors of Indian tribes who talk incessantly to prevent the sky from falling on the heads. They are the inexhaustible storytellers of irrational, credulous, illiterate and but not uncultured societies that are no doubt more cheerful than ours.

But what have the children of Smith, Marx and Keynes to do? Are they condemned to play the roles of sorcerer, high priest or guru?

Obviously not. They can denounce the merchants of confusion, promote economics as a science of man, and not as a hard science, they can question history, civilizations, they can think about value and wealth. They can denounce efficiency and productivity – or simply leave it to business managers, they are paid for it! – And they can return to psychology, sociology, history, philosophy. Thinking about labor, time, money. In short, they can go back to Smith, Keynes and Marx.

They can also go for soup and sell their beautiful science for the lentils of expertise, and be content with the role of the fool whose legs are pulled twice a year when growth projections are presented, and every day when the Russian mafia recycles dollars which have been loaned to it in false candor.

But then, they should not speak of “quality assessment” or “technical correction”

Let them put a pointed cap, a red nose, let them wag with their ears and tickle the armpits.

What were economists for, one will ask a hundred years from now? To make people laugh. (English . Alain Alcouffe]

t+50 – it’s not a pretty sight

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Let’s face it. Between birth control and abortion, the European parts of the world are shrinking, if not in absolute numbers just yet, but certainly as a proportion of the world’s population. The territories we have inhabited, some for as long as humans have lived upon the planet, are being ceded to others. Here is a straw in the wind, invisible because social change is so slow that most people are just too unaware to register it is even happening. Titled 45 Signs That China Is Colonizing America, it begins:

Just because you were once the most powerful nation on earth does not mean that you will always be the most powerful nation on earth. Every single year, hundreds of billions of dollars leaves the United States and goes to China. This enormous transfer of wealth has had a dramatic effect on both countries. In case you haven’t noticed, many of our formerly great manufacturing cities such as Detroit are rotting away while shining new factories and skyscrapers are going up all over China. If you go into any major retail store today and start turning over products, you will find that hundreds of them have been made in China and that very few of them have been made in America. As a nation, we buy far, far more from China than they buy from us. As a result, China is absolutely swimming in cash and they have been looking for things to do with all that money. One thing that China has done is loan the U.S. government over a trillion dollars and this has given the Chinese a tremendous amount of leverage over us. China has also started to buy up businesses, real estate and natural resources all over America. This kind of “economic colonization” is similar to what China has already been doing in Africa, South America and Australia. The formula is actually very simple. We send them our money and then they use it to buy us. With each passing day China’s ownership over America grows, and it is frightening to think about where all of this could end.

You can read the 45 listed items for yourself. But if colonised we must be, this is the least worst of the options now before us, although I would have preferred that we could stay as we were. But that is the one option that is out. Fifty years from now, our once great civilisation may be as isolated as the state of Israel is today.

The Green Prince

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I meet people all the time who tell me what a great film The Green Prince is, but until someone tells me something to still my conviction that Moab is anything other than a double agent working for Hamas, I will think it made perfect sense for the Israelis to have let him, and his Mossad handler, go their own way. And among the various issues that keep me sceptical to the hilt is that Moab lives free, travels back and forth, and makes a great show of everything, except support for the Israeli state. Here is the reality of a Palestinian youth who comes out in support of Israel.

Palestinian threats against Mohammad Zoabi and why there is no peace

He’s hiding in the U.S., while his anti-Israel Knesset member cousin is lionized in Western media.

The contrast in the story is between him and his cousin, Haneen, who is an actual member of the Israeli Parliament.

A few weeks ago Haneen Zoabi enjoyed a mostly sympathetic portrayal in The Washington Post. According to the Post, “To her supporters, Zoabi, 45, is a Palestinian lioness speaking truth to the Israeli establishment by asserting the rights of the 20 percent of Israel’s population who are Arab Muslims and Christians.” Because that, of course, is what an Israeli Arab is supposed to do. But the politician Zoabi has legal channels to fight her fight. So maybe she’s an underdog, but she’s a pretty well-protected one.

The teen Zoabi, on the other hand, had to run away because he had no effective protections against those who hate Israel like his cousin. The lack of attention to his plight means that the media only favors certain underdogs – the underdogs who espouse their own approved views. The irony is that Haneen’s career would not be possible if Israel wasn’t the beacon of freedom Mohammad praises. Mohammad Zoabi has displayed real courage in fighting his lonely fight in an intolerant society; he’s not a phony like Haneen, who gets her hateful screeds excused as “speaking truth.” When will his courage get the attention it deserves?

When I hear “The Green Prince” say the same as this young boy, then I will trust him, but not until.

[Via Legal Insurrection]

Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney, in either order, for 2016

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Still there, in the forefront, all these years later.

Governor Palin endorsed 22 candidates for various offices during the midterm finals, including senators, governors, lieutenant governors, congressmen, and attorneys general. Of those so endorsed, an incredible 20 were elected – contrasted with, for example, Hillary Clinton’s record of 8 wins out 24 endorsed candidates.

Beyond the success of her endorsed candidates lies a much deeper reason for Palin being seen as “Achiever of the Year”: those Palin endorsed in their respective primaries who then went on to win the general election battles. As in the past with, among others, senators Ted Cruz, Kelly Ayotte, and Deb Fischer, and Governor Nikki Haley, who owe their elections in their primary campaigns to Palin’s endorsement at a critical juncture, so too could new senators Ben Sasse and Joni Ernst, and new Alaska governor Bill Walker (and, remarkably, his Democrat lieutenant governor Byron Mallott) be considered to owe all or a substantial part of their nominations to Palin’s endorsement.

Hillary is the kiss of death. Palin has the kind of judgement that brings attention to candidates who deserve election and then get elected. And the judgement remains political, and even international, unlike the incumbent in the White House who has had not a single success – other than electoral – since being elected in 2008. On the other hand:

After Russian president Putin invaded the Ukraine and annexed the Crimea, video surfaced of Governor Palin’s 2008 speech where she predicted exactly that occurrence should then presidential candidate Barack Obama be elected. Palin sounded a deserved note of triumphalism in March:

“Yes, I could see this one from Alaska,” Palin posted on Facebook, saying she said “told-ya-so” in the case of her “accurate prediction being derided as ‘an extremely far-fetched scenario’ by the ‘high-brow’ Foreign Policy magazine.”

“Here’s what this ‘stupid’ ‘insipid woman’ predicted back in 2008,” Palin said. “After the Russian Army invaded the nation of Georgia, Senator Obama’s reaction was one of indecision and moral equivalence, the kind of response that would only encourage Russia’s Putin to invade Ukraine next.”

As for Mitt, no need to remind us any longer that it was he who predicted Russia’s crucial geo-political role during the debate in 2012. And while neither has any probability to make it to the nomination, this is where things stand right now:

Mitt Romney polls two points ahead of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in Zogby’s latest poll on the 2016 GOP presidential nomination.*

It’s a different world, and a far better one, had either won then. The repairs now needed are superhuman, but there are few I would trust with the job more comprehensively than them.

* That was in Zogby two days ago. In the latest CNN poll, Mitt Romney was not offered as a choice. This is how the American media shapes the outcome for the side it wants to lose.

Bush picked up 9 percentage points since a CNN poll in November showed him with 14 percent support, which also positioned him in the No. 1 spot for 2016 when 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney was not offered as a choice. When he was presented as an option, Romney was first in the November poll, with 20 percent; newly minted Republican and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson was second, with 10 percent; and Bush was third, with 9 percent.