Make no mistake: I believe George W. Bush has been a great president. First, he responded to 9/11 with vigor and perspicacity in taking the fight against terrorism to its source, the Middle East. Second, he has been brilliant in defense of life by naming to the judiciary those with firm commitments to social conservatism. Third, he has understood that tax cuts are essential in order to trigger prosperity and jobs. Fourth, he appreciates the need for lessened regulation on business and in our lives. But as with all great presidents, there is something to be desired. Lincoln could possibly have won the Civil War without trampling under civil liberties as much as he did. FDR showed us that a president can restore confidence (although his solutions were dismal failures). Reagan believed in tax cuts at the outset but was convinced to backwater and hike taxes midway through his first term. And now we get to the downside of George W. Bush.
This president who has refused to veto any bill, who has not applied a brake to spending, has just done it again with New Orleans. I regret to say that he has assumed more blame in government’s response than he deserves, letting the incompetent mayor and governor off the hook. And he has begun a woeful precedent by assuming the entire burden of the rebuilding of the city by the federal government to the tune of $200 billion. The precedent is disastrous. The next act of God calamity to hit any section of the country will have to be assumed by the federal government else they will shout sectional favoritism. The only up side is the fact that the Red States of the south will not be alienated by the Republicans and will continue in the fold for the next presidential. But a danger could be continued estrangement of Bush’s non-southern fiscal conservative base.
I have listed four great philosophical achievements by Bush and one downside. Now it’s imperative for conservatives to oppose the Bush spending. Already Bill Clinton has urged repeal of the earlier Bush tax cuts because the deficit will worsen. That is one step that should not be taken. Conservatives must act as Lyndon Baines Bush’s best friends by raising a storm over spending, urging he utilize the veto pen, pressuring him to roll back his LBJ-style grandiose plans and restore the semblance of prudent stewardship.
"First, he responded to 9/11 with vigor and perspicacity in taking the fight against terrorism to its source, the Middle East."
ReplyDeleteUh... Tom, the source of 9/11 was Osama Bin Ladin. U.S. forces had an opportunity to get OBL in Tora Bora, but instead the Bush administration was already diverting troops in preparation for their invasion of Iraq. And 4 years after 9/11, OBL is still on the loose.
Unless "perspicacity" has a second definition of "wrong-headedness", I'd say you've missed the mark.
"Second, he has been brilliant in defense of life by naming to the judiciary those with firm commitments to social conservatism."
If Mr. Bush really believed that a zygote was a human life that needed defending, why would he allow federal funding of research on the existing stem-cell germlines? Does he think that those existing zygotes are not fully human but that the one in the body of a woman is? His position is at best inconsistent and without principle.
"Third, he has understood that tax cuts are essential in order to trigger prosperity and jobs."
Half of Americans don't seem to think that Mr. Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy have triggered prosperity. In the Wall Street Journal/NBC poll published yesterday, forty-seven percent said the economy was getting worse, the highest since April 2001. But maybe that is just more of the Wall Street Journal's liberal propaganda. And Sixty-three percent of those polled by the New York Times/CBS agreed that "things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track" in the country. Sounds like America isn't prospering all that much under Bush's tax cuts.
"Fourth, he appreciates the need for lessened regulation on business and in our lives."
There can be no doubt that Mr. Bush and his cronies feel that -- even after the corporate scandals at Enron, WorldCom, etc. -- corporations should not be accountable to U.S. citizens or monitored by authorities to determine if they are deliberately hurting the public. I think that we can all agree that Mr. Bush wants to protect corporate cronyism from government oversight.
But to say that Mr. Bush and his allies want to keep regulation out of our lives is absurd. They don't believe in a constitutional right to privacy. They believe that the government has the power and right to regulate relationships between consenting adults. They don't believe in the right to privacy that guarantees a couple's right to birth control. They don't believe a right to privacy protects Americans choice of who they have sex with or how. They believe that, because there is no constitutional right to privacy, the government can regulate those aspects of our lives and more.
The Bush clan believes that corporations should be able to act completely unfettered, but that American citizens -- the human beings -- are not constitutionally protected from government intrusion into their private lives.
But don't get discouraged Tom, blogging can be difficult at first. Keep plugging away and you will get the hang of it eventually.