May 15, 2006
Lots of bills that were ignored by past presidents...have come due on Dubya’s watch.
Charlene happened to leave The Anchoress open at this post
...But as I put the subject away, I just have to ask all of you people - on every side - who have decided that immigration is one man’s burden, and that every good thing President Bush has done is to be negated because he hasn’t snapped his fingers and done what YOU think is the solution to the immigration problem…what did Clinton do about immigration, what did Bush 41 do? What did St. Reagan do? What did Carter do? What has any president, congressperson or senator done about immigration for the last 30 years, except kick the issue down the road for someone else to deal with?
Reagan, if you remember, was the amnesty president. Clinton was the “borders? What’s borders, everyone is our pal” president.
Lots of bills that were ignored by past presidents, particularly during our “vacation from history” have come due on Dubya’s watch. The whole world seems to be coming due on his watch, and damn him for not handling everything perfectly. What a loser, eh? And it’s easy to kick a guy when he’s down, isn’t it? AJ is getting weary of it, too.....
Too true. She's got a little list. And I can think of other things. My little list of cans-kicked-down-the-road...
New-modeling the Pentagon. The Cold War ended under Bush's father, and the only response from him and Clinton was to cut budgets. No new thinking, no reforms.
In fact, there was no new or clear thinking about the world after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Nothing done about the failure of the "Westphalian System" in the age of terror-supporting rogue states. Bush has redefined sovereignty for the first time since the Thirty Years War.
Our willingness to stand and fight, even if it costs many casualties. Avoiding that by past Presidents, including St Reagan, has now cost us far more casualties. Bush has accepted the painful necessity, paid the overdue bill, and all our future moves will be more effective because of it.
Missile defense.
Arafat.
The issue of whether we would defend Taiwan--fudged since Nixon's time; Bush said clearly we would.
Fetal stem cell research.
The insane exclusion of the most effective organizations from providing social services, just because they were faith-based. Ended by Executive Order.
Reform of the UN (hopeless, but at least someone's trying.)
Education! Paralysis has reigned for decades, and now NCLB is shaking things up big-time. (Dishonest conservitive critics only mention the expense, nothing else.
Health care. Paralysis for decades--now we finally have HSA's. And conservatives don't like the Drug Bill, but they refuse to even take notice of the personal choice and competition included, which has already lowered the costs well below what many expected. (Still huge, I know. But that those things are ignored says to me that the President's conservative critics are not honest.)
this isn't all, but it's time for me to go to work...