The Bush Legacy: He Kept us Safe, not much else, but isn't that what counts.
As we wind our way to January 20, 2009 most Americans woke up Sunday to news that President Bush made his fourth trip to Iraq.
Casually interesting in some ways, but stunning in others. Whatever one thinks of the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war, it had the following two effects: 1. It liberated a nation previously held under a brutal dictator and 2. It kept the terrorists on the run or otherwise occupied.
Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State has been praised as a bold choice by historians - likening it to Lincoln's famed Team of Rivals. The reality is though, the Clinton legacy does not exist. Sure the economy was good - but that's not a legacy. Economies are completely cyclical is what Adam Smith taught us years ago - it is true today. The economy is not Clinton's legacy.
Rather, Clinton's legacy is that he left our nation in a position to be attacked. He had Osama in the cross hairs but didn't have the courage to pull the trigger. Bush's legacy is that he took the devastating attack of 9/11, then kept us safe, all while building an ally in the middle east.
Look, we are no Bush apologists, his stunning inaction on gas prices was appalling. His failing at Hurricane Katrina ("Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job") alarming, but othert than those two - substantive and unnecessary errors,the greater legacy is he kept us safe ... And that matters.
As we wind our way to January 20, 2009 most Americans woke up Sunday to news that President Bush made his fourth trip to Iraq.
Casually interesting in some ways, but stunning in others. Whatever one thinks of the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war, it had the following two effects: 1. It liberated a nation previously held under a brutal dictator and 2. It kept the terrorists on the run or otherwise occupied.
Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State has been praised as a bold choice by historians - likening it to Lincoln's famed Team of Rivals. The reality is though, the Clinton legacy does not exist. Sure the economy was good - but that's not a legacy. Economies are completely cyclical is what Adam Smith taught us years ago - it is true today. The economy is not Clinton's legacy.
Rather, Clinton's legacy is that he left our nation in a position to be attacked. He had Osama in the cross hairs but didn't have the courage to pull the trigger. Bush's legacy is that he took the devastating attack of 9/11, then kept us safe, all while building an ally in the middle east.
Look, we are no Bush apologists, his stunning inaction on gas prices was appalling. His failing at Hurricane Katrina ("Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job") alarming, but othert than those two - substantive and unnecessary errors,the greater legacy is he kept us safe ... And that matters.
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25 comments:
he sucked and now we are in a depression -0 no other way to descibe it.
Sure, says you.
What about the following:
1) Erosion of civil rights masquerading as the patriot act.
2) Deregulating industries that have resulted in teh massive economic meltdown
3) No child left behind failure.
4) Osama Bib Ladan
5) Lose of credibility and respect in the world community.
6) Medicare prescription drug plan
7) Health care has declined during his tenure
8) Iran and North Korea nuclear buildup policies
9) Failure to manage the Military causing redeployment after redeployment.
10) The environment ... nothing but make it worse.
11) Trade deficit increased to nearly $1 TRILLION dollars.
12) Biggest Budget SURPLUS in US history to the worst budget deficit in US history, even worse than his father's.
13) Human Rights violations (torture, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib)
Shall I go on?
W has been the best President in mondern times. It takes courage and will to stay the course against popular opinion. Today's Americans are much like spoiled teenagers wanting instant gratification. W listened to all the whining & crying of the spoiled and said NO, he stayed the course, knowing it was the best for America even though it would cost him politically. W is a Great American President. Now we will get another "poll" oriented Presidency similiar to Bill; short sighted, short willed, all fluff.
History rarely judges Presidents in the same way they are judged by their contemporaries (Jimmy Carter may be a rare exception: failure to the voters, failure in perpetuity). A century from now, George Bush will likely be considered a good - but not great - President.
For better or worse, he became President for two reasons: his family name and the utter corruption of the Clinton Administration. Of course liberals would like to add the Florida recount in 2000 but that is just nonsense. He won that election fair and square.
Bush was President during one of the most difficult periods in our nation's history. He inherited an economic downturn that began in March of 2000, under Clinton's watch (the stock market collapsed the day the Microsoft antitrust verdict was announced which then precipitated the dot-com collapse). He was President for just over half a year when the 9/11 attacks took place, which further took a toll on our economy. During his Presidency, both the Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina took place.
To his credit:
He crippled al Qaeda's ability to attack the U.S., the proof in the pudding being that we haven't been attacked since. He oversaw two wars which deposed dictators and terrorists, saving thousands of lives in both nations. Despite liberal propaganda, the overall civilian death rates in both Iraq and Afghanistan are actually lower than they were before we invaded and Iraq's is lower than America's! His tax cuts turned around a dismal economy and gave us a strong boom period for several years.
His failures:
Although the housing bubble was created by laws signed by Bill Clinton, Bush could have had Congress fix them. He didn't. He failed to send enough troops to Iraq to prevent foreign terrorists from coming into the country and causing havoc in Baghdad and other cities. His approach to immigration was despised by liberals and conservatives alike and the problem remains untouched. He failed to fix Social Security (granted, it was likely unfixable and will never be repaired). Two Border Patrol Agents are serving long prison sentences for shooting a drug smuggling animal in the rump while the smuggler goes free. Where is their pardon? His lack of effective communication with the American people throughout his Administration undercut many of his efforts.
The lies about Bush spread by Libs:
That Bush lied about Saddam's WMDs. Completely false. That the Bush Administration supports torture. Waterboarding is NOT torture. That Bush is an enemy of American civil rights. No American has been deprived of his civil rights under Bush. In fact, the greatest infringements against our civil rights by U.S. Presidents were perpetrated by FDR and Lincoln, both of whom are considered saints today.
There are many more triumphs, failures and lies that could be listed. The fact is, history doesn't care what we, who are blinded by our personal desires and needs, think of our Presidents.
History looks at facts alone, often through the prism forged by those who are in power at the time it is written. Overall, Bush will probably be seen as competent but short of stellar.
Let's be honest, though. If Gore had won, we would be fighting our enemies in our streets rather than in Baghdad.
In the same vein, we have a completely inexperienced individual coming into office in just over a month. Obama is already vexed by his Chief of Staff designate's possible involvement in the Blagojevich scandal and a grand jury investigation of Secretary of Commerce designate Bill Richardson in a corruption case.
If you think Bush was bad, what's coming will make him look like a saint and a genius.
Whats the matter? Does the truth hurt? 8 people in the whole USA think this guy did anything.
You are wrong on this one, post the truth!
To 3:42 - Sorry for the delay in posting. Everything is posted. It seems that you have much more free time on your hands to cruise the blogs than we do to post stuff.
We have been busy - not to be construed as us not wanting to post your thoughts.
However, even if all of the above comments criticizing Bush were true, and it isn't, he kept us safe - which is more than we can say about Clinton and his allowing Osama to build up during his eight years in the oval office. Clinton allowed Osama to rise to power - he ignored the threat of terrorism even after the Twin Towers were attacked in 1993.
Good post, Imre,,,,
Tell it like it is,, not the way the whining lefties "think" it is,,,
Keep it up !
Facts. Hmmm....well here's a fact that I think is loony, but a fact nonetheless:the man who prosecuted CHARLES MANSON(Vincent Bugliosi) for his "family's" murder spree and sent him away FOREVER wants to prosecute BUSH for War Crimes and wants him(Bush) to get the DEATH PENALTY if convicted.
Bush kept us safe from attack AFTER 9/11(about all the SKILL the man could POSSIBLY have!)--which was not Clinton's fault, rather listen to Bushkie, it is the fault of extremists who then find sanctuary in certain countries for their deadly games--unless of course you disagree with that, in which case we can then add that one to his string of lies--which is what they were proven to be long ago, by his own security adviser also.
I think I could keep the country from attack also if I spent half a trillion dollars, over 4200 lives, countless wounded and others wounded and killed,5 1/2 years of continuous occupation of two nations, torture POW's, destroy habeus corpus, stop all legal protections for POW's, suspend the Geneva Conventions, put American soldiers in greater harm's way from the reality of their harsh treatment, treat POW's like animals, kill them in POW camps, bomb leaders of Al-Queda, Hang the dictator, commit the nation to a never-ending "war on terror"--something that could not possibly ever end because no one can prove terror ever ends in any form or any level or extent.
But after such piling on, let's come back to grounded reality:
9/11/01 happened in the first year of the Bush Administration. There is only one President at a time. Now--Bush and his team actively REJECTED the national security reports they got about plottings of a terrorist attack months before it occurred. But of course...this was "Clinton's fault." An old political argument which was REJECTED by the bipartisan 9/11 Commission(another FACT!!).
You know...once you zero in on enough FACTS...the FACTS have a way of revealing a fact-based narrative of REALITY!!
As for spoiled Americans wanting instant gratification, that is a rather separate issue which is playing itself out in the economy right now, where those chickens are coming home to roost. However putting a SPOILED BRAT in the White House(which is what Bush WAS and IS)who prefers to act a bit like his nemesis Saddam Hussein in his warmongering activities, is more than a bit like the pot not only calling the kettle black, but one Great Satan condemning another to death and in return, suffering the ravages of two shoes thrown at his head, which he successfully in his preppy spoiled brat way, ducked like a GIRL and moreover ducked like the COWARD this man is. Bush is really lucky his children are both girls, because if they were boys and had any balls, they'd call him the PUSSY he is underneath his girly ways and his cowardly, false chest beating after hiding behind his death penalty ways in Texas. What a bunch of CRAP that Bush was, is, and forevermore shall be!!!
Even Mario Cuomo, who is a far cry from a Bush Apologist, shares Imre's sentiment. Cuomo made some sharp criticisms at Bush, but he said (in a sense) that in 50 or so years, after all the Bush Haters are dead, history will look back at the "turn of the century" president, and judge him quite differently than we do now. History WILL show that after a gruesome attack on the US homeland, a president risked his political capitol, his popularity, to uphold his end of the constitution and protect the borders of the United States.
Lies rarely survive history.
Bush liberated a country from his daddy's puppet. He failed miserably to protect us from another one of his daddy's recruits, Bin Laden. His legacy is that he will be regarded in history as the very worst president this country has ever had until this point. He turned Al Qaeda (aka the list) from a group of disgruntled former Bush CIA employees into a worldwide anti-American terror organization. "Kept us safe" is a laughable commentary on such traitorous conduct. The attack of 9/11 will be the crowning failure of his presidency.
It's simply amazing that the most outrageous lie of Bush keeping us safe is even uttered out of the mouths of his foolhardy victims. You might as well throw in the towel when it comes to credibility. The required falsification to be Republican just further dooms the dying party. Pathological liars are not good role models for recruiting. Keep it up and suffer the consequences of your own suicidal activities.
8:03 -
In reply to your points:
1) The concept of "civil rights" is relatively new while the concept of "Constitutional rights" is as old as the Bill of Rights iteself. The rights actually written in the Consitution are the ones which truly exist. All others are legal fictions concocted by Courts to change our society in ways in which the majority of citizens would never have approved. If they had, we could simply have amended the Constitution.
A few things to keep in mind: FDR imprisoned tens of thousands of American-Japanese in internment camps (places worse and larger than Gitmo) yet he remains the darling of the Left. Lincoln suspended the right of habeas corpus in order to win the Civil War.
2) The vast majority of U.S. deregulation occurred before Bush became President, much of it under Clinton in the 90s. The bank deregulation law currently in effect was passed in 1999 (the Senate voted 90-8 in favor) and was signed by Clinton. The Community Reinvestment act (which all but forced banks to make subprime loans) was first enacted in 1977 under Carter and multiply amended under the Clinton Administration (with greater deregulation each time, all submitted to Congress by Clinton). Blaming Bush for this is an indisputable sign of ignorance.
3) No Child Left Behind was the only attempt by any American President to actually address the catastrophe that is American public education. Is it perfect? No. But it is better to make the mistake of doing something wrong than the mistake of ignoring the problem, as Clinton did.
4) Bin Laden was offered to the U.S. on a silver platter by Sudan in the 90s. The offer was rejected by Clinton. More to the point, catching bin Laden (not Bib Ladan) will not stop further attacks. Bush has done so and that is more important. Should he be brought to justice? Absolutely, but only if we can do so without taking attention away from preventing the next 9/11.
5) I tell my kids to do what is right regardless of what the other kids think. The question of what other nations think of us is preposterous to even consider. All that matters is if we did the right thing. I know the Right and the Left differ in our views on the subject but the opinions of Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America should never determine our course of action. Right and wrong cannot be defined by opinion polls, domestically or internationally.
6) This is like the talking dog. You don't criticize how badly it talks, you wonder at the fact he talks at all. Like No Child Left Behind, no other President tried to do anything about the problem. An imperfect solution is still better than none at all.
7) As one who has lived abroad under other health care systems, let me say categorically that the quality of health care in America is better than anywhere else. Our problem is not quality but accessibility. Costs have been going up for decades, not just under Bush, and have done so largely as a result of an increase in liability related costs on the part of providers. Severely limiting attorneys' involvement in health care related disputes would go a long way towards rectifying this problem.
8) Are you joking? Liberals criticize and hamstring the President in his dealings with our enemies and then complain when other enemies take that as a green light to seek nuclear weapons. Get a reality check.
9) This statement doesn't even parse into something approaching rational. Failure to manage what, how? Redeployments where? If you are referring to Iraq, we should have sent more troops in the beginning. That, however, was not a management issue, it was a strategic misjudgement and could certainly have been handled much better.
10) Global warming is, in fact, an unproven phenomenon. Thousands of trained, published and respected scientists deny the theory that man causes it or that it is actually harmful. Liberals treating it as if it is a fact when it has never been empirically proven does not make it so. Al Gore's big mouth does not outweigh the opinions of so many scientists.
11) The trade deficit has been huge for a long time and will continue to get bigger. The reason is that America's days as a manufacturing economy are all but over. We will never again be able to compete with countries whose labor forces are making pennies an hour while ours are making $25-30. We cannot even compete on quality because our manufacturing quality is pitiful. The manufacturing economy in America is dying and there is nothing we can do to resuscitate it.
12) I'll give you this one with a caveat: no Democrat has ever done anything but increase spending. Not even Clinton. The only difference is that the dot-com bubble of the 90s gave him tax revenues to use against the budget deficit. When the bubble burst (under Clinton's watch, I might add), the surplus was going to go under no matter what was done. That having been said, Bush could have spent less.
13) There was no torture. Waterboarding is NOT torture. That is a fiction made up by Libs to attack the President. Gitmo? FYI, Gitmo is the single freest place on the island of Cuba. Under Castro's communism, people aren't even free to worship as they please, yet we give Korans and prayer rugs to terrorists who want to kill us. They live in a Caribbean paradise. OK, so they're behind bars. Guess what? IT'S A PRISON AND PEOPLE WHO TRY TO KILL OTHER PEOPLE BELONG IN PRISON! Yes, the events at Abu Ghraib can be defined as human rights violations. So can shooting Randy Weaver's unarmed wife through the door to her home while she is holding her baby (Ruby Ridge under Clinton). So can Waco. So can tearing Elian Gonzalez from the arms of his relatives at gunpoint in the middle of the night. I admit that Abu Ghraib was a human rights violation. Do you admit that Clinton's issues were just as bad? If not, you are demonstrating a textbook case of hypocrisy.
Conservatives are more than prepared to both laud Bush's successes and criticize his mistakes. Liberals, however, NEVER criticize one fo their darlings. I have yet to hear a single Liberal say, "Yes, well, it's true that if Clinton had taken bin Laden when offered or if he had not gutted the CIA's Human Intelligence operations, we would not have had 9/11." Nor do Liberals stop to consider that keeping Arafat waiting in the Rose Garden while Clinton had his way with Monica was an insult to the Palestinian people or that twiddling our military thumbs for YEARS while Serbs in Bosnia committed genocide against tens of thousands of Muslims made America seem like we were anti-Muslim.
Your criticism of Bush is empty and shows a bitterness to which you have no right. Now, let's see if you will level similar criticisms at the mistakes the inexperienced dilettante you blindly elected to the White House last month is sure to make.
Imre waterboarding is specifically designated as torture both by our government as well as others. Your twisted and distorted morals are no longer even acceptable in society. You have no moral authority from which to opine on matters of politics. You have helped to destroy the Republican party and you should be ashamed of yourself. Nothing you ever say will carry any intellectual value. You might as well be a mute. Your name is Mudd.
And yet...here is what Ralph Nader said prior to the election of 2008:"If the Democrats can't win this year, they must as well pack up and go home."
By popular vote, the Democrats won the White House-- but--- by a VERY thin margin. By that measure, it would seem yet another fact is that much of America bought the lies told by Bush about keeping us safe and the war on terror. Which is not to me cause for great hope amidst the ongoing chaos that Obama will have to deal with in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Obama, I am sure, will keep his promise to withdraw troops from Iraq. He will also pander to every special and not-so-special interest domestically in this obvious early effort at re-election. Whoever believes in evolution will have no evidence to support their point of view in this regard in the coming years!
Another poster who is listening to too much Fox news. Facts always overrule Fox news.
Popular vote
Obama 69,447,084
McCain 59,925,610
That is almost 10,000,000 A pretty good cushion if you ask me.
Compare that to
Bush 62,039,073
Kerry 59,027,478
or better yet
Bush 50,456,002
Gore 50,999,897
It is called a LANDSLIDE victory!
a few of you need to get a job.
12:08 -
Where does the Government accept waterboarding as torture? According to the U.S. State Department, interrogation methods which involve full submersion of the head into water and holding it there would qualify as torture. Pouring water onto someone's head does not.
Former Federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy said of the question as to whether waterboarding is torture, "Personally, I don't believe it qualifies. It is not in the nature of the barbarous sadism universally condemned as torture..."
You don't even give your name, much less any proof that you have any authorative expertise which would qualify you to say that a person such as Mr. McCarthy is wrong in his assessment.
According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, torture is "1: something that causes agony or pain
2: the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure."
Waterboarding frightens the subject but does not inflict pain, as such.
Finally, the scum on whom waterboarding was used to illicit information are the people who are intent on killing hundreds or thousands of American civilians. If we stopped a single mass terrorist attack against our children, elderly, handicapped, parents, grandparents or any American civilians, that makes waterboarding by far the lesser of two evils, even were one to accept a morally negative judgement regarding waterboarding.
However, this entire conversation is a red herring. I responded, in detail, to 13 points presented by a previous poster. You grasp at my response to one and leave the other 12 unanswered. Moreover, you present no details whatsoever to bolster your argument. Do you, then, accept my arguments vis-a-vis the other 12?
The simple fact is, Liberals have turned their rage over the 2000 elections into a persistent obsession. Nothing you have to say about the past eight years actually applies to the merits fo the question. You want to destroy Bush's legacy out of a sense of opposition to the man, not because you can actually make a case against his acts. If your position were based on the facts of recent history, you would be able to quote them in detail. Your penchant for appealing to people's emotions rather than their rational minds shows that you have no factual basis for your arguments.
Ok Mr. Beke, or Ms. Beke, whichever it is, here is my reply to each of your great 13 points reply:
1)CONGRESS--not "The Courts"--created the concept of Civil Rights, along with JFK and LBJ. These have been codified in the United States Code. What is the point here? In reality there is no difference in meaning between the phrase "Civil Rights" and the larger category these fit into called Constitutional Rights, no matter the TRUE origin of the term "Civil Rights." Get a life!
Your facts about FDR are correct;however, you don't seem to have a point about "liberals" with your Lincoln example...if so you did not state same.
2)True. Other industries that have been deregulated have included phone companies, which has resulted in a pandemic of phone bill "cramming"--unauthorized charges on your phone bill for services consumers never ordered and the government doesn't prosecute. Let's celebrate. Ho ho ho ho.
3)Clinton, the education President, ignored education? Uhh..nope. You're entitled to your favorable opinion on NCLB, but that hasn't been an unqualified success in any sense either.
4)Give us details about your claim that Bin Laden was offered to the US in the 1990's by Sudan. That seems farfetched however let's get more details and your sources so we can objectively check out your claims to this effect please.
5)While I agree with you on some level on this, it is also silly to totally disregard the opinon of other nations on what a nation does especially if that nation is making war on other nations and an
opinion arises over that activity.
It is one thing to be isolationist in thinking and another thing to be totally foolish.
6)I don't know about a "talking dog." Here I think it was stupid to create a totally incomprehesnsible system, although there isn't really much basis to criticize a partial giveaway to the most special of special interests, ie, senior citizens. Who will hate senior citizens, or at least admit they do? Anyone who does can't run and win anything or get re-elected to anything!!
7)Oh ok let me provide a differing perspective on this:as one who has a chronic condition that is
potentially life-threatening which went undiagnosed for 45 years, I would say there most certainly IS an issue with quality of care. I therefore must disagree with your assertion to the contrary based on personal experience. Having said that I don't think the remedy is at all with financing the system but with improving the educational portion of the health care system, such as requiring doctors to undergo continuing education or face license suspension. There is additionally a longstanding stat with infant mortality which is much higher in America than it ought to be based on GDP. Furthermore the hospital-based errors are unacceptably high as well, mostly having to do with wrong medications and/or dosages. Even with all these it may well be we are on a higher level than many countries in quality of health care;however, that does not make the issue nonexistent--no, NOT AT ALL. Can Bush be pinned with this insult? I doubt it. I would be loathe to pin Clinton with it either, but I would look to the insolence of the AMA and Academia that refuses to change with a changing field.
8)Well generally I agree this was an assinine statement. Iran and North Korea are responsible for what they do.
9)Your answer was beyond reproach. Historically, the leader of Gulf War I was a stategic genius. We could have used him in round two.
10)The poster didn't mention "global warming" but you did. You are simply wrong on global warming and present an opinion completely out of date with scientific opinion on the subject. Well at least now it seems the car companies will start making more fuel efficient vehicles.
11)I agree--what do we have to trade? The one thing we have to trade is jobs, although that is more like a giveaway than a trade!
12)Bush could have spent about half a trillion less by making no war in Iraq.
And what of the statement the dot com bubble burst under Clinton? So what? As if what, his placement of a cigar in a Lewinsky part unmentionable performed this feat? Hah!
13)Guantanamo Bay POW camp was not representative of life in the rest of Cuba. Others in Cuba are mostly poor, and so poor that to get fed that well was harder. However, unlike the regular Cubans, the POW's didn't have the privileges of being given the right to commit suicide in peace by starving themselves, or the right to defend themselves from the accusations against them in court. It is an interesting comparison of apples and oranges, suffice it to say. Would I admit that Clinton's issues were just as bad? Which issues are you referring to when you say this? Define the question! Just as bad...again, apples and oranges. Stick with apples and apples, and oranges and oranges. Then you can have a real discussion. If not, would you admit that you are just as bad as the obvious myriad of right wingnuts who have convinced your grey matter?
Oh, and I note you did not respond to MY post. Only one person did, and assuming the facts presented are accurate, I am man enough to admit I stand corrected on those. I assume I presented enough actual FACTS--as opposed to rhetoric and spin based on some predetermined political PHILOSOPHY--that mostly, those facts will STAND on their own.
Thank you and happy holidays.
It's Mr. Beke
It's Mini Beke.
9:38 -
1. The legal concept of civil rights was launched in 1954 with the Supreme Court case entitled Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.
My point was that - in reality - the only legal rights we have are those specifically codified in the Constitution. Every "right" concocted by the Courts is an attack on our Constitutional order. The Constitution has specific procedures for amending it. Any measures by unelected judges - who are not answerable to the people - to do an end run around those procedures is an insult to process and principles of democracy.
2. Do you remember when it cost an arm and a leg for a single minute of domestic long distance calls? Deregulation created competition and now we have flat fee unlimited long distance within the U.S. as a result. Cramming is the result of illegal acts. Stating that the fact that certain parties ignore the law is a result of deregulation makes zero rational sense.
By the way, the banking meltdown was not - strictly speaking - a result of deregulation. It was the result of new regulations (enacted under Clinton) which forced (they like to say "encouraged") the banks to make subprime loans in low income areas which were "underserved" previously. These new regs were introduced to counterbalance the deregulation which was also introduced.
3. Clinton did nothing but TALK about education. Not a single piece of legislation was passed to reform education under his Administration. Remember, he called HIMSELF the "education president." By the way, throwing money at education without understanding the reasons for the failure of our public schools is NOT addressing the problem.
Contrary to your assertion, I don't have a favorable opinion on NCLB. I simply said that it was a start when no one else had done anything. An imperfect start, but a start nonetheless.
4. Here's your proof: "During a February 2002 speech, Clinton explained that he turned down an offer from Sudan for bin Laden's extradition to the U.S., saying, 'At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America, so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him.'"
The rest of the article is available at: http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/9/10/181819.shtml?s=ic
5. Having lived eight years in Europe where I attended law school and worked in the field of international law and being one who speaks several languages fluently, I find it rather ironic that someone would accuse me of isolationism. Moreover, the claim itself belies a complete misunderstading of what isolationism actually is. Isolationism was - simply speaking - the idea the U.S. should not involve itself in the affairs of other countries. The war in Iraq is ANYTHING but isolationist. I stand by my statement. We must do what is right, regardless of the opinions of others. We can disagree on what "right" is, but giving those who are not citizens of our country - who live elsewhere - a say in our decision making process would be a slap in the face to our democratic process. We decide what we do. Period.
6. Seniors on fixed incomes were given their medicines, paid for by the government. That is what the Medicare prescription plan did. If Democrats don't like the manner in which it is done, they should fix it. Keep in mind, however, that no Democrat President did ANYTHING to give seniors their medicine.
7. I had two brothers who passed away from a rare blood condition. I saw what the American health care system did for them. I also had two children born in Europe and two born in the U.S. as well as having been treated under the European socilized system of medicine myself. I saw the difference between health care here and there. You may not like health care here, but unless you have experienced it under a socialized, single payer system, you have no idea how bad it is there. It is atrocious.
That having been said, there is definitely an issue with skyrocketing costs. Having the government pay for health care, however, will not fix the underlying problem, only hide it from public view.
9. Thank you. At least we agree on something.
10. I have read several of the actual studies on global warming, not what others wrote about them. Every one of them is based on the idea that because global warming and the rise of human industry coincide chronologically, they must be linked. Equating synchronicity with causality is a logical error. Just because someone walks out the doors of WalMart the same time you do doesn't mean one causes the other.
Furthermore, even those scientists who espouse globally warming admit that our understanding of climatology and meteorology is minimal. Our best supercomputers are far from capable of providing a true model of how weather truly works. Until we have machines fast enough and powerful enough to do so, we have no way of testing how certain factors influence our climate. At this point, all theories on the climate are little more than guesses.
Literally thousands of scientists have voiced the same opinion I have. They are far more knowledgeable on the issue than either you or I.
Don't believe me? See "The Deniers: The World Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud (And those who are too fearful to do so)" by Lawrence Solomon for more details. The Amazon.com page (http://www.amazon.com/Deniers-Renowned-Scientists-Political-Persecution/dp/0980076315) lists 16 of the scientists in question with partial resumés. They are very impressive people: Committee Chairs at the National Academy of Sciences, MIT Professors and so forth. By the way, the book was published in 2008. So much for the idea being "out of date."
11. Another point of agreement.
12. The point with regard to Clinton and the dot-com bubble was simply that Clinton's "surplus" came from inflated revenues due to the dot-com motivated strengthening of the economy. Clinton had nothing whatsoever to do with the economic strength of the 90s. He did, however, precipitate the crash by having his Justice Department go after Microsoft on spurious grounds. The market imploded the very day the Microsoft verdict was announced. The crash took much of the "surplus" with it because the public revenue stream it was based on evaporated.
13. The vast majority of those in Gitmo were captured fighting our troops. Most of those were not citizens of the country in which they were captured. They were there to train in terrorist tactics (in Afghanistan) or simply to attack U.S. troops and local civilians (in Iraq). Sympathy for them is completely misplaced. As for the Clinton's domestic human rights violations, I named a few of them in the original post, but here they are again: Ruby Ridge, Waco, Elian Gonzalez.
I am uncertain as to which previous post was yours, as you insist on posting anonymously. However, I am responding to this one. If you wish to point out to which previous post you are referring, I will respond to that one when time allows.
As anyone can clearly see, mini beke is a poor genetic sample of our species both mentally and physically. He repeatedly shows his contempt for factual information and spews poorly written talking points. It's a lost cause to try to prove anything to such a low form of human life. His kind are quickly facing extinction anyway. The little person of little intellect is just a joke.
11:43, I do not agree with you.
Your generic comments are ridiculous. Why don't you address some of Imre's points directly instead of just calling him names.
Engage in a meaningful conversation.
You have no support here.
Go Imre!
12:15 -
Thank you for your defense of me, but 11:43 does not merit the effort. As far as liberals of his ilk are concerned, anything they believe - proven or not - is a fact. It is simply impossible to break such people of their irrational superstitions.
It is, however, important to answer their arguments because those who read their writings and may yet be swayed in one direction or the other need to be given accurate, factual information.
The truth is that Liberals have realized that they cannot convince the American people that their high tax, socialist agenda is the way to go, so they feel they have to frighten the voters (global warming, falsehoods about conservative plans for social security, etc.) and to lie about the opposition (saying that Bush lied about Iraq, for instance).
Now, they've won for the time being. They have the House, the Senate, the White House as well as the majority of Governor's posts. Here, they have both houses in the NY State Legislature, the Governor's Mansion, the AG's Office, the Comptroller's Office, the County Legislature, the County Executive's seat and the County Comptroller's Office.
They have no one to blame when their agenda implodes.
This has happened over and over again in history. Taking from the rich to give to the poor has never worked and it never will. It only causes economic catastrophe.
In 1964, the Republican Party was pronounced dead after a trouncing worse than 2008. Before the 1968 election, the Republicans had only 26 Senators. They picked up 16 in th '68 elections. In 1976, the Democrats thought they had dispatched us again. After Watergate, no one thought the Republicans could come back any time soon. Yet in 1980, Reagan handed that incompetent from Georgia his hat and the Republicans took a majority in the Senate. In 1984, Reagan won an even greater landslide. In 1988, Dukakis seemed to be a shoo-in. He became a footnote instead. Clinton beat Bush Sr. in 1992 (granted that was because of Ross Perot), yet the Republicans took both Houses of Congress two years later.
Why is it that in a State which is 3-1 Democrat, we still find ways to elect Republican Governors? Why do voters in NYC, which is 5-1 Democrat, have elected Republican Mayors for over a decade and a half?
The history of the Democrat Party in recent decades is one of dropping the ball whenever they come to power. Rest assured, they will do so again. Not only is Obama a Democrat (which all but assures his failure) but he has zero experience and is already enraging his base even though he has not yet been inaugurated.
We take two steps forward, one step back, then two forward again. We happen to be in our "back" phase but we will be taking two steps forward again soon. In fact, with Obama as President, we may end up taking three or four steps forward this time.
Kind of like the Sottile legacy and now to Hein?
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