http://www.courier-journal.com/cjextra/editorials/2004/02/28/opin-bot0228-3076.htmlBush's gall
PRESIDENT Bush's visit to Louisville this week was widely reported as an early salvo in his re-election campaign. If that's the case, and there's no reason to doubt it, the Bush juggernaut is going to be a dispiriting spectacle. Even with generous allowances for exaggeration and elbow-throwing in a campaign, the President set a new standard for gall with this declaration: "Here is what I believe. It is the president's job to confront problems, not to pass them on to future presidents and future generations." What is the man talking about? Mr. Bush is rewriting the book on how to pass along problems (after first making them worse).
In the Louisville speech, for example, the President repeatedly called for making permanent his high-end tax cuts. That's a popular message to people with $2,000 to spare for lunch with the greatest champion of the rich since Scrooge McDuck. But Mr. Bush blithely ignored that the cuts will saddle future generations with trillions of dollars of national debt and oppressive interest rates.
....snip....
Moreover, Mr. Bush, apparently in reference to himself, described "an America that leads the world with strength and confidence." Someone needs to check what's in the White House water. After spurning the United Nations before going to war, his administration is now almost begging the U.N. to save the President's cookies in Iraq. And while he was making war on Saddam Hussein, he put greater dangers — the North Korean nuclear program and Pakistan's exports of nuclear technology, for instance — on the back burner. Later, alligator.
Like all presidents, Mr. Bush will leave a legacy. Pity his poor successor who will have to deal with it.
second article
All smear, all the time
http://www.courier-journal.com/cjextra/editorials/2004/02/25/opin-top0225-3708.html President Bush's team has been quick to deny that it questions the patriotism of its opponents, just as it has been insistent that it brings accountability and maturity to the White House. Perhaps, then, someone — such as the President himself? — would care to explain why Secretary of Education Rod Paige was not fired within an hour after his breathtaking assertion that the National Education Association was like "a terrorist organization" because of its opposition to some provisions of the No Child Left Behind school reform law.
It's bad enough that Mr. Paige's remark, made Monday during a private White House meeting with governors, is foolish on its face. Although the NEA, the nation's largest teachers union, has protested parts of the law — which Congress passed in 2001 at Mr. Bush's urging — the fiercest resistance has come from Republican-dominated state legislatures. In at least a dozen states — including such terrorist spawning grounds as the Utah and Virginia legislatures — officials have taken initial steps to exempt their states from some or all provisions of the law, despite thinly veiled administration threats to cut off federal education funds.
...snip....
There is little comfort in Mr. Paige's grudging apology later for a poor choice of words. Nor should Americans be reassured by Team Bush's recent performance elsewhere. The President himself gave a campaign speech suggesting that the Democrats represent "an America that is uncertain in the face of danger." Is he seriously arguing that a Democratic president would not vigorously defend this nation?
....snip...
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
