Wednesday, September 21, 2005

A tale of two presidents

In a post several below, Lex notes that Clinton’s failed presidency was the worst kind because Clinton had everything going for him. Clinton didn’t fail because of any outside forces natural or manmade. Clinton failed because of his own self indulgence. Compare Clinton to George Bush.

Clinton didn’t do anything, to include going on vacation, without first polling a focus group. Bush refuses to lead by the poll. When recently asked about his low poll numbers, Bush simply shrugged while noting that leadership is not always taking the popular decision. He vacations at his Crawford ranch and doesn’t much care what anyone thinks about it. As media driven polls lead one to believe that most Americans think we should leave Iraq, Bush correctly says we’ll stay until the Iraqis are ready to take over. A poll says Bush should replace Justice O’Conner with another woman, Bush picks Judge Roberts. He may now pick a woman, but the blabbermouths won’t bet a C note on that. You could bet a C note that Bush will pick the person he believes to be best qualified for the job and win every time.

Bubba never tried to do anything big. Unless turning healthcare into another government run bureaucracy is something big. When that proposition failed, Bubba was happy to let the smartest woman in the world, who happened to be his wife, take the fall for the debacle. By contrast Bush it seems is engaged only in big ideas. He cut taxes in the first term when nobody thought he could. He booted the Taliban from power when the New York Times said we were in a quagmire three weeks into the operation. He cut taxes again while the country was at war. He booted Saddam from power when retired generals said the force was too light. He has roots of democracy growing in a region of the world that has never experienced it. He beat John, have I mentioned I ducked out of Vietnam with a fist full medals and two reels of campaign footage after only four months, Kerry by 3,000,000 votes. He has brought the Israelis and Palestinians together without ever giving the terrorist Arafat the time of day. He has brought more attention and American money to the African continent than a 1,000 Bonos. He has told the unvarnished truth about a corrupt and out of control UN and sent a hard nosed ambassador to deliver his message. He has taken on the biggest of domestic issues, the failing Ponzi scheme known as Social Security and a flatter and fairer tax. Is it any wonder why his poll numbers might be low? Anyone of the above issues could lead to decline in public support. Bush has taken them all on and, this president has led.

While Clinton’s big idea was allocating federal money for midnight basketball programs, Bush has been doing the truly big things. All the while he has been sniped at from failed former Democrat presidents and their public relation offices know as the Mainstream Media. Through it all he has kept his eye on the ball. He has not engaged in the Teddy, where’s the bar, Kennedy type name calling. He has been gracious and humble.

Now the chattering class is saying Bush will have to roll back his tax cuts or as the clueless Judy Woodruff put it on Russert’s show, “his precious tax cuts.” Don’t count on it Jude. Wrecking the economy to please Democrats and MSM hacks probably is not very high on this president’s to do list. Only after a truck load of offsets are identified will this president agree that $2.6 TRILLION is just not enough to run the federal government.

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