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Clinton vs. Bush? No Contest!
Let me see if I have this right...
How good was the Clinton
Presidency? Let us contrast Bill Clinton's success
against two failed Bush presidencies. Bush I and
Bush II - gloomy bookends
before and after the eight great Clinton years.
Look at the Clinton record. The best economy ever.
Real wages up,
unemployment down. Housing up, poverty down. Stock
market up, crime rates
down. Progress toward peace in strife-torn areas
like Ireland, the Balkans,
and the Middle East which knew bitter conflict
dating back decades, even
centuries. Facts, folks.
Right wingers resent President Clinton for his
talent, his genuine
compassion, and his self-made success. He not only
kept the campaign promises
he made, he even fulfilled those Reagan and Bush I
made and broke.
I'd love to see psychiatric studies explaining why
petty people hate such a
good man so much. It can't be because he taxed them
more, because he only
raised taxes on the top 1.2% or so richest - and his
policies made even those
wealthy few much wealthier.
Sexists, racists, gay bashers and other haters hate
Clinton because he dared
to value people they hate - gays, minorities, and
women - as much straight
white males.
When history forgets the right wing hysteria and
smug hypocritical media
sanctimony, it will mark William Jefferson Clinton
among the greatest
Americans of our time !!
President Clinton is a leader who accomplished so
much against great odds. He
overcame ruthless enemies who revile him with lies
to this day. Despite the
spite of vicious minds, America and the world miss
Clinton's smart, sensible
leadership more with each passing day.
Why? Because Bush so badly fails to fill Clinton's
shoes. Clinton strode
confidently. Bush stumbles and falls like a small
child trying to walk in his
daddy's wing tips. Bush's economy - flaccid and
flailing as his father's
before him - replaced Clinton's eight years of
record expansion.
Just as Clinton's sound fiscal policies and widening
opportunity replaced
Bush I's stagnant, backward, failed approach, Bush
II replaced Clinton's
success with unfairness and failure.
Clinton gave us record surpluses. Bush threatens to
break his father's record
for the worst deficits in history. The smart money
on Wall Street has already
voted with its investment capital. Their verdict on
Bush's Voodoo Enronomics?
No confidence.
Hey that is worth repeating
Clinton gave us record surpluses. Bush threatens to
break his father's record
for the worst deficits in history. The smart money
on Wall Street has already
voted with its investment capital. Their verdict on
Bush's Voodoo Enronomics?
No confidence.
Don't blame Bush? Can't credit Clinton? Maybe not
for everything, but
consider this one fact: Clinton's policies helped to
create 22 million net
jobs in eight years. During six years under two
different Bushes the economy
failed to create even one net private sector job.
Not even one!
The record shows how well the economy did with
Clinton's policies, and how
badly the same economy did just before and after
with a Bush in office. The
same holds for the successes President Clinton
achieved after Bush I's
international failures, and how quickly hard-won
progress toward peace
crashed and burned under Bush II's notorious
neglect.
Bush the elder delayed US recognition of the former
Soviet states, and sat on
the fence, hapless and impotent as Yeltsin stared
down the tanks.
The Balkans burst into open warfare and ethnic
cleansing under Bush I who did
nothing to help anyone. Even Bush I's triumph, the
Gulf War, resulted from
his inept attempts to "bring Iraq into the family
of nations."
The Bushes - like all Republicans - at best clean up
part of their own messes
and kick the can down the road leaving others to fix
problems they create -
Somalia, Iraq, Bosnia, North Korea and more.
Clinton almost solved the Palestinian / Israeli
conflict, but failed. He
couldn't do it all, after all. Rather than build on
this progress, W. Bush's
announced a non-policy and let the Middle East
languish.
The conflict exploded for lack of a steady hand
directing the sole Super
Power. Bush's negligence, lack of will and lack of
ability presents a stark
contrast against Clinton's engaged, informed and
impassioned leadership in
matters foreign and domestic.
That's what we need in a President. Engagement,
knowledge, and passion to
help us get where we have to go. That's leadership.
When we examine the
failure by both Bushes, we see profound lack of
leadership.
We look at the endless litany of Bush failures
versus our stellar economic
and international performance under Clinton's
leadership and realize success
is no accident. America floundered both before and
after the Clinton
Presidency. History will give due credit - and blame
- to the men who set the
domestic and foreign policies.
We don't have to wait for the history books to know
neither Bush measures up
to the Clinton standard. This is how we know America
didn't, doesn't, and
never will look to AWOL Bush for leadership.
On 9/11, Bush hid. It took him 2 days to gather
himself to go on national TV.
We the people were eagerly awaiting leadership, but
by then it was too late
for Bush to matter.
We'd already gotten the leadership we needed from
others like Rudy Giuliani,
Hillary Clinton, and Bill Clinton who rushed home
from Australia to press
flesh and slap backs in NY City.
Think about this: Bill Clinton made it back from the
other side of the planet
and still beat Bush to Ground Zero by days. By the
time Bush got there,
rescue workers had sectioned off the area.
Bush still shirked and shunned even firemen and
police. He blathered empty
platitudes from a distance through a megaphone.
Americans know what a
President should do, and Bush didn't do it.
President Clinton did. He strode
into the crowd, comforted those missing loved ones
and in every way acted as
a President should act. People flocked to President
Clinton, as they do where
ever he goes around the world.
In Bill Clinton we see a President - honor, dignity,
the whole thing. AWOL
Bush in stark contrast was and is a scared little
boy. He hides behind
security and confines protesters to "First
Amendment Zones." To emphasize,
Bush refused to approach or shake hands with the
NYPD and NYFD at ground
zero, much less the public!
Bush is afraid to face the American people in
person, and only clumsily,
reluctantly faces us on television. We react
accordingly.
That's not just sad, it's pathetic. Pathetic
describes Bush pretty well. I
watched Bush. He was not a leader. He was befuddled
and blinking, and he
still hasn't kept his promise to bring the
terrorists to justice. I should
have watched the other cartoon.
If President Clinton went on the air it would have
been on 9/11, not two days
too late. He would have explained the situation,
captivated our attention,
and provided real leadership.
Remember Clinton's speech after the Oklahoma City
bombing? He said what
needed saying, brought us together, and led. That
was a real President.
George W. Bush? A leader? A real President? Not even
close. And America knows
it. The moral of the story: Never send a Bush to do
a President's job.
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