PRESIDENT BUSH
Give the President a break!
Time to give poor President Bush a break. His approval ratings are at an all time low, and he gets absolutely no credit for good things that have happened during his extraordinarily difficult terms of office. Though there are several things that have disappointed me during his presidency, as I'm sure there are you as well, one must step back at this juncture and take a look at some of the positives.
Think of it - if a Democrat were in office, we would never hear the end of how "good" the economy was, and how it was to their credit. However, the contemporary press dont' seem to want to give President Bush and his team any credit whatsoever for the relatively good performance of our economy.
Consider that these last six years have been among the most difficult in our nation's history. We endured the worst stock market crash since the Great Depression (the Nasdaq declined nearly 80% peak to trough in a long, grinding, miserable fashion, destroying massive amounts of wealth; a real catastrophe!). We have endured a recession. We have endured the worst terrorist act ever on US soil, which was also a painful blow for our economy to absorb. Furthermore, we have endured two very costly wars (the actual "offensive war" aspects of these conflicts enormously successful, in my view).
Granted, the "war on terror" continues. How can it not? Perhaps we conservatives need to come up with a differenct label than the "war on terror." It reminds me of slogans such as the "war on drugs," or the "war on poverty." Worthy causes; perhaps with flawed premises and reasoning. The human experience over the millennia demonstrates that we will never "win" these particular wars. In fact, in a strange sort of way, we are "victims of our own success." Because the human species has been so successful at propagating itself, lengthening our lifespans, increasing out populations (look at the evolution of the human species over time), etc., we virtually guarantee that these types of experiences, or "states of being," will perpetuate. "The poor you will always have with you," said Jesus of Nazareth. (I take the statement at face value.
The "war on terror" should be put into proper context: it is much like crime. We will never win the "war on crime," no matter what hair-brained theories put forth by liberal, humanist lunatics over the years have posited. The human condition will always remain what it is. To believe in some "paradise" on earth - where we "all just get along"; there's no crime, no vice, no poverty - is extraordinarily naive. Human beings are, indeed, "fallen" in a theological sense. The thoughtful among us recognize this, yet we move on, believing in human progress and our reason to compensate as best as humanly possible in order to find some way for right reason to prevail. At best, we contain terrorism (much as we contained communism, though the virus still lurks out there), and, much as law enforcement contains crime - with a strong military (i.e. police) presence; both a defensive and offensive one.
President Bush is absolutely right to go after known terrorists whenever the USA can identify the clear threats. Whether we should indefinitely occupy a country in order to institute a "democratic" form of government, thinking that that in itself will solve any of the larger problems, is a vastly different matter. (This is where I'm not onboard with the President re: the current Iraq policy.) I think trying to get countries such as Iraq to govern themselves in a peaceful, reasonable, and democratic manner is a futile endeavor. You'd have better luck trying to teach quantum mechanics to a dullard.
The war is something I want to address more fully in another post...
Let's look at the recovery in the economy. Thanks to the stimulus we've had in housing (low interest rates - artificial there for a while there, of course), and the recovery in jobs and the equity markets, the USA has once again risen up to the most challenging of occasions and is prospering. Are there pockets of our economy that could be doing better? Of course! We are never satisfied. However, one must remember how bad things really were just 4-6 years ago, when the market crashed and our country was viciously attacked. There is no comparison with the state of affairs today... (Democrats - please concede the obvious - you know you'd be taking credit if your guy was in office.)
Economist Larry Kudlow (of CNBC's "Kudlow & Company") is absolutely right - today's economy is "the greatest story never told."
Despite all of his faults (and we acknowledge that President Bush isn't the brightest bulb in town, but he was certainly preferable to the appalling alternatives in 2000 and 2004!), it's time to give the President a break!
TTC
Time to give poor President Bush a break. His approval ratings are at an all time low, and he gets absolutely no credit for good things that have happened during his extraordinarily difficult terms of office. Though there are several things that have disappointed me during his presidency, as I'm sure there are you as well, one must step back at this juncture and take a look at some of the positives.
Think of it - if a Democrat were in office, we would never hear the end of how "good" the economy was, and how it was to their credit. However, the contemporary press dont' seem to want to give President Bush and his team any credit whatsoever for the relatively good performance of our economy.
Consider that these last six years have been among the most difficult in our nation's history. We endured the worst stock market crash since the Great Depression (the Nasdaq declined nearly 80% peak to trough in a long, grinding, miserable fashion, destroying massive amounts of wealth; a real catastrophe!). We have endured a recession. We have endured the worst terrorist act ever on US soil, which was also a painful blow for our economy to absorb. Furthermore, we have endured two very costly wars (the actual "offensive war" aspects of these conflicts enormously successful, in my view).
Granted, the "war on terror" continues. How can it not? Perhaps we conservatives need to come up with a differenct label than the "war on terror." It reminds me of slogans such as the "war on drugs," or the "war on poverty." Worthy causes; perhaps with flawed premises and reasoning. The human experience over the millennia demonstrates that we will never "win" these particular wars. In fact, in a strange sort of way, we are "victims of our own success." Because the human species has been so successful at propagating itself, lengthening our lifespans, increasing out populations (look at the evolution of the human species over time), etc., we virtually guarantee that these types of experiences, or "states of being," will perpetuate. "The poor you will always have with you," said Jesus of Nazareth. (I take the statement at face value.
The "war on terror" should be put into proper context: it is much like crime. We will never win the "war on crime," no matter what hair-brained theories put forth by liberal, humanist lunatics over the years have posited. The human condition will always remain what it is. To believe in some "paradise" on earth - where we "all just get along"; there's no crime, no vice, no poverty - is extraordinarily naive. Human beings are, indeed, "fallen" in a theological sense. The thoughtful among us recognize this, yet we move on, believing in human progress and our reason to compensate as best as humanly possible in order to find some way for right reason to prevail. At best, we contain terrorism (much as we contained communism, though the virus still lurks out there), and, much as law enforcement contains crime - with a strong military (i.e. police) presence; both a defensive and offensive one.
President Bush is absolutely right to go after known terrorists whenever the USA can identify the clear threats. Whether we should indefinitely occupy a country in order to institute a "democratic" form of government, thinking that that in itself will solve any of the larger problems, is a vastly different matter. (This is where I'm not onboard with the President re: the current Iraq policy.) I think trying to get countries such as Iraq to govern themselves in a peaceful, reasonable, and democratic manner is a futile endeavor. You'd have better luck trying to teach quantum mechanics to a dullard.
The war is something I want to address more fully in another post...
Let's look at the recovery in the economy. Thanks to the stimulus we've had in housing (low interest rates - artificial there for a while there, of course), and the recovery in jobs and the equity markets, the USA has once again risen up to the most challenging of occasions and is prospering. Are there pockets of our economy that could be doing better? Of course! We are never satisfied. However, one must remember how bad things really were just 4-6 years ago, when the market crashed and our country was viciously attacked. There is no comparison with the state of affairs today... (Democrats - please concede the obvious - you know you'd be taking credit if your guy was in office.)
Economist Larry Kudlow (of CNBC's "Kudlow & Company") is absolutely right - today's economy is "the greatest story never told."
Despite all of his faults (and we acknowledge that President Bush isn't the brightest bulb in town, but he was certainly preferable to the appalling alternatives in 2000 and 2004!), it's time to give the President a break!
TTC
posted by thoughtful conservative at 5:45 PM
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