Posted by
Red Patriot on Wednesday, February 20, 2008 12:00:00 AM
While many Republicans are rallying around Senator McCain as he seeks the presidential nomination (even though he may not be our first choice) both parties are seething disgust (obviously more from the Democrats) about President Bush's legacy over the last 7 years. We have left him lying in the proverbial gutter.
Ann Coulter astutely observed at the CPAC a couple of weeks ago that Bush's legacy would be the prosecution of the war on terror. Saddam is dead!!! Many top Al Qaeda leaders are captured!!!! Vice President Cheney also said at this same conference that the lack of a terror attack the last 7 years is no accident it is an achievement.
Tony Snow also said at CPAC that in addition to supporting our current president we need to take into account the "hand that he was dealt." The 9/11 attack, Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, Hurricane Katrina all were a part of his lousy hand. President Clinton enjoyed an America not at war perhaps because former President Bush led a valiant war effort during his term.
There were also other factors that were not under his control, insurgents in Iraq and the response of a now Democrat led congress. Could big government been the downfall of the people of New Orleans? Why didn't we rake President Clinton over the coals when the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center happened in 1993? Is it because President Clinton didn't fumble over words and played the sax? Political popularity reveals unfortunate scapegoats. I see no one pointing fingers at Congress's voting records. While the Democrats laud former President Clinton for his free ride for eight years, would he have handled the war on terror any better?
"Despite his rhetoric, Clinton made no changes in policy to prevent additional attacks, Johnson said.
"From the time President Clinton took office until May of 1995, a Presidential Decision Directive, PDD 39, sat in the National Security Council, in the In Box of one of the officials with no action taken. The significance of PDD 39 is that it was the document defining what the missions and roles were of combating terrorism," Johnson said.
"Despite what happened at the World Trade Center in 1993, the Clinton administration did not finally act on [PDD 39] until after the attack in Oklahoma City," Johnson said, referring to the 1995 attack in which an American, Timothy McVeigh, detonated a bomb outside the federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people." -Taken from Matt Pyeatt, CNSNews.com, Thursday, Dec. 6, 2001
President Clinton left office smelling like a rose inspite of his very public scandal that got him impeached. It is the liberal media in part with its negative spotllight on President Bush that caused dissension in our GOP and many of us like scampered away like wimpering dogs. We all want a good man to stand behind, but we hid when he needed our support the most. Friends don't slink away in hard times; they come to the rescue!
In Vice President Cheney's address to the attendees of the VFW conference in 2002, he stated "there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us. And there is no doubt that his aggressive regional ambitions will lead him into future confrontations with his neighbors -- confrontations that will involve both the weapons he has today, and the ones he will continue to develop with his oil wealth."
So when I think of President Bush's legacy, I will think of a man who did his best to win the war on terror, brought conservative judges into the Supreme Court, helped ease the tax monster and attempted the reform of Social Security.