Saturday, July 26, 2008
42 down - 6 to go
It's getting hard to motivate myself to continue this series - guess like most of us, i'd just like to hit the FF button at least until election night & then to the end of the Bush presidency. Looking at his overall record instead of the specifics:
Domestic - deficit spending & energy dependency. Obviously Bush's borrow-and-spend mentality has caused long term harm to our nation including the debasement of our currency. His Medicare Plan D will be a huge drain on our treasury for decades. Energy - can only think of opportunity lost and the blindness of this administration. Their view was clearly summarized in Cheney's notable "Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue" speech.
Foreign - the violence has impressively decreased in Iraq (choose your combination of factors: ethnic cleansing, Anbar awakening, but clearly the change in counterinsurgency techniques has helped), but once again Iraq is an opportunity lost. A friend of a friend calculated how much $1T would have benefited our country if devoted to solar energy instead of war. For remaking the middle east that's obviously a failure. Dictators of various flavours still rule the countries in the area and will continue to do so for years to come. US death toll in Afghanistan has turned surprisingly high & will exceed the US death toll in Iraq again this month.
Rule-of-law - fortunately signing statements are transitory, but a clear violation of law. In essence he's asserting the right to disobey any law he doesn't like. How bad of a role model for future presidents remains to be seen, but congress was foolish to cow tow to him & here the Dems should have more aggressively challenged him.
Evaluating the 2 candidates. Both will be better for rule of law - a law bar i realize but still somewhat hopeful. Economics? Both of them have their hands pretty much tied by a confluence of events, but Bush's abysmal performance on fiscal responsibility has certainly hurt. Obama wants to add more programs and allow the sunset clauses to expire on Bush's tax cut (politically stupid that he didn't make more of them permanent). McCain wants to extend the tax cuts and continue our occupation of Iraq indefinitely. Obama is anti-free trade, while McCain appears to have no opinion. Guess I still have to decide whether to vote for Bob Barr - a sign of support for the libertarian ideals & not for either the party or the man.
Domestic - deficit spending & energy dependency. Obviously Bush's borrow-and-spend mentality has caused long term harm to our nation including the debasement of our currency. His Medicare Plan D will be a huge drain on our treasury for decades. Energy - can only think of opportunity lost and the blindness of this administration. Their view was clearly summarized in Cheney's notable "Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue" speech.
Foreign - the violence has impressively decreased in Iraq (choose your combination of factors: ethnic cleansing, Anbar awakening, but clearly the change in counterinsurgency techniques has helped), but once again Iraq is an opportunity lost. A friend of a friend calculated how much $1T would have benefited our country if devoted to solar energy instead of war. For remaking the middle east that's obviously a failure. Dictators of various flavours still rule the countries in the area and will continue to do so for years to come. US death toll in Afghanistan has turned surprisingly high & will exceed the US death toll in Iraq again this month.
Rule-of-law - fortunately signing statements are transitory, but a clear violation of law. In essence he's asserting the right to disobey any law he doesn't like. How bad of a role model for future presidents remains to be seen, but congress was foolish to cow tow to him & here the Dems should have more aggressively challenged him.
Evaluating the 2 candidates. Both will be better for rule of law - a law bar i realize but still somewhat hopeful. Economics? Both of them have their hands pretty much tied by a confluence of events, but Bush's abysmal performance on fiscal responsibility has certainly hurt. Obama wants to add more programs and allow the sunset clauses to expire on Bush's tax cut (politically stupid that he didn't make more of them permanent). McCain wants to extend the tax cuts and continue our occupation of Iraq indefinitely. Obama is anti-free trade, while McCain appears to have no opinion. Guess I still have to decide whether to vote for Bob Barr - a sign of support for the libertarian ideals & not for either the party or the man.
