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Singing the Praises of George W. Bush
Imagine my shock this morning, as I fell into the humming rhythm of the treadmill, when I saw Al Sharpton and Nicholas Kristof on MSNBC lauding George W. Bush’s humanitarian work in Africa. Bush had decided to provide AIDS treatment to Africa:
That was two decades ago. The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, soon become a greater triumph than experts like El-Sadr had dared imagine. It’s the largest health commitment ever made by any country, now totaling more than $100 billion in more than 50 countries. And its work continues.
At a time when Bush’s presidency has come under severe scrutiny, a reminder of his commitment to the African people is noteworthy, although many may believe it was not the place of the US to take such an action.
But most surprising was listening to Nicholas Kristof celebrate Bush for his work, and to hear Al Sharpton admit that he was critical of Bush on just about every one of his policies, but he felt that partisanship should be put aside to honor his work in Africa. I’m not sure if Bush’s decision to primarily help black people influenced Sharpton’s statement.
Still, when so many on the Right are criticizing Bush, it was refreshing to hear something positive about his work coming from the Left.
Published in Culture
How is it not an issue of relevance? The numbers aren’t going to magically get better. At some point in the near future either benefits will have to get cut or the programs will start to draw on general revenues. We are already over $31 trillion in debt. From where is the money coming?
Simple. The Republican Party told the electorate that they wanted to accomplish certain things. And every single time they were given the opportunity to fulfill those promises they took their eye off the ball and chased squirrels into the woods.
Twice in the last 25 years they were given both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue and they f’ed it up. That’s on them, not the Democrats. The failure of the leadership in Washington to recognize how badly they’ve f’ed up is why you got Donald J. Trump in the first place.
I think you just proved my point. If I am reading you correctly, you don’t think reforming Social Security is relevant.
Which promises are you specifically talking about?
Then you should be really pissed at Trump. He was president the 2nd time the GOP had power at both ends of Pennsylvania Ave. Almost daily he was chasing some squirrel. His Twitter feed was a list of the squirrels that arrested his attention.
It’s not relevant because literally no one in power is going to do anything about it, regardless of what they say. So why waste time even talking about it? Of course, I think it’s highly relevant in reality, but it’s also not on the top of the list of things which should be addressed by our institutions.
Virtually all of them. Reducing the size of government. It grew by 18%.
They promised fundamental tax reform and simplification. Hell, they couldn’t even repeal the phone tax from the Spanish-American War. (Technology eventually deep-sixed it because it was, essentially, a tax on long distance services.)
We were promised no nation-building. We got a crapload of nation-building. And that came at the cost of 4,000 KIA and 52,000 wounded. To make it worse, the 2000 GOP platform criticized the Clinton Administration by saying, “At the same time, the current administration has casually sent American armed forces on dozens of missions without clear goals, realizable objectives, favorable rules of engagement, or defined exit strategies.” And George W said, “Hold my beer!”
We were promised tort reform to help reign in medical costs. We got bupkis. And that lead to ObamaCare, the repeal of which John McCain personally took great glee in sabotaging. And don’t get me started with John Roberts.
And because Trump was busy chasing squirrels he never produced a plan to replace Obamacare. He made a boatload of promises but delivered bupkis.
I think you’re confused on how Congress was designed to function. It is not a House of Commons and the President is the executive, not the Prime Minister. Under the Constitution the President may sign or veto legislation. He doesn’t write it.
Not confused. The president is not some uninterested bystander. He sets the agenda for his party. Ryan wanted to pursue Medicare reform but he shelved that when Trump was elected. Ryan had a plan to repeal Obamacare that Trump rejected as “too mean.” That caused Ryan to come back with the “skinny repeal.” McCain owns 95% of the blame for the failure of the effort but “Mr Art of the Deal” was the one guy who couldn’t get it over the finish line. He had stupidly burned his bridges to McCain.
Who said it needed to be “replaced” with anything? The answer was much simpler: Get rid of it! Abolish it! Remove it! Expunge it! Eliminate it! Eradicate it! Exterminate it! Get rid of it!
Gee, too bad we didn’t have BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS AS WELL! Imagine what could have been done if Paul Ryan & co. hadn’t taken the bait.
Sorry, did he miss some bills that crossed his desk?
That’s essentially what “skinny repeal” was but when did Trump ever say any of that? He didn’t.
I think you proved my point a second time. You don’t find it a priority and feel it is a waste of time unless there is some politician at the ready to hear you out. Don’t you believe in voicing your opinion, even if it is not popular? How else can one effect any change?
Yes he did. Constantly.
Trump encouraged House Republicans to pass legislation repealing Obamacare and then after the House Republicans passed the legislation, Trump called the legislation “mean,” echoing Democrat talking points.
We didn’t get the repeal because McCain’s sensibilities were violated.
Those are very good points.
I don’t remember any promises of that nature by the republican party in general. W Bush made a couple comments about not believing in “nation building” when he ran in 2000, but I don’t remember that ever being an important issue to anyone until we actually started doing it. I for one, am not against nation building if it is going to transform a country from being a world threat into being a positive for the world. It didn’t workout in Afghanistan but it worked out in Iraq, Germany, Japan, Europe, South Korea, etc…
True, but those are extremely vague criticisms that can be interpreted whichever way the reader wants to. You could easily argue that in Iraq we had “clear goals, realizable objectives, favorable rules of engagement, and defined exit strategies.”
You can rightly blame John McCain, Lisa Murkowski, and Susan Collins, for voting against the repeal of Obamacare, but all the rest of the republicans voted for it. So why do you blame all republicans instead of just those three?
That looks like “after the fact.” It would be more convincing if you found a Trump quote before the bill was defeated.
I don’t know how else to say it. It’s important. I want it done.
Also, no matter what the politicians say, none of them want it or will do anything about it. So it isn’t a factor in my voting – because it isn’t a real distinction among any of my choices.
I recall the senate being the ones balking most and most unhelpfully.
The house too was dragged to it kicking and screaming. I don’t believe most of them ever contemplated a repeal actually happening. Blaming Trump for the failure of the Republican controlled congress to do much on anything is rich. What could have been, wasted by the timid, incompetent, and fake.
Not so constantly – this is what he said during the campaign:
“We will immediately repeal and replace ObamaCare – and nobody can do that like me. We will save $’s and have much better healthcare!” –
This is from a speech in Florida in October of 2016.
“My first day in office, I am going to ask Congress to put a bill on my desk getting rid of this disastrous law and replacing it with reforms that expand choice, freedom, affordability… You’re going to have such great health care at a tiny fraction of the cost. And it’s going to be so easy.”
He made a similar speech in November, just before the election.
In June of 2017 he told the Senate they had to pass a less “mean” version of the House’s plan to repeal and replace Obamacare.
You have it exactly backwards. Trump was the timid one.
Nope I dont have it backwards. Yes he referred to one version of a replace as mean. Because it wasnt going to pass the senate. So what? By that time the whole thing was a mess of Congress’ making.
You dismiss Trump’s apathy too easily. Your attitude seems to be “well, if any republicans don’t agree with a conservative agenda item, then who cares if it passes.”
I think you read too much into one instance of Trump calling something “mean”. I never read his stance toward Obamacare as apathy. You continue to mischaracterize my “attitude” toward conservative agenda items which Republicans fail to advance or even try to advance.
The only reason I bring it up is because at every turn you have been saying something akin to “it really doesn’t matter if Trump failed to achieved some conservative victory as long as there was some iota of opposition to it from the republican party.” No disrespect, but I am characterizing that as “apathy.”
I have been saying nothing akin to that at any turn. Feel free to continue on, but I’m dropping out now.