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President George W. Bush gracefully and graciously handles transfer of power to President Barack Obama-- America continues as Classiest Political Act in Human History.·
By
Jim Wrenn,
Editor at PoliSat.Com.
January 20, 2009--
After President George W. Bush gracefully and graciously prepared the way for the transfer of power, Barack Obama took the oath of office today and gave his inaugural speech. Regardless of one's politics, no patriotic American could fail to be moved by witnessing the continuing majesty of the American political system as well as the historic nature of this inauguration in a nation persistently moving every closer to the goal of making itself equal to the ideals upon which our forebears founded it.
In the immediate wake of 9-11, Bush's leadership inspired Americans to refuse to let the 9-11 attack demoralize the country. He inspired Americans to openly and flagrantly defy the terrorists' strategy of intimidating them into refraining from exercising their economic and personal freedom-- going to the malls, shopping, spending, saving, building and rebuilding businesses, traveling, flying, etc. (During the recent campaign, Obama foolishly mocked Bush for having urged Americans to "go shopping" as though such urging comprised self-serving, shallow politics rather than morale-building leadership.)
Bush's organization of, and his speech in, a convocation at National Cathedral within less than a week after the 9-11 attack provided comfort to Americans, and his inclusion of religious leaders of all faiths in such program also promoted religious ecumenicism and diminished the potential for religious bigotry being directed against Muslims generally. Despite my being non-religious, I found the program inspiring and comforting as did the vast majority of non-believers in contrast to the small minority comprised of fanatical secular fundamentalists. Most of the latter had already succumbed to the most rabid form of what Charles Krauthammer (the pundit who's also a psychiatrist) later correctly diagnosed as "Bush Derangement Syndrome," which began infecting them at the inception of the election-2000 controversy.
In the wake of 9-11, Bush rejected warnings of "experts" confidently predicting that attacking the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan would yield defeat for the Unite States in a country which had forced a huge and ruthless Soviet military machine to withdraw in defeat. Bush wisely accepted Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's strategy that a small, lean military force operating sooner inside Afghanistan with indigenous forces (rather than a huge military force not deployable without much greater delay and without risking alienating, rather than attracting the support of, indigenous forces) would constitute the best means for toppling the Taliban and it's safe-haven support for al Qaeda inside Afgjhanistan.
Recognizing the long-term as well as near-term danger posed by Saddam Hussein remaining in power, Bush wisely failed to heed assurances from advocates of reliance upon "U.N. sanctions" against Iraq that such sanctions (which were already collapsing under the weight of a huge "oil for food" scandal in a U.N. program rife with corruption) could and would prevent Saddam from reconstituting his programs for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons of mass destruction and succumbing to his inevitable temptation to provide such weapons to terrorists for use against us and/or our allies. By toppling Saddam, Bush also induced Libya's Muamar Ghadaffi (may his spellings be many) to abandon (and expose to the West) his incredibly advanced nuclear-weapons program developed with assistance from Pakistan's A. Q. Kahn. Absent these actions, one cannot seriously doubt that by now both Saddam and Ghadaffi would have nuclear weapons; nor can one seriously doubt that Iran would have done everything possible to accelerate it's own nuclear-weapons program.
Bush refused to respond in kind to vicious political attacks on his motives such as Ted Kennedy's assertion (in 2003) that Bush had decided to topple Saddam in order for Bush's political allies to make "profits" on war. He likewise refused to respond in kind to other relentlessly and mindlessly vicious attacks on his motives by the Left and by many, many ultra-liberals. This is part of what makes it so laughable when Barack Obama so caustically decries the "toxic" political atmosphere over the last eight years, which toxicity emanated almost exclusively from those who comprised the initial core of Obama's political support.
During Bush's first term, he repeatedly warned Congress about the potential for economic calamity posed by continuation and/or acceleration of politically coercive watering-down of mortgage-lending requirements by Fannie-Mae and Freddie-Mac. Indeed, in 2001 he sent his Treasury Secretary John Snow to Congress ot urge them to support, rather than to block, his recommendations for reversing such governmental social-engineering pressure on the mortgage/financial system. Unfortunately, in election 2008, the voters gave a larger majority to the party which had stubbornly refused to heed such warnings and which played the greatest role in the social-engineering that led to the financial calamity we're now experiencing. It's like having put the arsonists in charge of the fire department.
In Bush's second term, when tactical blunders eclipsed initial successes in
Iraq, he wisely rejected confident predictions of his critics (including Barack
Obama) that Iraq had become a lost cause and he wisely rejected their demands
that he make withdrawal rather than victory the goal in Iraq. In doing so,
he endured (and ignored) political vitriol, calumny and hatefulness directed at
him by political opponents with an intensity not seen in modern
politics. Instead of capitulating, or cowering, to such venal
political attacks, he courageously ordered implementation of the
"surge" and counter-insurgency strategy designed by Gen. David
Petraeus
Throughout
both terms, he refused to relax or dilute defensive and offensive strategies
against terrorists plots and thereby prevented a number of potentially serious,
potentially catastrophic attacks from succeeding. He prevented extremely
dangerous prisoners being detained at Guantanamo from re-entering society.
That terrorists failed to attack us successfully since 9-11 was not the result
of their failures to try.
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Exposing Bush on Iraq |
--Jim Wrenn, Editor at PoliSat.Com.
Permanent links to this installment:
http://polisat.com/DailyPoliticalSatire-Commentary/Archives2009/du20y09m01d20-01.htm
or
http://PoliSat.Com/USA-ClassAct.htm.
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