by Ken Kreps
©2003, all rights reserved
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Recently, I received a forwarded piece of e-mail from a conservative friend of mine in Texas. This piece, purported (in a humorous way) to tell of the many ills and shortcomings in the Clinton administration. It mention things like the trashing of the white house by the Clinton West Wing employees before they left, the terrible White Water scandal, the many pardons granted by President Clinton before leaving office, the terrible way in which Bill Clinton treated women and many other reasons why his presidency was vile, unsavory and a thing of horror. Problem is, most of what it said was either untrue or based on inaccurate data.
As an example:
There was no wholesale trashing of the White House West Wing and the Bush new staffers finally admitted to their hoax.
- Women's rights made greater gains under Bill Clinton than any other
President.
- Even the right wing's hired gun, Kenneth Starr, finally had to admit
that he had no evidence that either Bill or Hillary Clinton did anything
to warrant charges being filed against them in the White Water matter.
- Ronald Reagan pardoned approximately the same number of people when he left office as did Bill Clinton.
Of course, the humor piece left out a number of pertinent pieces of information, such as:
Clinton won his elections. Bush lost to Al Gore, but was then appointed to office by the Supreme Court.
- Our investments and retirement funds are worth billions (make that
trillions) less than under Bill Clinton.
- The Clinton team ran on an internal slogan of, "It's the economy, stupid"
while Bush and his cohorts seem to be saying, "Let's get stupid about the
economy."
- The Clinton administration left a huge budgetary surplus behind.
In just two years, the Bush administration has turned that into a huge
deficit and only recently asked congress for permission to raise the deficit
ceiling from its current levels.
- George Bush pulled out of many major treaties and accords worldwide
making our country seem uncaring and irresponsible.
- We are on the brink of war, but not against the ones responsible for
9-11. People on both sides of the world will die for no good reason other
than Bush needs an issue like war to save his administration.
- We have an Attorney General who, while on a self proclaimed "Mission
For God", is slowly stripping our citizens of their hard earned civil rights
and right to privacy.
- The "Axis of Evil" speech made us look like world wide bullies.
It’s not that North Korea, Iraq and other countries are not run by some
pretty bad characters. It’s the total lack of world diplomacy
that such a remark displays.
- Environmental laws are being weakened nationwide and Bush wants
to drill for a small amount of oil (in the big picture) in protected lands.
- Unemployment is out of control.
- More people are without health insurance in our country than ever before.
I could go on and on, but I'm sure you get the point. Our country is in a mess and much of the blame can be laid right at the current President's door step. He is a man with only one goal and that is to get re-elected. He said in his campaign that he would bring honor to the White House and, instead, he has brought disgrace and shame.
Still, the right wing talk show hosts and newspaper columnists continually spread the false message that liberalism is bad, conservatism is good, dissent is bad, President Clinton was bad and doing whatever the current President says to do is good. They have no sympathy with anyone who questions the need for war or the success(?) and brilliance(?) of the President. They pound, insult and degrade anyone who does not follow their narrow line of thinking. They display neither good journalism nor fair minded reporting.
Finally, they seem to still delight in trashing Bill Clinton even though the man has not been in office for two years. They continue to blame all and any problems in this country on Clinton. How many more years they can continue to do this is anyone’s guess.
A recent news story from the wire services serves to point out one of the main differences between Bill Clinton and George Bush. President Clinton has been mentioned as a front runner for the position of Chancellor at England's prestigious Oxford University where, in his younger days, he was a student for two years. It's obvious to even the most hardened conservative that George Bush and Oxford University will never be mentioned in the same sentence.
Now the Bush administration has all the cards and has no one left to blame for the mess this country is in, and all the ongoing Clinton bashing cannot change one simple fact. The buck has stopped right on the desk of George Bush, because that was then and this is now
©2003 by Ken Kreps. This article may not be re-published in electronic or print media without the express written permission of the author. All Rights reserved.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ken Kreps lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife. He has written a number of published articles, essays and short stories, as well as numerous consumer and business pieces. Ken has also written scripts for Imagination Theater, an award winning audio drama series heard on over 150 commercial radio stations across the nation.
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