This is one of the finest articles I have read on the ironies hypocries and contradictions of the current Obama presidency. And – forgive me for saying this – not a few of the problems with pro-Obama enthusiasm. Hanson nails it. “Bush bad. Obama good” summarizes well the mantric mindset. Notice how comedians and late night talk shows are still picking on former President Bush – and giving President Obama a free ride despite plenty of good material.
On so many criteria by which people compare President Bush unfavorably to President Obama – if one looks at the actual record Bush fares far better.
There were many legitimate critiques of the Iraq war. But insisting, as Barack Obama did, that we invaded recklessly and in haste was not one of them. From the fall of the Taliban in December 2001 to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the Bush administration deliberately and in public fashion sought debate in the Congress for over a year, received bipartisan authorization, and tried for months to win sanction from the United Nations.
In contrast, Barack Obama immediately upon entering office demanded the largest government expansion in the history of the nation. The staggering debt program will require nearly a trillion dollars in borrowing to fund all sorts of entitlements and redistributive efforts, and in revolutionary fashion redefine the role of government itself. Obama pronounced the current economic crisis the moral equivalent of war, and he wanted a national mobilization to meet it — pronto.
But unlike the Bush administration, which took 15 months to prepare the country for a real war in Iraq, the Obama administration gave the public only a few hours to read the final draft of the legislation before it was made into law. Where the polarizing partisan George Bush managed to obtain the vote of majorities in both parties to remove Saddam Hussein, the healing bipartisan Barack Obama lacked the support of even a single Republican in the House and won over a mere three Republicans in the Senate.
Liberals who once screamed that congressional opponents of the Iraq war were being unfairly tagged as unpatriotic by the Bush administration now yelled louder that the opponents of the Obama debt program were, in fact, unpatriotic.
Read the whole thing here. You do not have to register.
One person at Baptistlife.Com said that “conservatives don’t care about the people”. I suppose that is analogous to “unpatriotic”.
Do not misunderstand. President Bush made his share of blunders. And conservatives have demonstrated a remarkable willingness to acknowledge these openly. (A few weeks ago I heard someone on NPR say “we will not pick on President Obama for smoking because that is his only flaw”. I am not making that up.) Later Hanson notes, “One can make many criticisms of the Bush administration — occasional hubris, an inability to communicate its ideas, excessive federal spending, unnecessary bellicose rhetoric not matched always by commensurate action — but corruption is not really one of them”.
With my brother I still wonder why the American people are not in front of the White House with “torches and pitchforks”. (Or better – with peaceful and well argued protest.) Not only is the Obama presidency with the Congress turning America into a socialist hothouse but they are consolidating aggressively their hold on the instruments of power (hello? census?) so that it will be difficult if not impossible to reverse the damage. (Echoes of Franklin Delanor Roosevelt and his legacy.)
