Exclusive Online Only Column

    It seems like every time I turn on the TV to watch a news show or even a comedy show the anchors and hosts tend to be profoundly anti-Bush.  I turn to CNN and Cafferty, Dobbs, and Larry King are all taking shots at the President.  I briefly turn to the View while flipping channels (briefly being the important word) and see Rosie O’Donnell calling President Bush a war criminal.  John Stewart is on the Daily Show trying to figure out how to edit the video of the President’s latest speech to make him look stupid, and Saturday Night Live is developing skits to portray Bush as a country-bumpkin.    
    Everyone has their free speech, as they should.  These individuals choose to express it loudly and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.  Freedom of speech is one of the most valuable treasures of our wealthy nation.
    President Clinton was pretty much the opposite of President Bush in media opinion.  For the most part, the media adored Clinton.  Of course, Saturday Night Live still showed skits of Bill Clinton stuffing his face at a McDonalds on every campaign stop and the Daily Show would edit one some of his speeches for a joke.  But the media didn’t seem as callous towards President Clinton as they do towards President Bush.  There were still outspoken critics of Bill Clinton like Pat Robertson, but he could never draw nearly the media attention that Rosie O’Donnell gets for an hour every weekday.
    If the media is correct then Bill Clinton made a better President than George W. Bush.  Let’s take a look at the record.  President Clinton takes pride in his education plan which featured an experiment where the federal government pumped $10,000 per student into under-performing Washington D.C. Schools.  Each of those schools continued to do worse than their private school counterparts which had an average tuition of about $5,000.  President Bush takes Clinton’s idea, but instead of giving lots of money and requiring no standards to be met he gives lots of money and requires tough standards to be met.  Most all schools fail these standards initially and are now working hard to meet them.  I’m not fond of either Presidents’ education policies because I feel it should be localized to district or state, but Bush clearly had the better idea for raising standards nationally.
    Islamic terrorism has been striking the U.S. Since 1993.  Bill Clinton watches the World Trade Center be attacked in 1993, two U.S. Embassy bombings and watches dozens die on the U.S.S. Cole.  His response: give Osama bin Laden a free pass.  And those weren’t the only free passes than bin Laden received with Clinton as President.  After the 1st World Trade Center attack and both embassy bombing the U.S. Military told Bill Clinton that they knew bin Laden’s exact position and only needed his permission to take him out.  Bill Clinton refused to authorize it.  George Bush hasn’t caught bin Laden, probably because he’s hiding in Pakistan where the U.S. Military can not enter.  But, in the meantime President Bush has taken out most of Al Qaeda’s main command and has toppled the Taliban’s leadership.  Bush hasn’t been perfect in his pursuit of bin Laden but some results are better than no results.
    When it comes down to Iraq, Bill Clinton pre-emptively attacked Iraq three times during his Presidency.  One of those times was when the Congress was voting on impeachment articles.  Some speculate this may have been to divert attention from his impeachment, but I’m gonna give Clinton the benefit of the doubt and believe that it wasn’t.  President Bush has only pre-emptively attacked Iraq once, but carried it a lot farther than Bill Clinton did.  Bill Clinton attacked Iraq with no allies because Saddam failed to adhere to UN resolutions and kicked out inspectors.  George Bush goes into the same country for the same reason, but this time with a coalition of more than 30 nations.  Perhaps President Bush has greatly mishandled the war, but that doesn’t mean that getting rid of a dictator that has killed more Muslims than any man that ever lived is necessarily bad.  It’s hard to say who wins on Iraq since both President Clinton and President Bush were both vehemently anti-Saddam, and led numerous military operations to that extent.
    Last but not least is scandal.  President Bush has only one scandal that he might possibly get indicted for and that is attorney-gate.  The Bush administration laid off 8 attorneys several weeks ago and Democrats believe it was political.  You’re probably wondering how many federal attorneys Clinton fired as President.  The answer is 93.  But because Bush fired 8, some Democrats want him impeached.  Bill Clinton also had a handful of other scandals such as perjury before a federal grand jury along with travel-gate, the white-water land deal and some smaller ones.
    President Bush isn’t the best President we’ve ever had.  He’s probably not even close.  Likewise, President Clinton probably wasn’t the worst President we’ve ever had.  But every now and then maybe we need to take a moment to step away from our latest Bush joke and think about how he compares to his predecessors.  And then we can make a joke about both of them.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Apr 27 2007. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry