Imagine you’re crossing a bridge everyday to go to a number of places (shopping, work, church, your favorite restaurant, the movies).
As you continue to do so, the cost of everything is going up, and, from time to time, the cost of crossing the bridge is going up.

Do you
1) Keep crossing the bridge, no matter what the cost;
2) Change your driving habits to reduce the number of times you cross the bridge (thus reducing the bridge revenue)?

Well?

Arming Saddam (here’s looking at you, Rummy)

Arming the Mujahideen (and Osama bin Laden)

Raising the national debt from 1 trillion to 2.6 trillion, doing nearly double the fiscal damage of every other president combined…still, he’s no G.W., who is on course to pushing the debt to a staggering 10 trillion + …at least (he’s at nearly 8 1/2 trillion).

As for Reagan’s economic performance, you have to lean on the Cato Institute’s rather selective use of economic data to make the argument that Reagan was an economics powerhouse for anyone other than the very rich. There are other, less generous perspectives on this issue.

I’d say there are numerous reasons to be critical of the Reagan years.

Still, I’d take Reagan over Bush in a heartbeat, regardless of how much I disliked many of his policies. But hey, with Cheney pissing off Putin, maybe we can have a new Cold War to go with our phony GWOT! I gotta get me some stock in Halliburton!

“It should be noted tht not only does our last democratically-elected President outperform AWOL George in every category, he did so without the benefit of a Congress that rubber-stamped everything he did. President Clinton outperforms AWOL George despite having a Congress that obstructed him at every turn.”

This shared power under which one party controls the WH while the opposition party has the US House can achieve a decent compromise on the way to legislation that benefits more of the people. Compare that to GOP rule that benefits the wealthy and the corporate at the expense of individual rights.
If the Dems take the house this fall it may actually result in bush becoming more popular because he may choose to be more statesmanlike (as was his reputation as ‘a uniter, not a divider’ governor of Texas) and compromise more on legislation. Nah.

Meanwhile, the press can t get over the president who smiled and cried his way through two terms, and they still work on his legacy. Can you ever recall a time in history where 6 years after an administration ends, the ex-president is still breathlessly being polled-on, still being given (on most days) as much press as the current president? I can t.

But Waco — “a couple of them killed some cops, so let’s kill over two dozen children?” I thought you were the one who was always howling about civilian casualties. I guess it’s DIFFERENT if it’s ordered by a Democratic Attorney General vs. a Republican Secretary of Defense.

The economic slowdown started before Clinton left office, BTW. Read a little more history.

And I’m absolutely CERTAIN North Korea gave up on its nuclear program right up until January 20, 2001. Clinton and Albright just worked WONDERS there.

J.

. He also rode an economic bubble that anyone with a lick of sense could see was a soap bubble, built on air, and could have burst at any instant.

This can only be written by someone who shouldn’t be trusted to make change at McDonald’s. The so-called ‘Tech Bubble’ comprised less than 5% of the economy; thus if, all tech companies had “burst”–the economy should have seen about a 5% decline. And it’s important to note many tech companies didn’t go under–they remain viable and thriving performers in the economy.

But what of Alan Greenspan? Did he not have a lick of sense? After all, he called Bill Clinton’s economy the best in 50 years.

North Korea was given deal after deal to end their nuclear program, and still got away with it.

In reality, Bill Clinton curbed North Korea’s nuclear weapons ambitions. When Bill Clinton left office, it was suspected–repeat–suspected No Korea might have had 1-2 nukes. Now, we’re positive in has at least 10.

China bought its way into our ports, politics, and military secrets.

Brought to you by the Moonie Times. No basis in reality.

And about 900 people s highly-confidential FBI files somehow meandered into the White House

And the result of the Independent Counsel’s investigation into this matter?

Better research, JayIDTea.

You’ve gotta love JayIDTea’s fractured history.

Somehow, our last democratically-elected President was President in August of 1992 (several months before he was elected and a couple more before he would take office) when Ruby Ridge occured.

And that the folks at Waco deserved to be left alone after they murdered several law enforcement agents.

Wizbang should be synonymous with ignorance.

J.

Reagan… I’ll give you two bad things. First, he didn’t take the threat of Hizbollah seriously in Lebanon, and 242 US Marines paid the price — and laid further groundwork for the reputation of the US in the Middle East as a paper tiger. Secondly, he signed the 1986 Immigration Reform Act, which continued 20 years of bad immigration policy and set up the current demands for amnesty. But no one with any shred of intellectual honesty can say that the United States was not substantially better off on January 20, 1989 than it was on January 20, 1981.

J.

J.

And I’m with mucker- Are there no other political forces in America other gthena the Bushes (Jeb) and the Clintons (Hillary)?

You better check with Oliver — obviously your playbook is missing a few pages.

J.

strike ‘left-wingers’, insert ‘Wing Nut Nation’.

(Loosely paraphrased from Democratic talking point #457, between “Republican culture of corruption” and “tax breaks for the rich.”)

J.