Writing over at the Weekly Standard, Fred Barnes compiled a list of what he considers the top 10 accomplishments of the Bush presidency. He got some right to be sure and included some with which I would disagree. He starts off by noting how Bush “stopped” the dreadful Kyoto Protocol. Being a long-time skeptic of man-made climate change I too appreciate that but let’s also remember that the Senate voted 98-0 against it. This was not some big valiant fight for him. Barnes also thinks that the Medicare Prescription Drug coverage, yet another welfare state vote buying scheme, is a big accomplishment for Bush. While he admits that “conservatives have deep reservations about the program”, Barnes then speaks the ugly truth of that legislation: “if he hadn’t acted, Democrats would have, with a much less attractive result.” Unfortunately, I just cannot disagree with that logic.
Barnes closes by pointing out the obvious, at least to those of us without a bookmark to Daily Kos, that history will judge Bush in 20 or 30 years. I have written before in these pages that what [always leftist] talking heads think about Bush 43 is irrelevant. In three decades, the main history of the W Presidency will not be filled with quotes from Joy Behar or Keith Olberman, it will be written by historians looking back at not only the Big Ticket items of what happened, but the results.
I disagree with many of the things that Bush 43 did as President, but he was pretty good at killing Islamic Fascists and even in the areas where he governed like a drunken liberal he was better than either Al “Forrest” Gore or John “Reporting for Duty” Kerry would have been. The cold reality is that those of us without a taste for partisan Kool Aid perennially vote not for the lesser of two evils but against the greater evil of two lessers. That sucks. And to head you starry-eyed third party people off at the pass: a vote for the LP is a vote for the Democrats and a vote for the Green Party (or some other nutty socialist group) is a vote for the Republicans. If you do not see that already then you will in a few more election cycles.
from the foothills 