George W. Bush: a better president than Bill Clinton
It became chic, once President Bush's popularity collapsed, for Democrats to cite polls indicating that most Americans held the odd opinion that Bill Clinton was a better president than Mr. Bush is.
As I've pointed out before, most of the struggles the incumbent has faced have been a matter of cleaning up his predecessor's messes. Clinton balanced the budget by gutting the military and the intelligence establishment (in no small measure paving the way for 9/11); Bush has had to restore the cuts- and the deficit with them. Clinton's anti-terrorism policy was wholly ineffectual and rather wimpish (his cruise missile attack on a place where Osama bin Laden had been half an hour before was probably the high point). On the other hand, we haven't had a successful terrorist attack by al Quaeda or anybody else on U.S. soil since 9/11. And it was Bush, not Clinton, to went to war in the Afghanistan, took out the Taliban, and aggressively pursued bin Laden.
Clinton, of course, was responsible for the failed war in Kosovo (how many Americans even know that it failed, and that the ethnic cleansing continues?), whereas the MSM is still in the process of undermining the war in Iraq. And Clinton's expressed opinion of Saddam's WMD's was just as strong as Bush's; he simply lacked the guts to act on it.
Yes, it's hard to find a "failing" of the current administration which doesn't begin to look a great deal better when compared with the record of the administration which preceeded it- and in many cases actually created the problem! But the same is true when one simply and objectively compares the condition of the country under the two presidents from a statistical point of view.
The Independent Florida Alligator does precisely that- and ends any remaining doubt that George W. Bush is a better president in just about every measurable way than Bill Clinton was.
As I've pointed out before, most of the struggles the incumbent has faced have been a matter of cleaning up his predecessor's messes. Clinton balanced the budget by gutting the military and the intelligence establishment (in no small measure paving the way for 9/11); Bush has had to restore the cuts- and the deficit with them. Clinton's anti-terrorism policy was wholly ineffectual and rather wimpish (his cruise missile attack on a place where Osama bin Laden had been half an hour before was probably the high point). On the other hand, we haven't had a successful terrorist attack by al Quaeda or anybody else on U.S. soil since 9/11. And it was Bush, not Clinton, to went to war in the Afghanistan, took out the Taliban, and aggressively pursued bin Laden.
Clinton, of course, was responsible for the failed war in Kosovo (how many Americans even know that it failed, and that the ethnic cleansing continues?), whereas the MSM is still in the process of undermining the war in Iraq. And Clinton's expressed opinion of Saddam's WMD's was just as strong as Bush's; he simply lacked the guts to act on it.
Yes, it's hard to find a "failing" of the current administration which doesn't begin to look a great deal better when compared with the record of the administration which preceeded it- and in many cases actually created the problem! But the same is true when one simply and objectively compares the condition of the country under the two presidents from a statistical point of view.
The Independent Florida Alligator does precisely that- and ends any remaining doubt that George W. Bush is a better president in just about every measurable way than Bill Clinton was.
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