And the beauty of this is three-fold. First, Congress did it but Bush has so effectively shifted the seat of power to the White House that anything Congress does is credited to a president instead. Second, by prohibiting the government from negotiating prices for the prescription drugs it buys, Part D ensures that prescription drug prices will increase rapidly for all seniors. During the first year of Part D, prices for the 15 drugs most frequently prescribed to seniors increased nearly four times faster than overall consumer prices. And third, Part D includes a loophole allowing the government to avoid paying anything to a large percentage of those seniors theoretically eligible, thus permitting even more economy-boosting tax cuts! Sheer genius.
"He became the world leader in providing billions of dollars in humanitarian aid to Africa in the fight against AIDS/HIV."
The importance of crediting Bush for this, as for the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, is heightened by the ingratitude of Africans, who have widely denounced his requirement that most of the money go to promoting abstinence and fidelity, thus gaining a foothold in Africa for a new sort of religious bigotry while ensuring the ongoing viability of the fight against AIDS/HIV for many years to come. That's what Bush's father would have called the vision thing.
"Finally, but not least, President Bush restored honor and dignity to the Oval Office following eight years of political and moral corruption by his predecessor (Bill Clinton)."
This, too, is understated by Mr. Edmunds, who does not acknowledge the handicap Bush was playing under. This remarkable leader restored honor and dignity to the Oval Office while eliminating the Fourth Amendment and large sections of several others, while authorizing torture, while lying about the need for wars, lying about preparation for hurricanes, lying about spying and torture, funneling hundreds of billions of dollars to corrupt war profiteers, dismantling the Justice Department and replacing it with a Republican mafia family, openly ordering staffers and former staffers to obstruct justice, commuting the sentence of a top staffer convicted of obstructing justice, and producing phony news reports for our consumption, and all while spending more time than the previous several presidents combined on vacation away from the Oval Office to which he restored such honor and dignity.
"These accomplishments may not place him on Mt. Rushmore, but I am convinced his legacy (like those of Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan) will be viewed much more positively through the prism of history."
Mr. Edmunds is exactly right. If we survive the current military, economic, and environmental catastrophes long enough to consider the Bush-Cheney era a part of history, the actions taken by those two co-presidents will necessarily appear less destructive than they now do. While that restoration of Bush's image still might not put him on Mt. Rushmore (a fact over which I share Mr. Edmunds' sadness), we can hardly forego adding a Bush Memorial to the National Mall.
Some will say there is insufficient space remaining, what with the need for memorials to all the wars Bush started and the desire of so many anarchists to march and protest and petition their government for redress of grievances. The solution, I think, would be the low-cost erection of a chain-link George W. Bush Free Speech Cage, both to memorialize the professionalism of his staff's crackdown on public interaction with the president and to maintain proper control over future demonstrations. Unlike almost any other structure, which would inevitably be ruined by vandals, a chainlink fence withstands most attempts at defacement, and shoes thrown at it will sometimes stick and remain there, leaving the misguided citizen to go home barefoot if he has a home.
"He became the world leader in providing billions of dollars in humanitarian aid to Africa in the fight against AIDS/HIV."
The importance of crediting Bush for this, as for the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, is heightened by the ingratitude of Africans, who have widely denounced his requirement that most of the money go to promoting abstinence and fidelity, thus gaining a foothold in Africa for a new sort of religious bigotry while ensuring the ongoing viability of the fight against AIDS/HIV for many years to come. That's what Bush's father would have called the vision thing.
"Finally, but not least, President Bush restored honor and dignity to the Oval Office following eight years of political and moral corruption by his predecessor (Bill Clinton)."
"These accomplishments may not place him on Mt. Rushmore, but I am convinced his legacy (like those of Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan) will be viewed much more positively through the prism of history."
Mr. Edmunds is exactly right. If we survive the current military, economic, and environmental catastrophes long enough to consider the Bush-Cheney era a part of history, the actions taken by those two co-presidents will necessarily appear less destructive than they now do. While that restoration of Bush's image still might not put him on Mt. Rushmore (a fact over which I share Mr. Edmunds' sadness), we can hardly forego adding a Bush Memorial to the National Mall.
Some will say there is insufficient space remaining, what with the need for memorials to all the wars Bush started and the desire of so many anarchists to march and protest and petition their government for redress of grievances. The solution, I think, would be the low-cost erection of a chain-link George W. Bush Free Speech Cage, both to memorialize the professionalism of his staff's crackdown on public interaction with the president and to maintain proper control over future demonstrations. Unlike almost any other structure, which would inevitably be ruined by vandals, a chainlink fence withstands most attempts at defacement, and shoes thrown at it will sometimes stick and remain there, leaving the misguided citizen to go home barefoot if he has a home.
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