Posted on 10/10/2004 1:49:32 PM PDT by areafiftyone
Bush has shown he lacks flexibility, competence, while challenger looks for policies that will work
There's an unusual urgency to the electoral process this year, reflected in higher attendance at campaign rallies, record viewership of presidential debates and soaring voter registration, not to mention an increase in heated debates over the dinner table. Americans across the political spectrum recognize that the next four years will be a difficult time in our nation's history, and that the leadership we choose will set our course for many years to come.
And as always when a president is running for re-election, the main issue will be the record of the incumbent, President George W. Bush, and what it suggests about his leadership in a potential second term. Unfortunately, that record is grounds for grave concern.
That concern goes beyond mere differences about policy to questions about basic competence. Too often, Bush has seemed to disdain rational analysis of a situation in favor of a rigid, unbending ideology that recognizes no shading of gray. The world that Bush describes, and the world as it exists, are often two different places.
For example, if we lived in a world in which Saddam Hussein really did possess weapons of mass destruction and really did have strong ties to al-Qaida, and if the Iraqi people really would welcome American intervention, then invading Iraq would have been the wise thing to do. But that world is not this world, and pretending otherwise has proved a tragic mistake.
Likewise, in an economy in which business was starved for investment capital to create new jobs, large tax cuts designed to enrich the investing class would have been exactly the right medicine. But that was far from the economy that confronted Bush upon taking office. Then as now, the system was drowning in investment money; what the economy needed was tax cuts aimed at the middle class, to boost consumer spending.
In Friday's debate, Bush claimed to have enacted that type of tax cut, but he did not, and the poor job-creation numbers issued Friday — 50,000 short of what was needed just to stay even with population growth — is a continuing legacy of that mistake. That basic lack of competence bodes poorly for a future in which we will have to confront growing foreign competition for jobs, a widening gap between what we import and export, a crippling dependence on foreign oil and a soaring deficit right before the baby boom generation begins to retire.
The source of the administration's disconnect seems to be two-fold. First, a president is just one person; his success or failure depends to a large degree on the quality of people he chooses to staff his administration. The Bush administration has built a sorry record of ridding itself of competent officials who dare to question its preferred version of reality, while protecting proven incompetents who are willing to toe the party line.
Second, even with a top-notch staff, a successful president must be able to independently assess the information and recommendations that he is given. Bush has shown no evidence that he is capable of making such judgments, and in fact seems to operate as a passive recipient of information collected and analyzed by others.
Bush's opponent, U.S. Sen. John Kerry, is less of a known quantity than the president, for obvious reasons. As we've seen, there's nothing like four years in the Oval Office to harshly illuminate a person's flaws and attributes. But in the two debates so far, Kerry has been able to dispel the cartoon image of him created by Republican operatives.
During his time in public life, Kerry has proved himself to be an intelligent, diligent student of world and national affairs with the courage to take the lead at times when others would shirk the burden. Furthermore, Kerry has surrounded himself with competent people who are more interested in policies that actually work than in policies that meet some test of ideological purity. He understands that in a rapidly changing world, flexibility is a far more useful trait than rigidity. In contrast to the incumbent, Kerry has shown the ability to look at a complex problem honestly, listen closely to the input of experts and then take the course that sounds most reasonable. Nor does he treat internal disagreement as a sign of disloyalty.
While that is hardly an approach of breathtaking originality, it would represent a significant break from the close-minded leadership style that has dominated the White House for the past four years. We've seen what that style produces, and it isn't good.
It's time to give competence a chance.
Yes, liberal.
Oh okay. I got kinda nervous cause it was Georgia.
Do fish swim?
Does a wild bear sleep in the woods?
Is the Pope a Roman?
The AJC is a joke. Declining circulation in a growing metro area - incompetent staff - dumbed-down editorial department - yeah, they're a liberal rag.
I was talking at a party to a newspaperman who moved here from the West Coast. He said the AJC has an abysmal reputation among other news types, they basically are a house organ for the DNC and everybody in the newspaper business knows it.
Another paper that is still living in a pre-9/11 Clinton era!
Good point. They are very Spetember 10th.
I'm betting they endorse Bush, just because they have lost so many subscribers they are bleeding red ink!
the Atlanta Urinal-Constipation thinks Jesse Jackson is Moses.
enough said ?
It's called the AJC: Al-Jazeera Constitution
No more AJC for me. Yuck! I usually go to ajc.com to get news, but not anymore.
Those alternative policies have been implemented in France and Germany and they don't work. - Tom
You are 100% RIGHT
So another organ of a third world African banana republic (Atlanta, my city) pushes left.
Stunner.
The AJC never made a black race pimp, tax-and-spend liberal, Confederate-hater, anti-Southerner, or conservative-basher that it didn't like. It is a blight upon the fair state of Georgia (much like whole sections of Atlanta itself).
}:-)4
Actually, "Barf Alert" is all that need be said.
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