Are you a nationally known pundit with access to the media?
As far as the spending goes, two days ago I heard Mike Pence talk abut how is efforts to find offsets were a "direct result" of the President's meeeting with Congressional leaders.
And as far as Katrina spending goes, BY LAW the government is supposed to cover 75% of the costs. I suggest that people who are griping need to talk to their Congressional people and get that law changed; the President has sworn to uphold all of the laws, even those he doesn't like.
Does anyone know EXACTLY how much is to be spent? No, because we don't even know what all is damaged yet. Does anyone know how much is going to be covered by the private sector and charities? No, for the same reason.
Has the President done anything that merits this snarky response by Ms. Noonan? No. The three things he proposed in his speech are conservative ways of dealing with a disaster. All of the griping is by people who have other axes to grind and make silly comments like "Bush is trying to buy favor with the democrats." That is ludicrous and I am not accepting such second-rate punditry.
Noonan (which I will call her since she doesn't bother to give the President the courtesy of his title) needs to face the fact that President Bush is his own person, the times are different than when President Reagan was in office, and that President Bush's speechwriter is every bit as good as she was, if not better.
And, by the way, I wonder how come we don't hear from any other Reagan speechwriters, especially since she wasn't HEAD writer. Could it be that they are not interested in trashing the President? Could it be that they, unlike Noonan, understand Reagan's 11th Commandment?
I am off my soapbox now. LOL!
Wow, did I cause you to get that mad; I hope not. While I am not a nationally known pundit, not even a locally known one, I do have access to the media. I read it and watch it and listen to it. Sometimes the media gets it right, more often they don't. But they have the right to be wrong.
The problem today is that people way beyond the envelope of normal differences and discussions are given air time. Then the folks on the right are so offended [as well they should be] that they do not want to hear any criticism. This is not good. Criticism is helpful, if it is constructive. Often I have criticized only to be proven wrong; but I learned from that and gained insight.
Nobody is perfect, not even Pres. Bush. He is a very good man doing a very, very difficult job well, for the most part. But, everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. Pres. Bush rose to high office because he would work with his opponents. That does not work in Washington; the only thing that the politicians of Washington, DC respond to is power.
Pres. Bush had two recent opportunities to exercise fiscal discipline; the transportation bill and the hurricane relief effort. The transportation bill begged for a veto by anyone's standards [speaking as a Conservative] and the hurricane relief was a chance missed to say we need to realize that states must assume more responsibility and that the federal treasury is limited and priorities must be set. Several of us disagree with any effort by the feds to rebuild New Orleans. Rebuild their infrastructures, but not their private enterprises and certainly not provide federal insurance for the new more expensive buildings.
Now, I will make an embracing confession. I have not yet read Peggy Noonan's article. Tonight, if I can ever get off this computer I will read it and, who knows, maybe tomorrow I will agree with you about her article. But, my views of Pres. Bush dropping the ball on restraining excessive congressional spending will remain the same. Sorry.
Enuff. Have a good weekend.
See ya Monday,
FOX