Posted on 08/30/2007 3:57:32 PM PDT by lentulusgracchus
The Bush Administration has apparently caved to European demands to join Kyoto, despite rejection of the treaty by the people of the United States and the Bush Administration's own statement of principles when it rejected the accord.
The German press's recent interpretations of American diplomats' remarks in Europe, to the effect that the United States Government will now, for the first time in its history, accept legal binding of its own people by an arbitrary international regime of imperial character and reach, were correct.
Bloomberg article here:
Bloomberg August 30, 2007, story by Mathew Carr and Jonathan Tirone.
Again we see that our President has a severe learning disability.
The treaty has not been ratified in the Senate.
Hey, we like Congressional "resolutions" for starting wars these days, don't we? When dealing with the People, it would seem that indirection and subtlety are the keys.
I voted for him in 2000 and again in 2004. But, I tell you, aside from his Supreme Court nominations (Roberts and Alito) he has, in his second term, been one of the greatest disappointments of my lifetime (and I’m 56). His unseemly affection for Mexico and its invaders and his apparent eagerness to surrender American sovereignty, are breathtaking. It’s a given that he will allow Iran to become a nuclear player, even after all his tough talk to the contrary. What I wouldn’t give to have Ronald Reagan back! Or Teddy Roosevelt. Hell, I’d welcome Harry Truman!
Yes, I'm afraid that, even with the help of so many dedicated supporters and fellow factionalists (Condi Rice, Karen Hughes, Karl Rove, others), Bush 43 is going to end up, with his dad, being thought of as the 20th century's answer to the 19th-century Harrisons.
The elder Harrison, William Henry, died after only a short time in office, and the grandson, Benjamin (named for his great-grandfather, who signed the Declaration of Independence), was generally seen as insipid in the White House. He'd garnered a good reputation as an officer during the Civil War, but in peacetime his leadership qualities did not come out, even in the White House, and he was extremely cool and impersonal, leaving an impression with all but close friends very much like Calvin Coolidge a generation later. Benjamin Harrison was later taken as a cautionary tale against the false attractions of dynasties in politics (which persisted anyway, with the Tafts, Roosevelts, Kennedys, Bushes, and now Clintons all being touted for their family connections).
Forty years from now it'll be Chelsea Clinton going up against the children of David and Julie Nixon Eisenhower, or one of Michael Reagan's kids, or maybe one of George P. Bush's kids will be challenging a Kennedy or a Schwarzenegger-Kennedy-Shriver or a Barney Frank laboratory clone.
He was probably right to decline. The GOP, long in office by 1892 (except for the Cleveland interregnum), had grown old, stale, entrenched and rancid. Save for Harrison, he'd probably have become what Harrison did.
That same staleness hangs over the GOP now. The GOP of that day had its Mugwumps, its reformers, and it has its conservative, "idea-and-values" wing, if you will, today; but neither the Mugwumps nor the Bull Moosers back then, nor the conservative reformers now, can seem to break through the dead weight of entrenched business and money interests and their swarms of East Coast lawyers and 24/7 lobbyists and fixers.
Which Ronald Reagan would you want back, the swashbuckling hero of Grenada or the one who abandoned the Marines in Lebanon?
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