"Don't make idiotic remarks ("Excuse me but what Clinton does sexually is only his and Hillary's biz") and I won't. "
Should we all use that standard? If so, you are an idiot, Ray. The only extra-marital sexual activity of Bill that has been proven is with Monica and with Gennifer Flowers. Now true, the Paula Jones case was settled out of court, but that doesn't prove guilt. The other stuff was just accusations and rumors, and if that is your standard, I hope you are calling for the removal of Clarence Thomas from the bench. No? Oh, that's right. You have "faith" with respect to these things, facts, logic, equality and consistency have nothing to do with your world view.
"Contrast that with the first-rate leadership George Bush provided in the Persian Gulf "
And we still have a major commitment in the Gulf because he didn't have the spine to finish the job. It's made us look pretty foolish, too.
"with Reagan's single-handed ending of the Cold War."
Reagan deserves credit for it happening on his watch. It is likely that the push for SDI was the final push, but the Cold War would have ended sooner or later. To paraphrase Marx, the Soviet Union contained the seeds of it's own revolution. It might have survived a lot longer, but their leadership perceived an opportunity to fulfill it's dream of taking Europe during the '70s when the Nixon administration started their policy of soothing Soviet fears by stopping our nuclear program. This allowed the USSR to start to catch up with the US in nuclear weapons. You likely don't remember, but the Europeans were going nuts when the US started to reduce it's commitment to defend Europe from the USSR, they especially didn't like the talk of "a nuclear warning shot across the bow". As the US withdrew in the aftermath of Vietnam, the Soviets saw their real opportunity to build up an even more massive conventional military, so their pushed their economy even more to turn out the tools needed. And then the most important thing occurred during the Carter administration, the peanut farmer committed the US to building and deploying intelligent weapon systems.
After building up, the Soviet Union took advantage of the situation in Afganistan to give it's troops some combat experience. If you are paranoid enough, you might have the feeling that the USSR was getting ready to finally take Europe and wanted to have some experienced troops. Anyway, these type things often look easier than they are, just look at Vietnam. The Soviets were making decent progress until the Reagan administration started feeding the Afganis smart weapons. They pretty much rendered the Soviet tanks and helicopters useless. As Afganistan wore on, it became obvious to the USSR that their entire military needed to be rebuilt to reach it's goal of taking Europe, much less be able to defend itself if attacked by the West. Since their economy was already over-extended to build what they had, the standard of living in Poland and East Germany was already higher than it was in Moscow, they couldn't afford to do that without major changes. It was these factors that caused their collapse, not Reagan calling them names. |
