| OK, then you are not. I will not contradict you. I will simply disagree with your estimate of his performance. And Clinton was clever and talented, and cautious in a number of his decisions, but he was not competent. He ran a very undisciplined White House, had no decent influence over the Congress, even before his actions caused the Republicans to come to power, had a preposterously leaky operation, and was almost totally reactive and busy saving himself from his latest gaffe. If possible, he was more incompetent than Carter, just luckier to have come into office after Reagan won the Cold War and started us off on the high tech revolution, through restructuring the economy to favor investment and entrepreneurialism, and deregulation of telecommunications. What you are taking as "secretiveness" is just an example of how competent Bush is: White Houses are not supposed to leak at every turn. Also, it is silly to talk about the absence of an exit strategy when we are pursuing a definite program of the Iraqization of security, and planning to turn over sovereignty in a few months. As for the budget, re- estimating is normal, what is amazing is how early and honestly the Administration has revised its figures, instead of waiting until a year from now to find out that the original estimates were too rosy......... |
