Sev wrote:
> I agree with most of what's been said- Bush came in ignoring terrorism
> (those stupid Clinton people had to be ignored), focused on the foolish
> tax cut and also foolish missile defense.
> Don't know why we're talking politics on this group, though the
> level of discussion on most dedicated groups is pretty awful from what
> I've seen. I am a partisan lib/ dem, but still like discussions to be
> civil and honest. Clinton did have his failings in foreign policy-
> mostly it didn't interest him much, and he was understandibly wary of
> involvements after Somalia. Thus he did nothing about Rwanda- and
> didn't want to get involved in Yugoslavia, either. The Europeans could
> have taken more initiative there, and I think Clinton was _partially_
> reluctant for fear he'd then be charged with racial disparity after
> doing nothing over Rwanda. Gore pushed him to get involved- one reason
> I think he would have made a pretty good President besides his interest
> in re-inventing government eg getting various levels to talk to each
> other eg those FBI memos which might have prevented 9/11.


> Clinton did wake up to al Quaeda after embassy and Cole bombings,
> but by then was embroiled in Lewinsky mess and feared he'd be accused
> of 'wag the dog' diversion if he acted too strenuously- thus the
> cruise missile strikes were his only response.

Well, more than that. The Clinton administration caught Al Qaeda
operatives actively involved in attempts to blow up Los Angeles
International Airport on Millennium Eve, the Holland and Lincoln
tunnels in New York and the United Nations building, aborted a planned
assault on the Israeli embassy in Washington, and in cooperation with
intelligence services on every continent successfully arrested,
prosecuted, and imprisoned or executed dozens of terrorist cells
overseas from the former Soviet Union to the Philippines, and froze
$254 million in Taliban assets in the United States; besides actually
hitting the convoy in which bin Laden was driving with an RPG, which is
still closer than the current Keystone Kops have gotten to nailing the
*******. Clinton signed a National Security Decision Directive
authorizing an intensive campaign to destroy al Qaeda and capture or
kill bin Laden and sent the CIA into Afghanistan with a Pakistani
commando unit to get him, until Musaharraf pulled the plug on the
operation for fear of al Qaeda supporters in his administration and the
military.

And the anti-terrorism legislation Clinton tried to pass in 93, but the
Republicans voted down, then again in 95 hoping McVeigh's home-grown
terrorism might wake up the Republicans but it got voted down again,
with Senator John Ashcroft of all people saying it was an unwarranted
assault on Americans' rights and privacy. Now that's bleakly funny.

And Clinton's bioterrorism preparedness initiative, which (besides all
those preparedness drills) established a new national stockpile of
emergency medical supplies, including 40 million doses of smallpox
vaccine for the CDC which the Bushies used after 9/11.

"Robert M. Gates, former director of the CIA was on hand to share some
of his experiences and give his insights to the nation's ongoing
challenge to battle terrorism.... He cited several instances where
plans from terrorists were realized and halted throughout the 1990s,
including:
An attack on the Federal building in New York
Plans to destroy the Lincoln and Holland tunnels
A plan to fly a plane into CIA headquarters
A millennium New Year's Eve plot to attack Los Angeles International
Airport ..."
<http://www.ism.ws/ConfPastAndOnlineDaily/files/May02/Keynote02.cfm>

"[The Clinton administration was] correctly focused on bin Laden."
-Paul Bremer,
ambassador for counterterrorism in the Reagan State Department and
later chair of the Congressional National Commission on Terrorism,
Washington Post,
Dec. 2000

"Overall, I give [the Clinton administration] very high marks [on
counterterrorism]."
- Robert Oakley,
also ambassador for counterterrorism in the Reagan State Department,
Washington Post,
Dec. 2000

'The Clinton administration was "obsessed" with bin Laden'
-the report of the 9/11 Commission

> The tech boom was undoubtedly responsible for part of the surplus,
> but Clinton did manage finances pretty responsibly, and deserves credit
> for it. Were people really so overtaxed in those years?

Ironic juxtaposition of the two topics:
Clinton tried to pass airport security legislation, but the Republican
Congress rejected it because they didn't want the government to pay for
it, and the 8 Republicans on the Senate Aviation Subcommittee killed it
because their big contributors, the airlines, didn't want to pay for it
either.

> I think the
> federal tax cuts are resulting in a shifting of burdens to state/ local
> levels, and the middle class taxpayers, meaning most of us. Not to
> mention the shear recklessness of the debt, which will haunt us for
> many, many years.

It doesn't take a financial genius to figure that if the federal
government is going to spend tons and tons more at the same time as it
cuts revenues, it's going to show up as a hole in somebody's pocket.
But most people are apparently in agreement with the Bush analysis:
"Fuzzy math".