Dow drops to 5 year low after speech

[tw]

Originally posted by Tobiasly
Just out of curiosity tw, did Clinton or his friends ever do anything wrong?

For that matter, have Dubya or his friends ever done anything right?

Clinton's first two years were just terrible. It took him time to get his staff together and functional. I never did vote for Clinton. But then Clinton's first two years were not as bad as George Jr.

George Jr promised to be a man of consensus. It was said that much of what he did in TX was in concert with the TX Democratic party. However, and so far, he has done anything but that. He has been adversarial and confrontational. Christie Whitman is told what the EPA will decide. The China Spy Plane incident demonstrated who really runs the henhouse. Colin Powell appears to be running a rear guard action as right wing extremist dictate policies that in some case, the entire G-8 and entire UN Security Council disagree with - and rightly so.

The Economist recently did a piece on Tony Blair, George Jr's closest international ally. Blair's own domestic popularity and EU influence are both being undermined by his association with George Jr. Our other closest friends are talking among themselves in worry about a less responsible 800 pound gorilla that now act unilaterally - without even consulting its closest friends.

In April 2001, the 2002 budget as submitted, reduced the SEC staff when it was long obvious even during in the Clinton Administration that SEC needed massively more staff, money, and enforcment power. Even worse, turnover in the SEC is so high that the entire staff is virtually gone within three years.

Even worse is Harvey Pitts (SEC Commissioner) response. He wants a trivial $100 million for staff overtime - the number of companies now in SEC investigation is a continuous, weekly wave. Even Cheney's Haliburton is under investigation. But the SEC commissioner sees no conflict of interest in investigating the man who hired him. Almost as if the SEC commissioner was told at the White House what the SEC needs do. Decisions based first upon what is written in the political bible - facts of the problem be damned.

Clinton badly mishandled early government direction changes such as health insurance and gays in military. But Clinton at least did not try to gut basic government services when those services were most required and did not massively increase government spending in wild and unnecessary functions. Clinton did not submit outright budget lies such as a massively reorganized Homeland Security office that would cost $0 - classic MBA thinking to make the books look as the top man wants them to look - reality be damned.

George Jr has also demonstrated two poor years. Only his radical extremist supporters would have said otherwise. The question is whether he can rein in his extrmists and move forward with what government really needs to address - domestic issues being number 1. George Jr has a fear of doing anything Clinton - therefore will not say "Its the economy stupid".

So far, George Jr's agenda has been only to do everything different from Clinton - facts and issues be damned. As a result, other nations are now openly grumbling that they must do something about an irresponsible and unconstrained 800 Lbs gorrilla that threatens to make life difficult for all. Those nations are suppose to be America's closest friends.

Rather scary how this administration is meddling in the politics and policies of virtually every nation in Central Asia and Middle East. This warmongering attitude - to see enemies everywere - are what got us into VietNam. That would not be so bad except that George Jr and his adminstration do so without any apparent foresight as to the dangers they expose us to. Just the planning for an unjustified attack on Iraq demonstrates how naive this adminstration is about getting into quicksand - without any real agenda and by outrightly ignoring the lessons of history.

George Jr has had a terrible two years. Like Clinton, he could reform. However George Jr's future plans are only for things that will make things worse. Unjustified attacks on other nations. The destruction of government budget surpluses so quickly. Even a pathetic response to widespread corporate corruption. These are not things a president does today to say next year that he has improved America. When it comes to major Presidental functions, this president has yet so accomplish anything positive. The massive budget deficit created so quickly in combination with mythical budget control on spending suggest things have only started to get worse. In thirty years, no President, except Nixon, has ever earned so little respect so quickly.