Mood:
brightTopic: Politics
As I explained in an earlier post, I voted last Wednesday to re-elect George W. Bush. A commenter asked if it was a clear cut decision or if I had some reservations.
I do have some reservations about President Bush. It is rare that any one of us would agree exactly with any other person. But I have more reservations about John Kerry and decided not to vote for a third party candidate.
Let's look at the major issues raised during the campaign.
Iraq, the War on Terror and Foreign Policy. I believe the war against Iraq was valid at the time. From what we know at the moment, the intelligence was wrong. The reasons are enumerated in a comment here:
1. WMD productionMy disagreements with the President in this area was in perhaps going to war too quickly. But in saying that, I'm not sure the exact imminence pointed to by intelligence. I think we could have tried to get especially NATO to go with us.
2. US Policy since 1998 of regime change in Iraq
3. Violation of various UN resolutions
4. Unwillingness to be forthright about WMD's
5. Aggressiveness toward planes in the no-fly zone
6. Ties to Al Qaeda
7. Slaughter of the Iraqi people
I also think the White House was a far too optimistic in its assessment of how Iraq would be secured afterwards.
We should continue to prosecute the war on terror. Kerry's charge about Tora Bora is campaign rhetoric and doesn't square with earlier statements (a habit of his).
The economy. The economy has faced some pressures with the ending of the so-called "dot com boom" and the results of 9/11. These were countered with the President's tax cuts. Now many are wringing there hands about a deficit, but if you will compare previous years (going back to WW2 and WW1) there were years when there were much greater deficits as compared with the total budget or the GNP. I lived through the "stagflation" of the 70's and early 80's, so this so-called "recession" is laughable. Outsourcing really accounts for a small percentage of job losses, but I realize that's small comfort to one who has lost their job in this way. No specific plan has been put forward for Social Security, so I can't comment except for the fact that some reform or fix is needed.
Simply put, I believe George Bush's response to terrorism and the economy is better than it would have been under Gore, and will be better than Kerry's.
NOTE: I posted this before I have all the links for some of the things written about here. I will add the links as I have time.
Posted by Dean
at 1:00 AM CST
