Bush Forges Weak Links to Legacies of Democratic Predecessors

[papau]

"By contrast (to Wilson paying for war), Bush is billing future generations for the war on terrorism through an increased national debt, largely because he is the first president to significantly cut taxes during wartime.....Bush comes closer to reversing Roosevelt than emulating him....Clinton had a two-step answer. First, he wanted to reduce government interest costs by paying down the national debt with the federal surplus of the late 1990s. Then he would have used the annual savings on interest to help fund Social Security. Bush instead applied the surplus to massive tax cuts that had contributed to mounting federal debts and rising interest costs. Clinton also wanted to create tax-subsidized personal investment accounts on top of Social Security; Bush wants to carve out personal accounts from Social Security by diverting part of the payroll tax that funds benefits for retirees. One would have added onto Social Security; the other would take from it."



http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-outlook31jan31,1,4741916.column?coll=la-headlines-nation
WASHINGTON OUTLOOK
Bush Forges Weak Links to Legacies of Democratic Predecessors
Ronald Brownstein

January 31, 2005

Probably the last Democratic president who held views roughly similar to President Bush's was Grover Cleveland in the late 19th century. Cleveland embodied the resistance to activist government that dominated the Democratic Party through its first century and fuels the GOP today.

But the unlamented Cleveland isn't one of the predecessors Bush and his allies are enlisting to sell his initiatives at home and abroad. Instead, they are trying to link Bush's agenda with Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Bill Clinton.

In each case, to put it mildly, the connection is a stretch. In fact, in each instance, the Bush team is citing the Democrats to sell policies that reverse the strategies those presidents pursued. It's as if General Motors were using a testimonial from Ralph Nader to sell an updated Corvair.
<snip>

[ooglymoogly]

1. great analogy

you were too kind with the updated corvair...i would have used booby trapped corvair or 'further boobytrapped' since the corvair came boobytrap equipped...i guess that was your point...never mind

[papau]

2. up is down is sold by our media without even an embarrased smile!

We need to come up with a stronger term than "mediawhore"

:-)