I thought this article about
Clinton expressing regret and personal failure over not stopping the Rwandan genocide contrasted nicely with the current Bush administration's failure to take responsibility for pretty much anything.
"I express regret for my personal failure," Clinton said before touring the museum, which features graphic images of people being decapitated and bodies twitching on the road.
"I think it faithfully, honestly, painfully presents the truth of the Rwandan genocide," he told reporters after seeing the museum which his Clinton Foundation partially funded. "It is an important contribution to the history of the world, that the world cannot afford to forget."
...
Clinton administration officials avoided the word [genocide] in public for fear it would spark an outcry for action they were loathe to take, six months after U.S. troops were killed by Somali warlords in Mogadishu.
And then when I read
this editorial about Bush's failings and the opportunities they have created for the Democrats, I had to contrast them. The whole piece is a home run, but I liked two quotes especially, to compare to what Clinton said above:
President Clinton's success became all the more apparent when juxtaposed with President George W. Bush's gross failure on the same subjects. We have a record deficit, out of control government spending and a larger and more intrusive government than ever before. What happened to fiscal and personal responsibility?
All we hear now is excuses. There was a recession, September 11th, business cycles, yada, yada, yada. It's your presidency now and you own it. You didn't have to spend $198 billion in Iraq and still counting, you don't have to keep buying nuclear missiles for our Trident submarines, you don't have to spend $10 billion on a defense missile shield which isn't going to work, you don't have to give away $12 billion to the energy companies for "energy exploration" (read "oil drilling"), you don't have to give Halliburton a $72 million bonus (yes, I said bonus), you don't have to have billions of dollars in farm subsidies, etc., etc. Corporate welfare is still welfare. What happened to personal responsibility?
...
This president does not understand the consequences of his decisions. He never has. When he did poorly in school, his father got him into a better school. When a war started, his father got him out of the war. When he didn't take his physical in the National Guard, powerful people made sure he didn't have to. When he did poorly in his businesses, his father's friends started new businesses for him with new investments.
The rest of us learn the hard way that if you run a business into the ground, Texas and Saudi millionaires don't materialize out of nowhere to give you millions more for a new business. When you don't take your required physical in the Armed Forces, you get court-martialed. When you don't do well in school, you don't get a great job, like the owner of the Texas Rangers or President of the United States. And when you start war, your daddy won't be able to bail you out of it if you didn't properly prepare.
Remember the 90s? Peace, prosperity, and a press corps obsessed with possible oval office blowjobs. Seems quaint, compared to the burgeoning worldwide terrorism we have now, fueled by constant reports of US soldiers torturing prisoners in Iraq and Cuba, and the smoldering fuse of civil war in Iraq.
And with that happy news item, enjoy your Sunday!
