Posted on 12/30/2004 1:50:06 PM PST by Kitten Festival
It's an amazing irony that Bill Clinton, of all people, should be the first American up to the microphone to snipe at President Bush's tsunami response, less than four days after the catastrophe. Of course, nobody could outrace a United Nations bureaucrat for the honors, but Clinton’s effort still wins him "progressive" style points in this informal branch of the Olympic Games. ... Investor's Business Daily has one of the best editorials scorning the ex-president's disgusting performance, but many other media organs are muted on the subject.
Using the cocktail chatter language of the Davos and United Nations VIP lounge crowd, Clinton had the gall to claim President Bush's response isn't fast enough...
Clinton is not only a compulsive showboater, though, he is also an unusual hypocrite. While Clinton takes potshots at Bush, the mind reels at his own performance in Southeast Asia during his presidency.
Six years ago, Southeast Asia underwent another huge catastrophe, the great Asian Currency Crisis of 1997-1998. It was a terrible destruction of wealth and savings, impoverishing and – yes – killing, while ending hope and spreading despair in Asia's dynamic emerging Tiger economies. Less than a generation earlier, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia bravely lifted themselves out of begging-bowl poverty, while Malaysia ascended the economic ladder toward cutting edge industrialization and Singapore became world-class city state. That crisis robbed Asians of their futures. And while President Bush vowed to lead the tsunami cleanup efforts, Bill Clinton ignored the great Asian Crisis for months before acting. When he finally got around to it, he exacerbated the problem by turning it all over to multilateral agencies, delaying Asia's recovery. Quite a performance.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
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