Not vetoed a spending bill: He supposedly had a Republican Congress which were supposed to be his “friends”. You don’t make enemies of people who you need to fight a war on terror.
Education: Pure deal-making with a supposedly Republican Congress and liberals demanding compensation for losing a close election. To his credit, Bush did try and institute some standards for getting the money.
Immigration: I believe it was a matter of timing as I noted in another response. In the first term, the economy would have suffered from such a crack down. In the second term, we see more of it. Surely the result of conservative pressure but also made more palatable by an improved economy.
etc, etc... Don’t it always seem to go, That you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone
To a point. Bush was supposed to lead Congress. I have always thought that Congress, especially in the first two years of his presidency, wanted him to lead them into a stronger conservative direction. When they saw he had no intention of stopping pork and, in fact, proposed increased spending they said, "What the heck? Why not do it ourselves?". And, off we went.
Education: Pure deal-making with a supposedly Republican Congress and liberals demanding compensation for losing a close election. To his credit, Bush did try and institute some standards for getting the money.
Once agian. He could have stood up to the liberals. He had a republican Congress waiting to support him.
Immigration: I believe it was a matter of timing as I noted in another response. In the first term, the economy would have suffered from such a crack down. In the second term, we see more of it. Surely the result of conservative pressure but also made more palatable by an improved economy.
Bush has always wanted a "new America". He was convinced that people like you and me gave him a mandate to do before he was even elected.
If 9-11 hadn't happened where do you think we'd be today?
We are now one of the largest Spanish-speaking nations in the world. We're a major source of Latin music, journalism and culture. Just go to Miami, or San Antonio, Los Angeles, Chicago or West New York, New Jersey ... and close your eyes and listen. You could just as easily be in Santo Domingo or Santiago, or San Miguel de Allende. For years our nation has debated this change -- some have praised it and others have resented it. By nominating me, my party has made a choice to welcome the new America. As I speak, we are celebrating the success of democracy in Mexico. George Bush from a campaign speech in Miami, August 2000. |
Here is an excerpt of a good critique of that speech:
In equating our intimate historic bonds to our mother country and to Canada with our ties to Mexico, W. shows a staggering ignorance of the civilizational facts of life. The reason we are so close to Britain and Canada is that we share with them a common historical culture, language, literature, and legal system, as well as similar standards of behavior, expectations of public officials, and so on. My Bush Epiphany By Lawrence Auster