CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM
This law has been referred to a lot on this thread, as an example of how the President should NOT have acted. So let's examine it. Does anyone besides me recall that CFR was deader than dinosaur crap until it was ressurrected by events (think ENRON and other scandals)? This is an IDEAL example of how random events can affect legislation. Add to the scandals the fact that the President and his party were in an all-out battle to retake the Senate and hold the House at the time. I make NO value judgements here, mind you, but only observe. Draw your own conclusions.
DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN
2004, Hmmmm. A presidential election. A weak economy. A Republican named "Bush" coming off a successful war with a high approval rating. An onerous "gun-control" controversy in the making...why do I get the feeling that I've been here before? And didn't the PREVIOUS President Bush's "gun control" controversy grow out of a single event, i.e. a massacre by a goblin using an "evil" rifle? Just musing...
CRYSTAL BALL TIME
2004. The economy is still weak, but the President's polling numbers are still above 50%, only barely. an upstart, young, and slick-talking Democrat is his opponent, and is rising in the polls. The President would like to be re-elected by a comfortable majority to set aside forever the "illegitemite, selected-by-SCOTUS" horse that the Left has been beating for four years, as well as have enough "coattails" to preserve and increase his legislative majority, putting a few Senate and House Leftists like Schumer and Daschle out of work as a bonus.
The AW law is due to sunset, and most pols, knowlegable of previous elections' turning on the issue of "gun control", are happy to let it do so, quietly. Only a few true ignorables, like Schumer, Fienstein, and Kennedy are making any noise at all about it, and to little avail. The President himself is saying nothing, letting the law take its course. Everyone's happy, life is good.
And, on a sunny Summer day, in a small town somewhere, a very sick individual with a heart full of hate is cocking one of several semi-auto weapons in his possession, whilst staring intently at a school, or a church, or possibly a mall...
A SINGLE EVENT is a-borning.
The President, and his advisors, cannot have failed to foresee this scenario. It must therefore be affecting their overall planning.
I DO notice that most of the statements that Mr. Fleischer has made are VERY "qualified": "Banning sales of assault weapons to juveniles"; "Banning the importation of hi-capacity magazines"...food for thought.
Bottom line for me, I'll give the President the benefit of the doubt on this one. He's not dissapointed me severely yet, and the prospect of having ANOTHER traitorous Democrat as a CinC makes me retch.
Barring unseen events, the AW ban will sunset. Those events could be a bitch, though, and we must understand that they can place ANY politician in a bad position. Once again, it will be the actions of an individual or individuals that is our undoing. However, as others have noted, we simply MUST let all our reps know how we feel, and ENSURE that this law dies its misbegotten death at THEIR hands, and that they must NOT place the President in that predicament again! They must learn to do THEIR jobs preserving the Constitution as well, IMHO.
Just my two bits, for what it's worth.
There are tactical losses and draws that annoy me enormously, from the Patriot Act, to CFR, to assault weapons restrictions. But I have also seen this President jettison the infernal Kyoto accords, deep-six the ICC, and take a stand against the racism of affirmative action. And he prosecuted the war with Iraq brilliantly, straight-up, and in the face of every two bit leftist and defeatist that currently draws breath.
Overall, we're making progress, tacking against a socialist wind that the Democrats had almost sixty years to stoke to Hurricane velocity.