The Case for President Bush

Should the President be reelected?

by Heidi Parent
10/16/04

“The great difference between the real leader and the pretender is that the one sees into the future, while the other regards only the present; the one lives by the day and acts upon expediency; the other acts on enduring principles and for the immorality.” --- Edmund Burke

The home stretch of the campaign is upon us. Both sides have solidified their respective base. Bush has done this mostly by being who he is and Kerry has done it mostly by being not Bush. But there still is that group of undecided voters lurking among us. Frankly, I don't see how one can be undecided this late in the campaign, especially when the differences between the two candidates are so striking. But just like that friend who is perpetually late, there are those who can't be bothered to make up their minds until the last minute. And it is to these voters that I address the following column. It's a column based on a simple premise: Should President Bush be reelected? Let's examine the record.

The President entered office with two main promises: improve education (specifically, student reading skills) and lower taxes.

Once in office he immediately began work on his first promise and the No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law within the President's first year. Among other things the Act requires schools to develop standards that ensure students are performing at grade level. And for the first time, federal funding is linked to school performance. Incredibly, many schools chose not to participate. This of course meant that they would not have to comply with the standards. But it also meant they would forgo their piece of the pie. So despite the claims by Democrats that the No Child Left Behind act is unfunded (in fact, to the chagrin of many Conservatives, President Bush has increased federal funding for education by 49 percent), the truth is many schools are passing up their share because of they don't want to be held accountable.

The President's second promise was to lower taxes – for everyone. This promise was also met his first year in office. The tax rates when the President took office were 15, 28, 31, 36, and 39.6%. After his tax cut, the rates were simplified and lowered to 10, 15, 25, and 33%. So despite claims by John Kerry, tax cuts were not given to only The Rich; everyone is paying less in federal income taxes. In addition, the death tax has been eliminated, the marriage penalty tax has been reduced, and the child tax credit has been doubled.

That covers what the President promised to do once he took office. What about what he found he had to do once he was there?

As we went to the polls in November 2000, no one could have predicted the horror that lay in store ten months later. And as we head to the polls in November 2004, another September 11th is certainly a possibility. Our votes should consider this harsh reality, so let's look at the president's record.

Since the 9/11 attacks, the President not only took action against al Qaeda, he made a drastic, but needed, change to our foreign policy. In developing the Bush Doctrine, the President made two crucial decisions. First, we will make no distinction between terrorists and those who harbor and support them and second, America reserves the right to take preemptive action when she sees a gathering threat. In other words, instead of waiting to be hit again, President Bush decided to take the war to the terrorists. The war in Iraq is based on this doctrine.

Despite claims by Democrats that Saddam had no connection to terrorists, evidence to the contrary is overwhelming. It is indisputable that Saddam provided training camps, safe haven, and financial assistance to terrorist groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad. There is also evidence from several intelligence agencies that links Saddam's regime with members of al Qaeda. Now couple this track record with the fact that we knew Saddam possessed and used biological and chemical weapons in the past and one can only come to the same deadly conclusion; a conclusion the President was not willing to let play out. And any President who looked at this evidence and saw anything other than a gathering danger would have been either willfully blind or derelict. Moreover, the fact that we have not found WMDs in Iraq does not change the reality that Saddam on his own posed a threat, and would have posed an even bigger threat if he were allowed to ratchet up his collaborative relationship with terrorist groups.

But John Kerry apparently has a different view (at least as of this writing). He calls the war in Iraq “the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time” and one that distracted us from “the real” War on Terror. Now if Kerry believes going into Iraq was a mistake, one can only infer that his plan would be to rid the world of al Qaeda and nothing more. In other words, the war in Afghanistan was acceptable, but we should have stopped there. This strategy makes it clear that John Kerry possesses an immediate view of the world, but what about tomorrow? What is his plan to change a culture that is breeding tomorrow's terrorist?

President Bush, by contrast, recognizes that the War on Terror is more than fighting Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. It is a war against a culture of evil and hate in the form of radical Islam that was allowed to fester for more that twenty years. That is why he has taken action in Iraq. He realizes that bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East will have more of a positive affect on changing the culture than bullets ever will. He also realizes that it will take more than three years to be successful. Unlike John Kerry who promises immediate results, President Bush understands this will be a long, hard road. But it is a road we must take in order to secure a peaceful future.

I recently had a conversation with a friend about how history will view President Bush. His contention was that Bush is not destined to be remembered as a great President. I couldn't disagree more. I believe that President Bush has the chance to be remembered as one of our greatest Presidents. Now many find this opinion laughable because the Left has succeeded in portraying George W. Bush as an illiterate who can't tie his own shoes. But to the doubters, I have only two words: Ronald Reagan.

President Reagan was also characterized by the Left as a simpleton who merely read whatever his handlers placed in front of him. But the truth is Ronald Reagan was a man of vision and strong conviction who entered office with two things in mind: lowering taxes and winning the Cold War. He delivered on his first promise almost immediately. The second took a little longer, but he fulfilled that promise too.

But it is crucial to this comparison that we look at how he defeated the Soviets. Reagan won by waging a two front war: an increased arms race (one with which the Soviets could not compete) and promoting freedom in areas under Soviet domination. (Sound familiar?)

Even when faced with overwhelming – and I do mean overwhelming – opposition, criticism, and second-guessing from his opponents as well as many of his supporters, Reagan did not waver. (Sound familiar?) Well, we all now how the story ended. Thanks to Ronald Reagan's vision and conviction the Soviet Union fell and millions of people were freed. (Sound familiar?) And almost twenty years later, history views Ronald Reagan as one of our greatest Presidents. Does history hold the same fate for President Bush? We will never know unless he is allowed to finish the job.

And that is why I make this case for President Bush's reelection. Because of the dangerous world in which we now live, we cannot entrust our future to someone who doesn't understand the war in which we are now engaged. Would the Cold War have ended if Walter Mondale won in 1984? Considering Mondale opposed virtually every aspect of Reagan's Cold War strategy – a strategy that proved successful, I might add – the answer is most likely no. Will radical Islamic terrorists be defeated if John Kerry wins in 2004?

That is the question you must ask yourself before you pull that lever.