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Tribune Review Should Opine Honestly
Posted
9-14-2000
With the ability to share ideas through this web site and the
opportunity to write a monthly column for a number of local newspapers, I
rarely write letters to the editor of the Tribune Review anymore. But a few
weeks ago, when they wrote an editorial claiming that we weren’t better off
after eight years of the Clinton Administration, I felt compelled to write a
letter to the Trib telling them they must be delusional. We all know the the
Trib is NEVER going to say anything good about Bill Clinton or Al Gore, but
they should at least opine honestly what has transpired during the last
eight years.
Whether you are a Democrat or
Republican, you cannot deny that finally the federal budget is under control
and the primary action that caused that improvement of federal spending was
the Balanced Budget Act of 1993. It was legislation that ultimately cost the
Democrats control of Congress, but that was because people didn’t
immediately see its benefits. Until the federal government got its act
together, the economy didn’t really boom. Once that happened, we saw the
national economy rush forward with unprecedented success during the second
half of the 90’s.
The Tribune Review also
criticized Bill Clinton for leading our country into some type of moral
decline. While he behaved inappropriately, Republican leaders such as
Gingrich, Livingston, and Hyde did too, and if they had to testify under
oath about having an affair, they’d have lied. Infidelity certainly didn’t
start during the Clinton years, and it hasn’t increased either. Morality is
an individual responsibility, and I’m sure when we delve into George W.
Bush’s past, we’ll see he was no altar boy.
Also, the Trib challenged
that our international reputation has declined during the last eight years.
That idea is ridiculous. While a certain portion of our population has never
and will never like Bill Clinton, international leaders recognize his
commitment to world peace. He had a hand in bringing parties to the table in
Northern Ireland, the Middle East, and Korea. He also DIDN’T lead us on
misadventures like Somalia, Panama, Grenada, and Lebanon. When he’s had to
be tough with dictators like Moammar Khadafi and Slobodan Milosevich, he has
done so.
What has been most
interesting has been the response that my letter elicited from different
people. Democrats have been very happy that finally someone spoke out
against the Trib’s editorial slant. I had calls at home from strangers, and
I'm still running into folks that enjoyed the letter. On the other hand, the
Trib seems to be running daily letters from Republicans who are taking me to
task for my views.
Some of the responses are
humorous. I closed my letter by saying that even the Trib can’t find any
evidence of the Republican Party ever doing anything for working people. If
you look at the last 65 years, that has been the case. Social Security, the
eight hour workday, safer working conditions, Medicare, civil rights, voting
rights, and even the Family and Medical Leave Act were all the work of
Democrats. One letter writer went back to the creation of the Panama Canal
saying it was built by a Republican and given away by a Democrat. He also
stated Lincoln wanted to preserve the Union and his Democrat opponent in
1864 had supported southern states’ rights. It is pretty sad that the writer
couldn’t come up with anything useful the Republicans did since those
events. By the way, doesn’t the Canal belong to Panamanians? It is in THEIR
country. We took land off of Columbia to create Panama and build the Canal,
the least we could do is let them govern their own country and its assets.
Another writer said that
Democrats only gave us big government and that Clinton’s affair was
different than the Republicans' because he lied under oath about it. I guess
in that writer’s eyes, the affair isn’t immoral, only lying under oath about
it is. The big government he talks about is one that has ensured programs
like Medicare and Social Security have been administered to millions of
Americans for many years. The most recent letter writer simply gives a
litany of things that he doesn’t like about Bill Clinton. It is apparent
that no matter what Bill Clinton has done, this writer would give him no
credit.
The most interesting thing
about the responses is that none of them refute what I said in my letter. We
are better off than we were eight years ago. One may not like Bill Clinton
and may not want to give him credit, but our country has moved forward on
his watch. I’ll bet that generations from now, when historians are looking
at facts like economic progress, controlling of the federal budget, and debt
reduction, they will say it happened during Bill Clinton’s years, not some
Republican Congress’. Whether it’s Clinton, Jefferson, Roosevelt, or Ronald
Reagan, good or bad, history identifies events during a President’s term of
office as being credited for or against that President. Does anyone believe
if the economy had gone in the tank, or we had ended up at war, Bill Clinton
wouldn’t be getting the blame? So correspondingly, he deserves the credit
for a country clearly better off than it was eight years ago. |
