President Bush has long held true to the chief responsibility of the President to protect the nation’s people and extend that protection—when able—to other people of other nations when they are vulnerable and no one else steps forward to help, and this article from the Wall Street Journal remarks on that record.
An excerpt.
“If you've ever been through a G-8 Summit, right about now you're probably feeling like Bill Murray in "Groundhog Day." That's the one where he plays a man forced to live the same day over and over.
“In much the same way, G-8 meetings follow a familiar script year after year. They begin with leaders issuing lofty statements on a checklist of "global challenges." They continue with TV footage of riot police struggling with the global protester brigade. And they finish with news stories quoting unnamed diplomats sighing that American obstinacy has just lost the world its last chance for some great advance on some issue vital for humanity.
“The good news is that this week's summit in Japan may be the one in which we finally awake from the G-8 version of "Groundhog Day." And when we do, we will find that the president has now succeeded in baking into the G-8 process a time-honored Texas principle. It's called "put up or shut up."
“That's not how it will read in the official G-8 communiqués, of course. Instead, these statements will speak diplomatically of "accountability." And this time, they will give us something we have never seen before: country-by-country breakdowns of how well nations are living up to their G-8 commitments.
“What a revolutionary concept: Judging a nation's commitment to problem-solving by whether its money matches its mouth. The first reports come out today, and will track how well G-8 members live up to promises to tackle health scourges such as polio, HIV/AIDS and malaria. These reports should have a salutary effect on the public debate.
“For while the rhetoric about Uncle Sam's global leadership tends to the harsh and negative, the record tells a different story. Under President George W. Bush, the U.S. has taken the lead on issues from combating malaria to breaking down trade barriers that keep the crops of poor African farmers out of First World markets. No one else is even close.”
Lampstand Foundation website, http://www.lampstandfoundation.org/
"The sinner is at the very heart of Christianity. Nobody is so competent as the sinner in matters of Christianity. Nobody, except the saint." Charles Peguy (1873-1914)
About
- David H. Lukenbill
- I am a California native, married, we have one daughter and live close to the American River with two cats and all the wild critters we can feed. I am a management consultant to nonprofit organizations and have an Associates of Arts degree in Administration of Justice from Sacramento City College, a Bachelor of Science degree in Organizational Behavior from the University of San Francisco and a Master of Public Administration degree, also from the University of San Francisco.