Ben Stein: Bush Is Not All Bad
Iraq Is A Mess, But There Is A Lot Of Good In the U.S.
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Sunday Morning commentator Ben Stein says Iraq is a mess, but things are not all bad under President Bush. (AP)
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Interactive New Plan For Iraq Key elements of the plan, excerpts from the president's speech, reaction and more.
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In The Spotlight Bush's New Iraq Strategy A glimpse at some of the key elements in President Bush's new plan for Iraq.
After the State Of The Union speech a few days ago, a muttering chorus of media critics told us endlessly that Bush was irrelevant, a loser, out of touch, even pitiful. NPR actually had Merle Haggard, the Okie from Muskogee, claim that the state of the nation had never been worse. And suddenly it hit me. The media is staging a coup against Mr. Bush, just the way they did against LBJ and Nixon and tried to do against Reagan. They cannot impeach Bush because only Congress can do that. But the media is doing what it can to basically oust Mr. Bush while still leaving him lifting weights in the White House. Look, Merle Haggard is a great singer. But he knows nothing of what's up in America right now.
The truth is that we are in a huge economic boom. We are coming off a mammoth real estate explosion that put the most Americans in history in their own homes. We have totally full employment. After decades of stagnation, real wages are rising. The nation is wealthier than it has ever been (although this is very unevenly distributed). Most important of all, there has not been one major or even minor successful terrorist incident against the U.S. homeland in over five years. Bush may not have done it by himself, but he had something to do with it.
True, we are mired in a war without end, costing us far too many great young and old Americans and too many limbs and wrecked families and vastly too much money. But we all know we're getting out soon.
It was a huge mistake, but I'd like to see a President who did not make immense mistakes. What about Vietnam? What about Korea?
True, the rich often get away with murder in the executive suite. Bush is partly to blame, but all politicians cater to the rich. What America's high degree thieves suck out of the system is nauseating and I fight it constantly, but that's life.
Let's be honest. Let's admit that Bush has presided over a lot of success in addition to some serious failures.
But no one elected the media to anything. In the TV studios and newsrooms, there is a lynch mob at work. Let's see it for what it is. Mr. Bush is the only President we have, and, with all his faults, I trust him a lot more than I trust the unelected princes and princesses of the newsroom.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."





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See all 245 CommentsYour analysis of the economics of the Bush years is outrageously dishonest! Bush who started with surplus has spent the comiong generations into oblivion. I Think the kind of idiocy you talked about last sunday belongs on Fox news and insults CBS news. It was all too dumb to be broadcast.
denny abrams
It strikes me that a man of your intellect could write an excellent comparison between the harm that Nixon did to our Nation (an overt act that was punishable); and, the harm that Clinton did to our Nation (a series of actions that subtlely - and forever - weakened the moral fiber of our nation).
Excuse my spelling.
Gordon L. Finley
Arizona
U.S.: Israel may have violated cluster bomb use
The United States said on Monday Israel may have violated an agreement with Washington in its use of U.S.-made cluster bombs during last July's war with Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16
870496/from/ET/
Why doesn't veryone check this out - don't think it's even mentioned on CBS - lots of kids playing in their yards now are either dead or without arms, legs, eyes, hands. IDF ers are real humanitarians - if you're a Jew, anyone else is just a "human shield". Right.
1) The HUGE federal deficit
2) The HUGE trade imbalance
3) The HUGE split between haves and have nots.
4) The HUGE greed displayed by major corporations and the executives who run them.
5) The HUGE number of uninsured.
This country is being driven into the ground. You and people like you hide behind averages. It is like this country is being run by organized crime.
****.
Keep up the fight, anyway%u2026
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See all 245 Comments