Salon.com excerpted Blumenthal's introduction to the book, "How bad is he?". (without a subscription, the viewer must navigate through various advertisements to view this article)
It is an amazing catalog of where the President has traveled in domestic and international affairs and a sad statement of what the country has received in terms of marginal support for an Amdinistration bent on power and control.
A single paragraph from the first several passages sets the tone:
"Trying to remove the suspicion that falls on conservative Republicans, he pledged that he would protect the solvency of Social Security. On foreign policy, he said he would be "humble": "If we're an arrogant nation, they'll view us that way, but if we're a humble nation, they'll respect us." Here he was criticizing Clinton's peacemaking and nation-building efforts in the Balkans and suggesting he would be far more restrained. The sharpest criticism he made of Clinton's foreign policy was that he would be more mindful of the civil liberties of Arabs accused of terrorism: "Arab-Americans are racially profiled in what's called secret evidence. People are stopped, and we got to do something about that." This statement was not an off-the-cuff remark, but carefully crafted and presented in one of the debates with Vice President Al Gore. Bush's intent was to win an endorsement from the American Muslim Council, which was cued to back him after he delivered his debating point, and it was instrumental in his winning an overwhelming share of Muslims' votes, about 90,000 of which were in Florida."
There are two years and several months to his tenure left. One can hope the country doesn't suffer more damage by even bolder escapades both domestic and worldly by this President.
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