Remembering why Donald Trump was elected
So, what were the failings of the post-Reagan administrations, some of which Mr. Trump has had the audacity to criticize? Many, if not most of the 63 million Republicans (and Democrats) who voted for Mr. Trump remember them with varying degrees of pain.
Here are just some of the most egregious:
• George H.W. Bush (four years): Caved on taxes, took the nukes out of South Korea. Drifted so far away from Reagan’s values and policies that fellow Texan Ross Perot ran on a third-party ticket, got 20 million votes, which elected Bill and Hillary Clinton by default.
• Bill Clinton (eight years): Spent most of his time chasing interns, said “I never had sex with that woman,” got impeached and disbarred for lying about it. Ignored the obvious al Qaeda terror threat despite the first bombing of the World Trade Center and attack on the USS Cole. His National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, who was his representative to the 9/11 Commission, stole highly classified, 9/11-related, original documents from the National Archives — by putting them in his socks. Did Mr. Clinton have reason to know about the impendency of 9/11? The smoking gun, if it existed, was simply stolen and destroyed. “Clinton fatigue” lasted eight years.
• George W. Bush (eight years): Mr. Bush invaded Iraq as the primary strategic response to 9/11, despite the fact that Iraq had little or nothing to do with the attacks. He found no weapons of mass destruction, but stayed on in Iraq for years, spending trillions on a goofy “democracy” policy. He disbanded Iraq’s professional military, then facilitated an Iran-backed Shiite takeover of Iraq domestic politics. The proximate cause of much of this bad policy was the Bush administration’s support of a murky character named Ahmed Chalabi, who was strongly backed by Washington’s “neocons,” especially those in very senior positions at Defense, State and the White House.
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It was this sustained 28-year record of mostly dismal failure that was the basic reason for the 2016 election result — no wonder 63 million Americans were fed up with the “swamp” in Washington. And we can also understand why no one in Washington — or on TV — wants to talk about it. It makes them all look dumb.
They would much rather criticize President Trump, so they do.
So, what were the failings of the post-Reagan administrations, some of which Mr. Trump has had the audacity to criticize? Many, if not most of the 63 million Republicans (and Democrats) who voted for Mr. Trump remember them with varying degrees of pain.
Here are just some of the most egregious:
• George H.W. Bush (four years): Caved on taxes, took the nukes out of South Korea. Drifted so far away from Reagan’s values and policies that fellow Texan Ross Perot ran on a third-party ticket, got 20 million votes, which elected Bill and Hillary Clinton by default.
• Bill Clinton (eight years): Spent most of his time chasing interns, said “I never had sex with that woman,” got impeached and disbarred for lying about it. Ignored the obvious al Qaeda terror threat despite the first bombing of the World Trade Center and attack on the USS Cole. His National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, who was his representative to the 9/11 Commission, stole highly classified, 9/11-related, original documents from the National Archives — by putting them in his socks. Did Mr. Clinton have reason to know about the impendency of 9/11? The smoking gun, if it existed, was simply stolen and destroyed. “Clinton fatigue” lasted eight years.
• George W. Bush (eight years): Mr. Bush invaded Iraq as the primary strategic response to 9/11, despite the fact that Iraq had little or nothing to do with the attacks. He found no weapons of mass destruction, but stayed on in Iraq for years, spending trillions on a goofy “democracy” policy. He disbanded Iraq’s professional military, then facilitated an Iran-backed Shiite takeover of Iraq domestic politics. The proximate cause of much of this bad policy was the Bush administration’s support of a murky character named Ahmed Chalabi, who was strongly backed by Washington’s “neocons,” especially those in very senior positions at Defense, State and the White House.
[clip]
It was this sustained 28-year record of mostly dismal failure that was the basic reason for the 2016 election result — no wonder 63 million Americans were fed up with the “swamp” in Washington. And we can also understand why no one in Washington — or on TV — wants to talk about it. It makes them all look dumb.
They would much rather criticize President Trump, so they do.