The measure of a man

As I strolled shopping malls on Friday, enjoying the crowds and all of their holiday cheer, I couldn’t help noticing that bookstores and kiosks have their 2008 calendars on display. Prominently shown on every top rack is this calendar—the “countdown to the end of Bush” version. Closely underneath could be seen the “countdown to victory” calendars in which a person, if so minded, could look at the images of Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama for the next year. Truth be told, in the year 1999 there were no calendars marking the end of Bill Clinton’s term in office. As much as conservatives may have disliked Clinton’s policies and behavior as president, they did not spend the two years before he left office daydreaming about how wonderful life would be when he left.

On page 7 of section C of the Daily Telegram, this story ran regarding an amazing scientific breakthrough, which one scientist called “the biological equivalent of the Wright Brothers’ first airplane.” As the subtitle says, “Scientist report using skin cells, not embryos, to produce human stem cells.” Before President Bush was presented a hostile Congress by the 2006 elections, his only veto to that point had been of a bill to greatly expand federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. By the way, translate “Embryo” as “unborn human being.” Instead of reacting to emotional pleas by the likes of Nancy Reagan, who was convinced that embryonic stem cells could be used to find a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, and Michael J. Fox, who shamelessly exploited his own Parkinson’s disease to campaign for senatorial candidates who promised to spend more taxpayer dollars on embryonic research, and even John Edwards, who claimed that Embryonic stem cells were so wonderful that one day paraplegics like Christopher Reeve (since deceased) would be able to rise and walk again, Bush stood his moral and ethical ground. Look at the results: now there is definitive research with adult stem cells that show much more promise at curing disease than embryonic stem cells ever have shown.

This week, Australia elected a new prime minister, ousting Tory John Howard, a friend and ally of President Bush, in favor of Kevin Rudd, a Labor-liberal who promised that his first acts would be to pull the 900 Australian troops out of Iraq and sign the Kyoto Protocols against global warming. Once again, if President Bush listened to the likes of Al Gore, and made emotional decisions based on spurious and dubious science (oh, no, the poor polar bears ‘sniff’), perhaps the United States would now be bound to the ridiculous, useless, and ineffective carbon-reduction measures required by Kyoto and instead of a strong (everywhere but Michigan, that is) economy, we would be in recession.

Good news continues to come from Iraq. Civilian deaths are down for the fourth consecutive month. Even the Democrat presidential challengers cannot deny that progress and success on the ground has occurred, and concede that the 2008 presidential election may not be about “who can pull the troops out of Iraq first” but about things like taxes and the economy and national security. But what if President Bush had cared more about his personal popularity and whether people were making calendars about him and less about committing to victory and peace, not surrender and “peace” that just emboldens the global jihadists to strike again because America showed it did not have the guts to fight to win?

What I mean to say is, what planet do people who buy the “Bush—countdown to the end” calendar live on? What country’s prosperity and rights do they enjoy? How have their lives been ruined by his years in office? Sometimes a president’s greatness and legacy is not measured by their popularity while in office (Andrew Jackson, for example, who was incredibly popular but who is responsible for the Indian Removal act and the Trail of Tears) but by the long-term results of their decisions. Abraham Lincoln was reviled and despised by most Americans while he was president. (Yes, I am still factoring in the states of the Confederacy as Americans). Now, he is recognized as arguably the best president our country has ever had.

Either use your comment space to react to any of the stories above, or suggest another accomplishment (or terrible disaster, depending on your perspective) of the past 8 years that you feel is worthy of note by your fellow students.