President Bush has created his own mess and thus has become such a polarizing figure that you either hate him or love him. So much of what is going on in this country is attributable to his administration’s flawed policies and his insistence that they are above the law and the constitution. It’s understandable that some would see it as a gross misrepresentation of their values and beliefs. And to say that the faculty lacks discipline to practice what they preach (tolerance, open-mindedness) is somewhat distorted considering that the President has had a blatant disregard for the growing opposition and weariness to the war while impinging on our civil liberties.

It must be disheartening to those students who will not get to see some of their professor’s in attendance but they must not confuse what they see as a lack of open-mindedness or intolerance with what is essentially a remonstration.

The best commentary I have read thus far comes from Will Bunch of Philadelphia Daily News. Some lines that stood out:

But what Bush did in Israel this morning goes well beyond the accepted confines of American political debate. When the president speaks to a foreign parliament on behalf of our country, his message needs to be clear and unambiguous. Our democracy may look messy to outsiders…but at the end of the day we are not Republicans or Democrats or liberals or conservatives.

We are Americans.

Exactly. It’s like when a husband and wife fight, they each tell their close friends about the fight in an attempt to win them over for support. But really, the friends don’t want to get involved as it isn’t their place. Oh, and to the man who stopped golfing to honor the mothers of those brave soldiers who died in the war:

To use a diplomatic setting on foreign soil to score a cheap political point at home is way beneath your office, way beneath your country, and way beneath the people you serve.

The whole spiel is worth a read.

I think our anti-war Representatives and Senators are compromising on their values and succumbing to the bullying tactics of both the White House and other pro-war lobbyists and politicians. I find it ridiculous that we can keep funding a failed war for which we have no real answer for our occupation in the area and at the same time can’t provide for those who live in our own country (eg the poor, those without healthcare, etc).

Another important bill passed recently with the Democrats again heeding to the Republican demands. The Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), which originally meant to tax the wealthy who usually end up paying little to no taxes, has in recent years affected more and more households which aren’t considered to be especially wealthy. Congress finally decided to take action and curb those affected by the AMT who should not be. I’ll discuss further in depth about the AMT in another post but for now suffice it to say that there needs to be a “patch” to fix the AMT rules. This patch was written but was immediately criticized by Republicans saying that the provisions to pay for the bill are too costly. So the bill was re-written to take out those provisions meaning we would be spending money to save money. For now it is a debatable topic over whether or not that was a wise choice but with our national debt increasing at a fast rate, there needs to be some reform over the AMT so it does not hurt those who it did not intend to affect.

And finally, it doesn’t make sense to fund a war when we have less and less funds to provide towards it. The Bush tax cuts of 2001 just make it worse since lower taxes equates to lower revenue for the government. Yet War spending and defense budgets are exorbitant and are ultimately going to cost taxpayers a lot more over the long haul. All of this is just too complex and needs to be handled by apt politicians who know what to do. And from the looks of it, we have a while until it will be solved. The Democrats need to stop yielding to Republican and White House demands and should start passing legislation that they promised when taking the majority in 2006. At this point, the Democratic compromise and reluctance is not what is needed to fix this country.