A "Bush"elfull of Kudos to the former President

In the aftermath of the taking out of Osama Bin Ladin, I would like to give a "thank you" to the often maligned former President George W. Bush. I believe policies during his presidency and a better spirit of cooperation between the intellegence departments including the Homeland Security Office deserve much of the credit for recent events. Make no mistake I applaud current President Obama for his couragious decesion to take Bin Ladin out, but I feel Bush put in place the structure.

I was recently riled when listening to Liberal (or "progressive"..excuse me) talk show host Alan Combs tell his guest (a former Bush official) that Bush's contributions were insignificant while the all of a sudden a "strong" President Obama was able to take Bin Laden out. The conversation then swung to the state of the economy. In nearly the same breath Combs said the problems began in the Bush administration (probably worth a seperate blog) and that Obama was showing ecomonic gains. I was pleased the Bush official said it was on the backs of our children though. (another blog) The hypocracy is great here. Blame Bush for everything that is wrong and credit Obama for everything that is right even when it isn't justified.

I recently found out that President Bush declined an invitation to be at a ceremony at Ground Zero from President Obama. I appreciated Obama for doing that, but I respect Bush even more for respectully declining so as not to interfere with Obama's moment. It is refreshing to see in today's world there are still former President's who act graciously. We have too many former Presidents who cannot stay out of the limelight when many times they should (Clinton, Carter).

I may not be in the majority here...but thank you President Bush...for what you have done for this country.

Showing or Telling...what's worse?

A few days ago, Osama Bin Ladin was killed at his compound in Pakistan. It was an historic event in history. For those who had loved ones killed when the World Trade Center came down in New York, justice was served. For many around the world, relief that a terrorist regimes' leader was gone. These events alone are well worth a blog posting, but I would like to focus on the media coverage of it.

In today's world of non-stop coverage, the focus now has shifted to whether or not the White House will release photos of the killing. CNN's non stop talking heads seem to go on and on with endless guests dissecting, detailing, describing and disseminating all the possibilities on whether or not the release of the photo's will ignite another terrorist attack. As of this writing, they have not released the photos. The news is pounding us with how awful these pictures apparently are ....I don't know what is worse.. seeing the pictures or hearing about them over and over at nausium.

I personally could care less about the photo's. Kudos to President Obama for making the decision to remain vigilant and taking out the leader of the terrorist regime. Let's focus on that instead of fear of another attack.