Xah Lee's Unixism

[CBFalconer]

Morten Reistad wrote:
> 
... snip ...
> 
> A lack of focus on world politics has been a characteristica of
> the US presidents since Eisenhower. Bush is not special, he just
> got the mess in his lap and had to deal with it; just as Nixon
> inherited the Vietnam war.

That is understandable considering the relative sizes of the US
GDP and the rest of the world (until recently), the isolationist
ethic between the wars, and such things as the world attitude that
Spain was much more then the US could bite off in 1898.  Wilson,
Roosevelt (both), Truman, Kennedy, Carter, Clinton, Nixon are
among the counter-examples.  Even Reagan, while a sad example of
domestic policy, did fairly well in the foreign affairs
department.  Elephants do not need to pay too much attention to
the surrounding fauna.

However Bush is demonstrably poor.  He ignored the warnings from
the CIA, FBI, outgoing Clinton administration about imminent
attacks.  He was focused on attacking Saddam and Iraq from the
first, and perverted 9/11 into that at the earliest opportunity. 
He has offended many more than most of his predecessors.  I will
say that he seems to have learned the names of some foreign
leaders since being elected.

-- 
"Churchill and Bush can both be considered wartime leaders, just
 as Secretariat and Mr Ed were both horses." -     James Rhodes.
"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad
 morals.  We now know that it is bad economics" -         FDR