In the last edition of Middleburg Eccentric, a letter to the editor asked readers to help President Bush "finish the job" by giving him their vote this November. In support of the President, the author of the letter listed a variety of policy areas in which he, the author, feels President Bush has done a fantastic job. Topics such as the current state of the nation's economy, the President's contributions to homeland defense, and the current administration's work with the environment were all discussed in glowing terms. Unfortunately, upon closer examination, the President's track record on these issues is less stellar than described in that letter.

In reality, economic growth has, once again, slowed; there is a serious credibility gap between the President's rhetoric on strengthening homeland defense and what is really taking place; and the current administration's stewardship of the environment has been handed over to big business.

Looking more closely, last month's letter to the editor mentioned that "the economy is strong and getting stronger." To the contrary, I believe that things are much more mixed than that statement indicates. The truth is that as Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said recently, the "economy has hit a soft patch." The 4-percent-plus growth the nation enjoyed for four straight quarters dropped to only 3 percent in the second quarter (April-June) of this year. Then came the announcement that only 32,000 jobs were created in July. According to leading economists, that is 100,000 fewer jobs than needed to keep up with our population growth. Moreover, the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index is down 1.5% this year (a considerable drop compared to activity in 2003) and the NASDAQ composite is off 8.2% so far in 2004. Combine these developments with the nation's growing 7.3 trillion dollar debt, an increase in the number of Americans living in poverty for the third straight year (mostly women and children), median household incomes that have stagnated, rising energy costs, the outsourcing of middle-class jobs to overseas markets, and rising health care costs, and one comes away with a more sober view of President Bush's performance on economic matters. In short, it has been less than wonderful.

As for the President's performance regarding homeland defense, one needs to only spend a little time studying the facts before they recognize that President Bush has taken Theodore Roosevelt's famous line "speak softly and carry a big stick" and changed it to "speak loudly and carry a little stick." How have I reached this conclusion? Well, first, as a Senior Fellow in National Security at the Council on Foreign Relations recently pointed out, "although the CIA has concluded that the most likely way weapons of mass destruction (WMD) would enter the United States is by sea, the federal government (led by President Bush) is spending more every three days to finance the war in Iraq than it has provided over the past three years to prop up security of all 361 U.S. commercial seaports." This fact would seem to call into question the progress of the Container Security Initiative mentioned in last month's letter. How about the Bush administration's priority of preventing the spread of WMD overseas? Sounds great in 30-second sound bites, but how about preventing their spread here at home? Unfortunately, the President's rhetoric does not reconcile with the Bush administration's request to slash funding used to help dispose of commercially held radioactive materials (such as cesium-137 and cobalt-60), which could be used in constructing a dirty bomb here in the United States. Include those examples alongside others such as the Bush administration's neglect in securing our nation's borders and not demanding adequate federal funding for our first-responders (firemen & paramedics), and it becomes painfully evident that the President has come up short in doing all he should be doing to improve homeland defense.

The final issue contained in last month's letter encouraging readers to reelect President Bush stated that the current administration has started to make real improvements to our environment. Again, upon closer examination, this is not the case. As citizens in our democracy, we often rely on federal institutions to safeguard those things that we are incapable of protecting individually. One such area is the environment and our reliance on the Department of Interior to make decisions in the best interest of the entire nation. Unfortunately, and these are facts that can be checked, the Bush administration, and its appointees, have worked hard to eviscerate the laws that have protected our air, water, public lands, and wildlife for the past thirty years. As proponents of the "wise use" school of land management, the Bush administration has appointed numerous officials to a variety of positions within the Department of Interior and the EPA who have direct ties to our nation's agribusiness, oil, and coal industries. Apparently, the potential for a serious conflict-of-interest to arise is not important to President Bush. In addition, the Bush administration has spent the last three years suppressing scientific data, intimidating civil servants, and providing huge tax breaks to big energy companies all the while exempting these same companies from spending all they should to protect their facilities (oil and/or nuclear) from terrorist attack. Moreover, in 2003, President Bush failed to renew an environmental tax on oil and chemical companies, allowing Superfund to go bankrupt. Is this the sort of environmental stewardship that would make Theodore Roosevelt proud? I do not think so.

For more proof, look no further than the EPA's own statement in 2003 that for the first time since the Clean Water Act was passed thirty years ago, American waterways are getting dirtier. For me, the membership of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Federation of American Scientists, and the Association of American Medical Colleges cannot all be wrong in opposing the Bush administration's practice of blocking all new federal regulations until the underlying science has passed muster in a peer-review process supervised by a Bush appointee at the Office of Management and Budget. I should mention that additional criticism of this policy has come from prominent officials who served in the Nixon, Ford, and George H. W. Bush administrations. Continue your review of President Bush's environmental policies and you also see the growing threat his decisions are causing to small-conservative farmers and fishermen across this country. Anyway you look at it; the Bush administration has sold its responsibility to protect the environment as well as the health of many citizens to some of this country's largest energy and agribusiness corporations. You would not know it by listening to President Bush on the stump, but take a closer look at the facts and you will find a credibility-gap between the rhetoric and reality.

In closing, I want to say that my letter is meant to provoke a closer examination of the current administration's policies during a critical time in our nation's history. Whether in strengthening our economy, making homeland defense the best it can be, or protecting the environment, the Bush administration has not done near as much good as suggested in last month's letter to the editor. Admittedly, there is no way of really knowing whether, if elected, John Kerry would be a good president. History would be the judge of that. However, we do have the last four years of the Bush administration as a guide to George W. Bush's contributions as a leader during a time of war. On the economy, homeland defense, and the environment, he has proven to be a president more interested in style than substance. I know in a day and age of reality television shows, 24-hour news coverage of the Michael Jackson, Scott Peterson, and Kobe Bryant trials, and talk-radio programs filled with half-truths, that the Bush administration benefits when the public is distracted from what is really taking place. My hope is that the American public will navigate through all the meaningless distractions, as well as the fog of war, and seriously evaluate the current administration's policies on a variety of matters. On the issues that impact us the most, it is hard to see where President Bush has earned our support to finish the job.

Sincerely,
Matthew B. Macdonald
Middleburg, VA