What's This "Bush Administration" of Which You Speak?
I theorized last month that Mitt Romney's presidential campaign appealed to conservatives who wanted to forget the Bush administration ever happened and replace this imploding president with an improved version of GWB. Here comes Romney to prove me right:
After President Bush left office in 1993, the Clinton administration began to dismantle our military, in what some called a peace dividend. They took the dividend, but didn't get the peace. It seems that we had come to believe that war and threats and evil men were gone forever. As Charles Krauthammer observed: we took a holiday from history.
Yes, that's the problem with our modern military: The administration that left town six years ago. Also, not listening enough to Charles Krauthammer. Romney's suggestions:
I propose that we sharply increase our investment in national defense. I want to see at least 100,000 more troops. I want to see us finally make the long overdue investment in equipment, armament, weapon systems, and strategic defense.
He said all this at the George (HW) Bush Presidential Library… George HW Bush being the president who, arms locked with Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, started decreasing military expenditures. (Although it took Clinton to drive them below 4 percent of GDP.) George W Bush has a plan to add 60,000 troops, but Romney doesn't mention that. There are some decent proposals buried in the speech, but the idea of growing the army to pre-1993 levels to fight a permanent Terror War deserves a little skepticism.