When most people see the word "radical," they think that it must refer to something left wing. Some people also may think of it as referring to far right-wing marginal groups. But here we have a president of the United States [George W. Bush] at the center of power, sitting in the White House, who is a radical.

Sidney Blumenthal

Categorized in : Thinking Wings White

And Louis Freeh was a completely dysfunctional FBI Director, who was actually waging his own private war against the Clinton Administration.

Sidney Blumenthal

administration war directors

It was the biggest suppression of voting rights in our country's history since Jim Crow. And the thread of race runs from the beginning to the end of my book.

Sidney Blumenthal

running country book

22 million new jobs under President Clinton. 3 million lost under Bush.

Sidney Blumenthal

new-job president jobs

It was an absurd theory that by cutting taxes you would increase government revenues, because the growth of the economy would create an overflow of taxes that would fall into the government coffers.

Sidney Blumenthal

cutting government fall

If there were any clear investigation of 9/11, they wouldn't let Louie Freeh off the hook.

Sidney Blumenthal

investigation hook clear

We barely missed killing Bin Laden. There were numerous findings issued by the President to kill him. We rolled up terrorist cells. We stopped the millennium bombings.

Sidney Blumenthal

killing cells president

The incubator for terrorism, after the Middle East, is Europe, partly because of proximity, partly because of the existence of large Muslim communities there.

Sidney Blumenthal

middle-east community europe

The conservative argument is that the economy is like the weather, that it just operates automatically.

Sidney Blumenthal

argument conservative weather

Clinton took very tough decisions on the economy.

Sidney Blumenthal

economy tough decision

But presidents matter. That's one of the biggest lessons I learned being in the White House.

Sidney Blumenthal

president white house

Who was it in Afghanistan who screwed up in Tora Bora and let bin Laden escape? It was the Bush Administration. Who leached all the resources, military and civil, from Afghanistan, creating the instability that we see there today in order to prepare for the misbegotten invasion of Iraq? It was the Bush administration. If there's a terrorist problem today, who is responsible now? Bush has not done the job.

Sidney Blumenthal

iraq military jobs

Bill Clinton was in the line of great progressive presidents who faced the realities in his own time and applied innovative solutions to problems.

Sidney Blumenthal

lines president reality

As I said, if you don't stand up for yourself, people aren't going to think that you can stand up for them.

Sidney Blumenthal

stand-up-for-yourself people thinking

Clinton was a president who used his office, in creative ways, to try to reinvigorate the federal government to benefit the majority.

Sidney Blumenthal

government office creative

The George W. Bush universe of threats is a constantly expanding universe as he moves to politically higher ground, escaping from failure after failure. He's not only radical, but the consequences of his radicalism have been catastrophic.

Sidney Blumenthal

expanding-universe higher-ground moving

Even on education, his one accomplishment, the Leave No Child Behind Act, and he has left it unfunded.

Sidney Blumenthal

behinds accomplishment children

On the contrary, it might even be a projection of what the truth is of the Bush Administration's complacency and ineptitude on the terrorism in its first 9 months in office.

Sidney Blumenthal

ineptitude office might

The attack on Clinton on terrorism is entirely politically inspired by the right-wing of the Republicans, and has no basis in fact whatsoever.

Sidney Blumenthal

inspired wings facts

In a sense, George W. Bush has used the tragedy of the terrorist attacks of September 11th and the nightmarish expansion of his idea of a war on terror to overshadow his actual conduct in office on the redistribution of wealth upward through progressive tax cuts that actually penalize the vast majority of the public, and shift their resources to a narrow band at the very, very top.

Sidney Blumenthal

cutting war ideas

Clinton was very early on aware of the problem of international terrorism.

Sidney Blumenthal

terrorism clinton problem