This page was last updated on September 11, 2011.
Another president from Texas?; Jerry Miskulin; Beaver County Times; September 11, 2011.
I encourage you to review Mr. Miskulin’s body of work in the archives. Mr. Miskulin has written at least 74 letters since 2004 (I didn’t critique all of them.). Most (all?) are illogical and full of falsehoods (not just wrong).
Mr. Miskulin expressed displeasure with the tea parties (here and here), proclaimed
Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.
“I wonder if Gov. Rick Perry of Texas takes Lyndon Johnson, George H.W. Bush or George W. Bush as his role model.
“It seems to me the decline of America has coincided with Texans in the White House. Their combative nature, with LBJ in Vietnam, Bush the elder with his fight with Saddan [sic] Hussein, and Bush the younger with his fights both in Iraq and Afghanistan, did not unify the people we fought but have divided us.
“I guess you could say they divided us and conquered us.”
[RWC] As a righty I’m no fan of LBJ’s leftist policies and programs, but JFK (from Massachusetts) initiated our combat involvement in Vietnam, not LBJ. Presidents Woodrow Wilson (WWI), Franklin Roosevelt (WWII), and Harry Truman (Korea) were not Texans, yet apparently had a “combative nature.”
Does anyone know what Mr. Miskulin meant when he wrote “… did not unify the people we fought?”
“LBJ called his policies the Great Society. Well, it seems like it’s been downhill after that. Somebody in George W. Bush’s administration said that deficits didn’t matter, but only a few years later deficits were undermining our whole economic system and we don’t know what to do.”
[RWC] Since 1931, by my count (using Obama administration data) we’ve run a deficit all but 12 years. As far as debt, the U.S. government has been in debt since the Revolutionary War. During the George W. Bush administration we increased our debt by $4.4 trillion in eight years. In only two years of the Obama administration, Mr. Obama’s budget indicates debt will have increased by $3.5 trillion and by $6.7 trillion by the end of his first term. Compared to the Bush administration, that’s a 52% greater debt increase in half the time.
Mr. Miskulin also fails to note deficits were dropping and by the end of fiscal year 2007 (the last before the recession), the deficit was down to $161 billion. That trend ended with the recession, the result of leftist policies, programs, and government-sponsored entities. That was also the last fiscal year for which a Republican-majority Congress produced a budget. You’ll remember Democrats became the majority in both houses of Congress in January 2007.
“If you want an emotional president, Perry is probably your man. If you want an intelligent man, President Barack Obama is your man.”
[RWC] Why would Mr. Perry make “an emotional president?” I lived in Texas when Mr. Perry was Lt. Governor and during his early years as Governor. I didn’t notice any “emotional” issues. I just did a quick Google search and didn’t find anything.
What evidence is there “President Barack Obama is … an intelligent man?” After all, does “an intelligent man” keep trying the same failed policies/programs over and over and expect a different outcome?
© 2004-2011 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.