YES!
There are already many differences between the Obama Administration and the Bush Administration. For example, wars and “booty-kicking” are no longer “front and center” as they were during the Bush Administration.
The Obama Administration replaced wars with peace. The Obama Administration replaced “booty-kicking” with diplomacy. And while peace and diplomacy have been tried and true for hundreds of years the neocons relegated them to the trash heap.
President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. And there was an idiotic response from neocons. The neocons, apparently, did not see turning the world’s most powerful military away from war and toward peace as being worthy of a peace prize. And they went berserk. Perhaps the neocons did not want to give up their colorful alert system that kept neocons on the political minds of America.
What happened to the yellow alerts that were the “foundation” of the neocons civilian/war management strategy? America has fought significant wars without the constant yellow alert reminders of war. And those wars, fought before the neocons came on the scene, were professionally executed without the need for yellow alerts. Did yellow alerts also play a political role? The neocons politicized most everything they touched. Did they leave politics out of America’s terrorist warning system?
Lets visit a HUFFINGTON POST article on the Bush team’s COLOR-CODED Terror Alert System:
… And Democrats have said the Bush administration used the system for political manipulation to trumpet the administration’s anti-terrorist credentials.
“They raised and lowered it several times in fairly rapid succession,” former national Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean said. “It had something to do with politics.”
For example, in August 2004, then-Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge raised the alert level to orange, the second-highest level signifying a high risk of attack, in Washington, New York City and Newark, N.J., because of potential threats to financial buildings there. But Democrats questioned the Bush administration’s motives, because the change came as they concluded their presidential convention and swung attention to national security, the signature issue of President George W. Bush’s re-election campaign. …
America is better off after having left the constant references to war. The “collective nerves” of America are getting a rest.
Does focusing on peace mean there will be no war? Of course not. But it is better to walk softly and carry a big stick than to constantly hear the banter of a political party using war in an attempt to make itself look competent. Wars were highlighted but education was not.
The field of education is a category that “got no respect” from the neocons. And it shows. While the neocons’ “No Child Left Behind” sounds benevolent there is little evidence of a hard push, by the neocons, to see a significant success. And besides – much of the neocons’ “performance” is rhetoric.
While it was said that 9 year olds showed a performance gain in the “no child left behind” program, America showed a striking performance loss at the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest.
Google was the brain-child of students at Stanford University, but now, you might start to show concern for what university will produce the next Google-like brain-child. It might not be America. At the ACM ICPC too many of America’s universities wound up clustered in 14th place,
While the neocons have shown no aversion to mediocre performances in politics and education, America, prior to the neocons, showed a distinct dislike for mediocre performance.
Much of what the Obama Administration has accomplished was done with “push-backs” from terrorists and neocons. And the Obama Administration’s focus on educating Americans is likely to be met with “push backs”. America’s current events knowledge-base has suffered under the neocon administration.
Tags: booty kicking, bush administration, Education, no child left behind, nobel peace prize, obama administration, Peace, tom ridge, Wars, yellow alerts
