The column got a lot of attention in the blogosphere and MSM, including the Washington Post, James Joyner at Outside The Beltway, Justin Gardner at Donklephant, Steven Reynolds at the All Spin Zone, 6SpeedTA95 at The Liberty Lounge, The Street.com, Gra...

Indeed. And what has accomplished? Let's see, we have more terrorist now than we had before 9/11, we have a training ground where they've been taking graduate courses in urban warfare. Afghanistan is precariously sliding back into the Taliban's hands. They've had a record crop of Opium, major source of funding for the self same terrorists, not to mention a scourge in and of itself, every year since we've "won". Bush took his eye off bin Laden and pulled troops out of Afghanistan to focus on Iraq and the dude is still making tapes and laughing at us.

And then there's the stuff Bush has done inside the US, like apportion security expenditures by state as political payouts rather than by prioritized threat. There's the languishing port security which hasn't been funded. There's the fact that our police/fire/etc communications still haven't been fixed. Oh, and thanks to the Iraq whatever it is you think is happening over there but don't call it a civil war, our National Guard - primary responders - are out of equipment, out of manpower, etc.

Not to mention the breaking of our millitary in a way that the Republicans believed Clinton did.

Bravo!

Yes, lot's of money spent. Jack sh*t to show for it.

James Joyner said: "The latter enjoyed the luxury of a post-Cold War lull while the former had to deal with a major terrorist attack on our soil."

Clinton had major terrorist attacks on our soil. Clinton dealt with them by convicting more than a dozen terrorists and conspirators. Some were executed, and some were sentenced to prison terms in excess of 200 years.

Bush, on the other hand, has bungled every terrorism prosecution during his presidency.

Oh heavens, we all know that Bill Clinton faced no domestic terrorist attacks. The '93 WTC bombing was, from what I understand, just a prank, and Oklahoma City was not terrorism because it was perpetrated by a white Christian from Kansas.

Nobody said there were no terrorist attacks under Clinton. Just that actually doing something about them is expensive.

To my knowledge, William Niskanen, former Reagan Ecomonic Advisor, was the first to document this effect.

Slivinski has made this comparison of GWB to LBJ before. He noted it an analysis last year and in his book "Buck Wild".

And don't think for a minute that Congress doesn't have an equal share of the blame as far as the fiduciary side goes.

When Congress was lied to about the state of the intelligence (see Bob Graham), I think that, while not blameless, they certainly don't have an equal share. The executive certainly bears more responsibility here.

Presidents don’t spend money on their own; Congress is a major driver.

And don't think for a minute that Congress doesn't have an equal share of the blame as far as the fiduciary side goes.

The Congress deserves just as much blame as Bush, if not more.

You guy's aren't exactly helping your party out with these comments you know. It's not like all the spending increase was in the past year alone.

Because if they were truly worried about the outrageous spending, they would eliminate much of it - by pulling the funding for the war. They refuse to do so, so any complainants from the Dems will sound hollow at best.

I seem to remember the Democrats in congress introducing several bills to wind-down the war, or at least troop levels. Many didn't pass an up or down vote, but others were either filibustered* or vetoed, weren't they?

* By Filibustered I mean there was a rumor of a threat of a possible filibuster and the Dem leadership caved and pulled the bill. See, we progressive Democrats do hold our party leaders responsible for not reigning in spending, do you?

Libs are the biggest hypocrites in the history of man. Way to go! You guys finally accomplished something.

The man never once vetoed a spending bill until the Democrats took congress over, then he discovered the veto pen. He is not interested in controlling spending, just creating the appearance of an irrersponsible congress being reined in by "the good steward of the people money".

Pardon me while I puke. Bush was perfectly happy to screw children out of medical coverage for strictly partisan motives. The same kids will be paying off his spending spree decades from now, so Bush gets to screw them twice...

that, in and of itself, accounts for the spending.

Except that it doesn't. Indeed, you have to go so far as reading the post in question to know that you're being ridiculous.