Letter: Bush unraveling Clinton progress

Monday, Nov. 10, 2003 | 8:46 a.m.

My reaction to the Oct. 22 letter from Max Heeman was the same as his to Mr. Eisner's letter -- I laughed. The part about Republicans cleaning up the messes left by the Democrats was really funny. The only thing they cleaned up was the big pile of surplus money left to them by President Clinton.

Mr. Heeman thinks Clinton did nothing about terrorism, when in fact he started his presidency by confronting it. When the World Trade Center was bombed by terrorists on Feb. 16, 1993, President Clinton had been in office 38 days. That means the planning for this took place on President George H.W. Bush's watch. Instead of playing the blame game like Republicans do so well, Bill Clinton went after those responsible and today they are behind bars.

It was the Republicans who turned down President Clinton's request for more anti-terrorism funding and who rejected his proposed expansion of the intelligence agencies' wiretap authority in order to combat terrorism.

It took Bill Clinton eight years to clean up after the Reagan/Bush years. It's taken President George W. Bush only three years to undo all of the good things Clinton did. I pity the person who inherits the gigantic mess this president will leave behind.

MARIANNE LUPO