After about two months of relative Mr. Nice Guy, the big, bad Bush is finally showing his teeth. And these are the teeth that will work in beaver-like fashion to build the dam back to the 20th century.
Some of the sticks moved into place this week include the rekindling of the 1987 feud over Reagan Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork.
As if just to show how long Republicans can hold a grudge, Bush severed the nearly 50-year-old tie with the American Bar Association that provided for a screening of Supreme Court nominees by the nation’s foremost legal organization, the same ABA that gave Bork only a mixed review.
Who knew a candidate who ran with the bipartisan notion of being a “uniter, not a divider” could let one 14-year-old disagreement destroy a working relationship?
Bush also reached back to the Reagan administration with an even more ominous ruling. The president reinstated the “Mexico City” policy, which puts a ban on any government money going to any international clinic that so much as counsels women about abortion.
The policy had been introduced by Reagan in a 1984 speech in Mexico City and was rescinded in 1993 by Clinton during his first week in office.
Though it’s being hailed by anti-choice advocates as a move that blocks taxpayer funds from going for overseas abortions, the law has a greater reach than that.
No health organization in any foreign country that either performs abortions or provides family-planning counseling will be able to receive U.S. monetary aid.
So, one of the world’s most well-endowed nations is no longer willing to help the sick of much poorer nations unless they play by rules the U.S. doesn’t have to follow itself (yet).
The European Union, perturbed by Bush’s move, may fill the funding void for the world’s hospitals.
Unfortunately, most of what appear to be many problems that will arise over the next four years cannot be rectified by the EU or anyone else.

Author