Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.
In the post-9/11 world you cannot give him the benefit of the doubt. As a result of our going into Iraq, not only is Saddam Hussein gone, but Qaddafi has given up his weapons of mass destruction and tremendous progress is being made in Iraq.
They were the largest semiconductor maker in the world up until about 1980. I'm not sure that that can be re-gained again, but their progress in the last few years has been very impressive.
Americans have been given goals to achieve in Iraq, but not the standards by which to measure progress. And the only assurance Americans have been given that we can reach those goals is to trust the President and his Administration at their word.
Franklin Roosevelt said the test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance to those who have much; it is whether we provide enough to those who have too little. This reconciliation package fails that test as well.
While we have made great progress in increasing funding for veterans' benefits, we still have a long way to go in fully meeting the promise to our veterans.
