Bush's Failure To Make America's Borders Safer

Sure, they've raised the color alert from yellow to orange. But I am still angry about Bush's weakness as a commander in chief and his failure to make our borders more secure. And to those who suggest I'm trying to score political points: wrong. I'm trying to make America safer.

A thousand different issues are contained in making our country safer and it wouldn't be surprising if something fell through the cracks. But our ports have been front and center as a vital and vulnerable area of our borders. Our coastlines and shipping have been front and center too.

And the Coast Guard issue didn't fall through the cracks. Bush focused in on it. He looked at an aging fleet among the oldest in the world, one around when we were still in Vietnam. He saw plans developed three years BEFORE 9-11 to upgrade the Coast Guard in 20 years at about $20 billion. With the war on terror at full blast, with the 9-11 Commission highlighting the vulnerability of the ports (one of the Coast Guard's duties), with Republican Senator Olympia Snowe calling for the plan to be accomplished in 10-15 years, what did Bush do? He decided to DELAY the upgrading of our Coast Guard until 2030 to save a few bucks. That means a child born today will graduate from COLLEGE before Bush has gotten around to fully upgrading our Coast Guard.

A real Commander in Chief would look at the Coast Guard in the light of 9-11 and say $20 billion to upgrade it in 20 years? How fast can we upgrade it? How much to do everything in two years? $30 billion? $40 billion? Do it.

Would any American question that expenditure or think it a poor decision? Of course not. Bush's failure to make our country safer is a sign of weakness and incompetence.

It's been 4 years since 9-11 and we STILL don't have a combined list of terrorists that can be checked against people coming into our country by plane, car or boat. It was crazy we didn't have this before 9-11. It's criminal that we don't have it now.

It's been 4 years and Bush has failed to strengthen security around our highly vulnerable chemical and nuclear energy plants. Why? Because big business doesn't want to pay for increased security and Bush is putting their concerns ahead of the safety of America.

It's been 4 years and Bush is delaying the strengthening of our coastlines and ports to two and a half DECADES. Any reasonable person would speed up the strengthening of our coastlines and ports. Why isn't Bush?

It's been 4 years and Bush has failed to hunt down and kill Osama Bin Laden.

It's been 4 years and Bush can't even ferret out a felon in the White House.

What else has Bush failed to do in this country to make our nation safer?

The American people aren't worried they'll lose the war on terror. They're worried that Bush is too weak to win it.