Part V

Part IV

Part III

Part II

Part I
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At this point of the narrative, I break from old writings to new ones. When I first put the parts that preceded this into a Word document I had always intended to keep the material going at the same pace. However, I think I can summarize the years between 1988 and 2000 in two simple posts. Here is the first.

The wilderness years (1989-1991):

Now I was really kind of lost. A college graduate, working as a temp for an HMO, I was a little aimless. I had made the decision not to pursue teaching for a multitude of personal reasons which I will avoid her. Ultimately, I came to work in the private sector, get married, become a father and basically grow up in every sense of the word.

I was still interested in politics, even if I felt a like being on the outside looking in. I was actually looking ahead to the next election. Surely the odds where better of changing parties in the White House after 12 years. Anyway, I started keeping a folder of "events" to kind of chronicle things as they unfolded up to 1992. I had done enough "analysis" of the last results and read every pundit's opinion and post-mortem as to what went wrong for the Democrats. Not to many in the MSM wanted to write about what went right for Bush 41. Little has changed today.

In 1990, Saddam Hussein wantonly invaded neighboring Kuwait with the goal of stealing their oil reserves and threatening Saudi Arabia with the same. What followed really struck me and began to make me take a better look at the big picture. George Bush 41 drew a literal and figurative line in the sand by assembling an international military coalition and issuing an ultimative to Saddam. You have until January 15, 1991 to get out or we'll make you. (in hindsight I find it interesting that this is the same date as the recent Iraqi elections). "This will not stand" was the big quote.

Well, damn, I was on board. You can't let thugs like this go unchallenged. So many in Europe were content to let Hitler make his agressive moves over and over and pretend that if they just let him have his way, war could be avoided. But there were some who forgot (or ignored) history. Many of them were members of my party. I was appalled as one by one, Democrat Senators took to opportunity to oppose our action. We had to be united or this wasn't going to work. I found the old maxim of Washington D.C. that "politics stops at the waters edge" was going by the wayside. I was embarrassed to be a Democrat.

Anyway, the U.S. and it's coalition partners were successful. The Iraqis were driven out of Kuwait and we had two choices that were not unlike the ones we faced in Korea in the early fifties. Choice one was containment. Choice two was to pursue the source of agression Northward and defeat it so that it would no longer be a threat. Well, today we have North Korea lining the 38th parellel with troops and armaments, still a threat to it's Southern neighbor. And at the time, we left Saddam in place trying to use sanctions to keep him in line.

Hindsight is 20/20 of course. Democrats (who controlled the Senate) barely gave its approval to engage in Desert Storm as it was, anything further was out of the question.

Over time, the furor over the war subsided, Bush 41's approval ratings began to return to a more typical level and life went on.

In late 1991, a new political force was on the horizon: The Clinton's. (To be continued...)

Part VII

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