Three challenges for the last thousand days of the Bush administration

By Aussiegirl

Peggy Noonan has some constructive suggestions for President Bush on his last thousand days in office. Pretty sound advice.

OpinionJournal - Peggy Noonan

There are three issues on which the administration can, and should, focus, and only three.

Issue 1: Iraq, Afghanistan and the age of terror. On these, stabilize, fortify, succeed. Keep America safe. All this will require ruthless concentration. Back up all action with illustration and explanation. Inform the public--constantly--as to what is happening, and why, and what is being done, and why. We already know liberty is God's gift to man; make statements that are less emotive and more fact-filled, more strategically coherent.

[...]Issue 2: the economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is at new post-9/11 highs; there's little unemployment. New home sales are up, productivity up, profits up. This is President Bush's triumph. And yet in polls Americans don't credit him with it.

[...]Issue 3: the integrity of America's borders. That is, the right and ability to decide who comes here and when, the right and ability to make judgments based on our nation's needs. This is both an economic issue and a national security issue; it naturally connects to issues 1 and 2.

On this, Washington is talking a lot and doing

nothing.