Extending Daylight Savings Was Bush's Best Domestic Achievement
By Julia Piscitelli, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Through the darkness I have seen the light of the policies of George W. Bush.
Last Friday, my husband told me that he mowed the front lawn—his beloved obsession—after work. I also realized that I wore my sunglasses in the car on my commute home that day. How could that be on the last Friday of October? I remember how much I hated when I was a kid that by late fall, it would already be dark soon after I got home from school. But thanks to President George W. Bush signing into law the Energy Policy Act of 2005, he extended daylight savings time by four weeks.
Democrats have grown increasingly frustrated with the barrage of criticism from conservatives on the right about President Obama's accomplishments in his first nine months in office—heck, he's barely been in office longer than a full-term pregnancy and you'd swear he's getting blamed for the common cold.
Evidently the speedy passage of the Recovery and Reinvestment Act when America was at the lowest depths of a global recession was not enough for this audience. And with so many politicians not living up to their lofty campaign promises, President Obama and the Congress are now on the verge of passing sweeping healthcare reform that both the system and Americans desperately need.
So I thought, what can I say that would be kind about how I feel about the domestic successes of the Bush administration? The unfunded mandate of the No Child Left Behind Law? Not feeling it. His $700 trillion bailout of Wall Street? Maybe. But since the Obama administration did, after all, provide assistance to more than just a three-block section of lower Manhattan, Obama trumps on that one. Mission Accomplished? Decimating the surplus and turning it into record deficits? I had to stop and focus on the positive.
Sure, we all got to drive to work for the past few weeks in pitch-black darkness, but my husband got to mow the lawn after work. Saving his weekend sunlight hours for golf. This means extended light and extended domestic bliss for me. So this initiative gets my vote for the most significant domestic accomplishment of the Bush presidency.
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Tags: Barack Obama | George W. Bush
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Reader Comments
DST
Bill, Sorry, I still believe that it does not save energy for the nation as a whole, according to what I have read. It was an old disproved theory. I do agree that whether you like it or not may indeed depend on where you live in the US. DST is just too long, I actually like it in summer because I don't need daylight at 4:00 am. I'm not expressing dislike of the extension just because ol' George did it, heck the Congress jumped at the dumb idea too. As I am sure is obvious by now, this is something that causes me a lot of grief and inconvenience and it's obvious from Julia's article that for most people it's a ? of when the sun is in their eyes while driving. She should spend a few days in spring with me and she would see how crappy the DST extension is.
My way or highway
"functional illiterates"
They must be. They differ with you...
The Nation is kind of big. Maybe in your area it is ALL WRONG. Especially being Bush's idea. But for the majority of the WHOLE NATION, it saves energy. Are you against saving energy ?
Back to the topic of Daylight Saving Time
Never mind what functional illiterates say about other things, the topic was DST. I don't like the extension. To me, it warps the hours of light and dark. I think your reaction to an extension of DST depends on where you live -- east or west -- in your time zone.
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