Saturday, October 22, 2005
The president helped Nancy Reagan dedicate a new exhibit at the library.
WASHINGTON POST
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. -- Comparing his determination to overcome terrorists to the resolve of former President Reagan to confront the Soviet Union, President Bush said Friday that Islamic radicalism is doomed to failure because he will not yield until it is defeated.
Speaking before several hundred guests at the opening of a new pavilion at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum, Bush attempted to grasp the mantle of Reagan, who he said demonstrated that the key to victory was "the resolve to stay into the fight until the fight was won."
Joined by former first lady Nancy Reagan, Bush made his remarks in a new, glass-walled pavilion housing an Air Force One jet that carried Reagan, Bush and five other presidents on more than 1,400 flights covering some 1.3 million miles.
Tale of two presidencies
Bush worked to embrace the legacy of Reagan, an icon of modern conservatism, even as his presidency is wobbling under multiple problems, including intensifying criticism from some on the right who say he has betrayed them.
Angry about the staggering cost of several Bush initiatives, including the Medicare prescription drug plan and the recovery from Hurricane Katrina, some conservatives are pushing back. In Congress, some budget hawks have balked at the Katrina spending, insisting on spending cuts to offset it. But many of the proposed cuts will affect programs targeting the poor who suffered the most from the hurricane.
Some conservatives are outraged that Bush passed over several well-known and well-respected conservative jurists to nominate White House counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Miers, who spent decades as a high-powered corporate lawyer but whose constitutional views are a mystery, has been attacked by some on the right as an intellectual lightweight with questionable conservative credentials.