League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
	San Francisco County, CA November 4, 2008 Election
	Proposition R Renaming the Oceanside Water Treatment Plant City of San Francisco Ordinance - Majority Approval Required Fail: 101,376 / 30.25% Yes votes ...... 233,733 / 69.75% No votes See Also: Index of all Propositions

Arguments For Proposition R

Arguments Against Proposition R

Just as France presented the Statue of Liberty as its gift to the nation, the citizens of San Francisco may now bestow their own special gift to the country by renaming our award winning waste water treatment plant in honor of outgoing President George W Bush. We think this is a fitting memorial for a truly outstanding Commander-in-Chief. On matters ranging from diplomacy to fiscal and environmental stewardship, no other President has had such a dramatic impact on the country and the Constitution in such a short time. Most presidents wait years or decades to receive their memorial airport or highway. We think President Bush deserves immediate recognition for his eight years of public service. Critics of this measure point out that the initiative unfairly maligns the talented and hard working staff at the award-winning plant or that it memorializes an administration best forgotten. To this we simply say that those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. President Bush has left us with a gigantic mess, and that this facility symbolizes the city's deft ability to clean up its share of the financial and diplomatic mess left in this administration's wake. It will also become the world's first presidential sewage plant, a potential tourist attraction, and therefore an opportunity for the dedicated plant workers to educate visitors about this essential and heretofore unknown public works. This measure will have a minimal fiscal impact and may increase tourist traffic to the plant, Zoo, and nearby attractions in southwest San Francisco, creating yet another quirky must-see destination along with our cable cars, Haight St, and Beach Blanket Babylon. Fellow San Franciscans, we urge you to vote Oui! On November 4th. Brian McConnell Chairman, Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco Rebuttal to Arguments For While discussing the Russian incursion into South Ossetia on ABC's "This Week", conservative George Will referred to Russia as a "primitive" country. This reference is puzzling in light of Russia having produced geniuses like Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev. To describe an entire nation in such terms seems an extreme statement. (Would the show's host, George Stefanopoulos, have remained silent had Will similarly impugned the Greek nation?) Yet this remark should be understood in light of Will's unspoken desire to ride up Brokeback Mountain with W. Maybe Vladimir Putin attacked Georgia because he hates freedom. Or perhaps Putin invaded because he had to assist his homies who were under attack, just as the Israelis retaliate whenever their people are shot at or shelled. What is not in question is that Putin had exposed Bush as an impotent buffoon: even were John "we are all Georgians" McCain, Will's and ABC's preferred candidate, to win this year's election, Russia will not be expelled from the G-8. No other country in NATO is going to send its troops to South Ossetia. Like other neoconservatives, Will and his employers at ABC are enraged that Putin has punk'd their beloved Bush. Rather than acknowledge that reality, they prefer to disparage the Russians as a bunch of primitives. San Franciscans, take note: don't vote for this measure just because you're upset that Midland's half-wit won the last election. That's the kind of statement that Will and the neocons would make. Such name-calling is really...primitive. Colin V. Gallagher

As of this writing, 4139 servicemen and women have been killed since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The number of Iraqis who have been killed as a result of the invasion and occupation of their country cannot be measured. The proponents of this measure may consider the Bush Administration to be a joke. However, the consequences of the decision to invade are not a laughing matter for families of those who have died during the past five years. This measure, whatever its intentions, disrespects them. I agree that the invasion of Iraq is the worst foreign policy blunder in the history of the US. I also agree that Bush has been the most ignorant man to ever occupy the office of President. To call him the worst President since Warren Harding is to insult the memory of Harding, who at least did not enter this country into any unnecessary wars. Moreover, the federal debt at the end of this Administration totals over $9 trillion, not including the recent guarantees extended to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose liabilities may constitute an additional $5 trillion to be paid by the U.S. taxpayer. Aside from Iraq, Bush's legacy will be the addition of a prescription drug benefit of at least $1.2 trillion without any mechanism for funding the new Medicare entitlement. Bush's minions had specifically ordered the civil service from disclosing the true cost of the benefit from Congress before it had been voted upon. Maybe it would be more appropriate to name the local bankruptcy court or a consumer credit counseling center after Bush? Besides, if we name the local sewage plant after Bush, then what's left to name after Jesse Helms? Colin V. Gallagher Rebuttal to Arguments Against Fellow citizens, Mr. Gallagher's opposing argument does as good a job as any we've heard at highlighting why George W. Bush deserves this unique civic tribute. Since we can't say it better ourselves we'll share this haiku, submitted by one of the many supporters of this effort from San Francisco, around the country and abroad: Need Bush memor'l? Sewage plant available How appropriate Brian McConnell, Chairman Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco