Came across this article from the January 2001 edition of The Onion, Bush: ‘Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over’, Reporting on Bush’s inaugural address, The Onion qouted him as making the following claims:

– ‘selling off the national parks to developers’ (yes, more or less)
– ‘going into massive debt to develop expensive and impractical weapons technologies’ (oh my yes)
– ‘the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years’ (yepper)
– ‘a 250 percent boost in military spending’ (not sure what the exact number is, but, well, yes)
– ‘bring back economic stagnation by implementing substantial tax cuts’ (yes) ‘…. which would lead to a drop in consumer spending’ (been reading the finance section lately?)
– He assured citizens that he will follow through on his campaign promise to open the 1.5 million acre refuge’s coastal plain to oil drilling (still working on it)

They missed a prediction here:

‘Bush had equally high praise for Attorney General nominee John Ashcroft, whom he praised as “a tireless champion in the battle to protect a woman’s right to give birth’

Ashcroft started with abortion bullying, but he’s opened up on a lot of fronts since.

Of course, back then they had no idea that 911 would happen. I have heard it argued that the bulk of the US administration’s post-attack policies have been oppurtunistic attempts to push through old goals. Apparently those goals were previously obvious at least to the prophets at America’s Finest News Source.