Now the wheels are coming off!!! All the news programs are jumping on the low ratings for the Pres. All sorts of questions and specualation are being entertained. In the Senate, Sen Feingold is submitting a resolution to "censure " the Pres. That is a desperation move by a potential presidential candidate to get his name in the press without "McCain" preceeding it.
The Congress is wrestling with the necessity of, once again, raising the debt limit. It now exceeds 8 Trillion.(?) True, Bush has never vetoed a spending bill, despite wailing continually about getting the debt under control,(his favorite pitch is for more tax cuts for the upper brackets). In the Senate, while many decried "ear marking", which has, over the past number of years, steadily increased, at least one Senator said "It isn't the Pres. that makes the laws, it's the Congress", if we don't have the backbone and common sense to limit spending on pet programs then we have no one to blame but ourselves" Obviously the first law of politics is "get reelected".
One does that most effectively by "bringing home the bacon". So now where does the fault lie? It is in the home districts that reward "bacon bringing" by reelecting. "Tip" O'Neil profoundly stated that all politics is local. That is exactly what he was referring to.
One thing keeping the administration's boat afloat is the burgeoning economy. Despite the out sourcing job losses there is an improvement in the unemploymet figures. Nonetheless real income continues to decline. The gap betwee the "haves" and the "have nots" continues to increase. This is an increasingly bad sign for the country as a whole.
Having been opposed to the administration's policies from the beginning I must admit taking some satisfaction in seeing the failure of those policies. "Second term burnout" is a frequent phrase now used. The administration needs new blood, many say. The rejoinder is --Not. Bush
does not admit mistakes or even shortcomings. He is not likely to bring in someone new to the team. What standing would that person have?. Can anyone imagine Cheney or Rove, not to mention Rumsfeld, letting someone tell them they were wrong? Bush would feel naked and out of his element having his "inate sense" questioned. The whole scenario regarding Iraq, which is the keystone of this administration, is the big gamble to change the world and validate the neo-con premises. Unfortunately the basic premises, the assumptions, were wrong. Sound reasoning was supplanted by wishful thinking. Ideology replaced rationality. Bold objectives shown so brightly that the details were dismissed. disregarded, or argued to be inconsequential.
The latest book to recap the successive mistakes that have accumulated is called "Cobra II".
Written by a jounalist who closely followed the war from inside Iraq, and a retired military officer who recognized the errors that were being made all along. Poor generalmanship, together with poorer Defense Dept. leadership developed into the over all fiasco we see today.
To get off the topic of Bush I want to comment on what has been my life experience. Being born in 1925, my early years were influenced by the recent WW I. As a kid playing we frequently would refer to "how it was done in the Army", as we demonstrated some activity or other. In 1939 I was 15 and just about to enter High School. By the time I was 17 I was thinking about what branch of service to go into. To avoid being drafted I enlisted in the Navy while 17. I spent two and a half years in the Navy. Getting out in '46 I enrolled in college, in 1950 I graduated from college as the Korean "police action" heated up.
I was married in 1955 and even then the Viet Nam situation was brewing. That horrible, unnecessary war consumed the 60s. Then there was Grenada and Haiti spats. Regime changes were engineerd in Iran, Panama, and a number of South American countries. We took a shot at Libya to emphasize our displeasure at bombing airplanes. We supported Saddam in his war with Iran and led him to believe invading Kuwait was OK too. The Gulf War was our way of saying "No". That is not OK, but we still wanted him as a buffer against Iran so we betrayed the Shiites in Iraq who thought they would get help in overturning Saddam. Not! We apparently were in a muddle even then as to what to do about Iraq. Along comes the junior Bush and says,"someone told me that since the 9/11 tradgedy we can now blame Hussein and have an excuse to grab the oil patch. Every effort was then bent to create a war frenzy--"we'd fight them over there so we didn't have to fight them here". As if the guys who engineered the plane hijackings and destruction of the Trade Towers couldn't find a way to get here as well as fight in Iraq. It is a catchy phrase but irrational. Despite millions of dollars and super hype about "Homeland security" we are now more vulnerable than we have ever been. The current bouhaha over Port management is at last bring ing into the open how poor our port security has been and is.
It appears that "Homeland Security" played a large part in the Katrina debacle.
Bush not only formulates lousey policies that have left us practically friendless in the world, he finds ways to select inept people to carry them out.
So now the current crisis is Iran. My fear is that the beleagered Pres will once again pull a pre-empt to wrap himself in the flag and claim he is saving the US from another mushroom cloud.
Can we possibly survive another three years of this mismanagement?
The Congress is wrestling with the necessity of, once again, raising the debt limit. It now exceeds 8 Trillion.(?) True, Bush has never vetoed a spending bill, despite wailing continually about getting the debt under control,(his favorite pitch is for more tax cuts for the upper brackets). In the Senate, while many decried "ear marking", which has, over the past number of years, steadily increased, at least one Senator said "It isn't the Pres. that makes the laws, it's the Congress", if we don't have the backbone and common sense to limit spending on pet programs then we have no one to blame but ourselves" Obviously the first law of politics is "get reelected".
One does that most effectively by "bringing home the bacon". So now where does the fault lie? It is in the home districts that reward "bacon bringing" by reelecting. "Tip" O'Neil profoundly stated that all politics is local. That is exactly what he was referring to.
One thing keeping the administration's boat afloat is the burgeoning economy. Despite the out sourcing job losses there is an improvement in the unemploymet figures. Nonetheless real income continues to decline. The gap betwee the "haves" and the "have nots" continues to increase. This is an increasingly bad sign for the country as a whole.
Having been opposed to the administration's policies from the beginning I must admit taking some satisfaction in seeing the failure of those policies. "Second term burnout" is a frequent phrase now used. The administration needs new blood, many say. The rejoinder is --Not. Bush
does not admit mistakes or even shortcomings. He is not likely to bring in someone new to the team. What standing would that person have?. Can anyone imagine Cheney or Rove, not to mention Rumsfeld, letting someone tell them they were wrong? Bush would feel naked and out of his element having his "inate sense" questioned. The whole scenario regarding Iraq, which is the keystone of this administration, is the big gamble to change the world and validate the neo-con premises. Unfortunately the basic premises, the assumptions, were wrong. Sound reasoning was supplanted by wishful thinking. Ideology replaced rationality. Bold objectives shown so brightly that the details were dismissed. disregarded, or argued to be inconsequential.
The latest book to recap the successive mistakes that have accumulated is called "Cobra II".
Written by a jounalist who closely followed the war from inside Iraq, and a retired military officer who recognized the errors that were being made all along. Poor generalmanship, together with poorer Defense Dept. leadership developed into the over all fiasco we see today.
To get off the topic of Bush I want to comment on what has been my life experience. Being born in 1925, my early years were influenced by the recent WW I. As a kid playing we frequently would refer to "how it was done in the Army", as we demonstrated some activity or other. In 1939 I was 15 and just about to enter High School. By the time I was 17 I was thinking about what branch of service to go into. To avoid being drafted I enlisted in the Navy while 17. I spent two and a half years in the Navy. Getting out in '46 I enrolled in college, in 1950 I graduated from college as the Korean "police action" heated up.
I was married in 1955 and even then the Viet Nam situation was brewing. That horrible, unnecessary war consumed the 60s. Then there was Grenada and Haiti spats. Regime changes were engineerd in Iran, Panama, and a number of South American countries. We took a shot at Libya to emphasize our displeasure at bombing airplanes. We supported Saddam in his war with Iran and led him to believe invading Kuwait was OK too. The Gulf War was our way of saying "No". That is not OK, but we still wanted him as a buffer against Iran so we betrayed the Shiites in Iraq who thought they would get help in overturning Saddam. Not! We apparently were in a muddle even then as to what to do about Iraq. Along comes the junior Bush and says,"someone told me that since the 9/11 tradgedy we can now blame Hussein and have an excuse to grab the oil patch. Every effort was then bent to create a war frenzy--"we'd fight them over there so we didn't have to fight them here". As if the guys who engineered the plane hijackings and destruction of the Trade Towers couldn't find a way to get here as well as fight in Iraq. It is a catchy phrase but irrational. Despite millions of dollars and super hype about "Homeland security" we are now more vulnerable than we have ever been. The current bouhaha over Port management is at last bring ing into the open how poor our port security has been and is.
It appears that "Homeland Security" played a large part in the Katrina debacle.
Bush not only formulates lousey policies that have left us practically friendless in the world, he finds ways to select inept people to carry them out.
So now the current crisis is Iran. My fear is that the beleagered Pres will once again pull a pre-empt to wrap himself in the flag and claim he is saving the US from another mushroom cloud.
Can we possibly survive another three years of this mismanagement?
posted by Don.B. | 5:24 PM
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