Time For A Change
The overriding reason for voting Democratic in every election contest this November is that the Republican Party has controlled the Presidency, Congress, and the Supreme Court for almost six years. The coming election is a referendum on their performance. It doesn’t matter if the Democrats’ direction is not clear. What is certain is that it will be different or at the very least will temper Bush’s approach over his remaining two years The Republicans need to be held accountable for a performance that is incompetent, filled with strategic blunders, and corrupted by venality and arrogance. Their economic policy has benefited the rich over the poor. US prestige has been obliterated. Constitutional freedoms have been weakened and the base of the party if not already, is on the verge of being captured by fundamentalist Christian right-wingers who think stem cell research, abortion, and same sex marriage are the only major problems facing the Nation.
Moderate Republicans, despite their sometime reasonable stances, create a Congressional leadership (Frist, Hastert, DeLay) that rubber-stamps the Bush agenda, and therefore they need to be defeated in the same way as the Santorums and Allens.
What are the events of the past six years that lead to a conclusion in favor of wholesale defeat for the Republicans? Let me count the ways.
The entire Iraq process is built on a foundation of lies and statements contradicted as soon as events no longer support the original assertion. The frequent claim that Bush and Cheney used the best intelligence available has been countered by recent reports that intelligence was accurate, but ignored, and was twisted to fit Bush aims.
Bush has demonstrated from the start a complete failure to understand the nature of Islamic fundamentalism. His repeated public utterances describe terrorists as thugs and killers. Not understanding the underlying causes that motivate the enemy, has led to choices that worsen our problems rather than resolving them.
According to the most recent National Intelligence Estimate produced by the US intelligence community, the American invasion and occupation of Iraq have helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks
There was a complete absence of planning for the post invasion – Rumsfeld stopped the military from even proposing post invasion strategy under the belief that we would be welcomed as liberators, that Iraqi oil would pay for all costs, and that his idea of a small, lean military force was the answer.
Our initial attempt to manage post-war Iraq was the Coalition Provisional Authority. It was staffed by inexperienced Republican political hacks taken from Republican Congressional staffs, K St. lobbyists, and right-wing think tanks, rather than with experienced people who understood how to rebuild a country, who could speak the language, and who understood the culture. A $75 million project to build the largest police academy in Iraq has been so grossly mismanaged that the campus now poses health risks to recruits and might need to be partially, if not fully, demolished, U.S. investigators have recently found.
The Iraq undertaking has sapped our influence throughout the world in dealing with the significantly more pressing problems of terrorism, North Korea, and Iran. We’ve squandered the goodwill of the world following 9/11 and even our friends dislike us intensely. Our standard diplomatic posture is to refuse to talk with North Korea, Iran, or Moqtada al-Sadr, who appears to hold the major power in Shiite Iraq.
We’ve spent enormous sums of money in Iraq, most of it going for fighting the insurgency. Over 2,800 US soldiers have died. Thousands have been wounded. Iraqi deaths, depending on who is counting are at least 30,00 and may be 600,000. The heralded rebuilding of Iraq’s infrastructure plods along with only big US business reaping any benefit.
The educated Iraq middle class is either leaving the country or being murdered by insurgents. 500,000 Iraqis have relocated to sectarian areas leading to the de facto partition into three autonomous sections. Militias, who are the major source of violence, control the Iraqi police force. Iraq is in the midst of a civil war, although the Administration can’t admit it. Sunni/Shiite antipathy is the major problem, not terrorism.
There is no exit strategy other than Stay the Course. The precipitate dismissal of that phrase used constantly by Bush until a few weeks ago and replaced with Finish the Job is a change in words, not a change in policy.
Support the Troops, another favorite Bushism, in reality is just a PR concept. We sent insufficient troops to do the job. We gave them inadequate armor to safeguard them, just as we currently allow the Iraqi Army to ride around in open trucks with even less armor. Veterans returning with PTSD are not treated in VA hospitals. Benefits for military survivors have been curtailed.
The Bush cut and run policy, which saw us leave Afghanistan in order to move to Iraq, is now seeing the rebirth of the Taliban.
Bush’s failure to recognize how our dependence on oil is at the heart of our immediate and long-term difficulties is potentially the greatest threat we face. Other than mouthing platitudes about addiction, there has been no effort to establish a program to sever that reliance by seriously developing alternative energy, raising CAFÉ standards, and discouraging consumption.
As with Iraq, the response to Katrina and the claims about it, show the same pattern of incompetence, lack of planning, and inability to analyze facts that were presented in time for action to be taken. FEMA, Michael Brown, and the Presidential flyover are laugh lines in the US. Bush lied to the American public about not having advance knowledge that levees could break. He had been shown a video about that possibility months in advance.
The Corps of Engineers spent more in Louisiana than in any other state, but it wasted most of the money on ecologically harmful and fiscally wasteful pork that kept its employees busy and its political patrons happy, while neglecting hurricane protection for New Orleans and actually intensifying the effects of the storm.
Gas prices went through the roof in the last 12 months, but miraculously came down just before the election, although not quick enough to prevent Exxon from gaining the largest profit in corporate history.
Sleaze. It is hard to keep track of all the Republicans mired in scandal. With out going into the details a list of the names should bring back fond memories: Abramoff, DeLay, Scooter Libby, Foley, Ney, Weldon, Safavian, Sherwood, and Duke Cunningham.
This administration has clearly favored big business over working people from the start. Its tax cuts provided a few hundred dollars to most individuals while the tiny percent of highest income receivers got millions of dollars. The disregard of scientific judgments by political appointees primarily supports business interests at the expense of the environment. The FHA has 200 staff reviewing 800 requests for generic drugs, compared to 2,500 staff reviewing 150 new brand-name drugs each year.
In its drive to foster a more cooperative relationship with mining companies, the Bush administration has decreased major fines for safety violations since 2001, and in nearly half the cases, it has not collected the fines. This typical regulatory action gets little notice, unless there happens to be a major disaster, like the mine explosion in West Virginia.
The surplus in place at the start of the Bush presidency has been replaced by a major Budget deficit. But in true Bush speak; he has trumpeted the fact that it is lower than he originally thought.
Bush’s divisive political strategy is aimed at his base. Succeeding with 51% of the electorate is his ideal. That leads to a political policy that ignores the remaining 49% of Americans. He does not look for consensus or areas where a bi-partisan approach would work. He acts as if he is the President of the Republican Party, not the United States.
Finally the 2006 GOP Campaign is based not on the record of the Administration (see above to understand why) but rather on claims that only the GOP can fight the war against terror better than the Democrats (again see above). A debate over issues is avoided in favor of negative character attacks against Democrats.
The New York Times today summed this up in an editorial entitled the Great Divider:
Moderate Republicans, despite their sometime reasonable stances, create a Congressional leadership (Frist, Hastert, DeLay) that rubber-stamps the Bush agenda, and therefore they need to be defeated in the same way as the Santorums and Allens.
What are the events of the past six years that lead to a conclusion in favor of wholesale defeat for the Republicans? Let me count the ways.
The entire Iraq process is built on a foundation of lies and statements contradicted as soon as events no longer support the original assertion. The frequent claim that Bush and Cheney used the best intelligence available has been countered by recent reports that intelligence was accurate, but ignored, and was twisted to fit Bush aims.
Bush has demonstrated from the start a complete failure to understand the nature of Islamic fundamentalism. His repeated public utterances describe terrorists as thugs and killers. Not understanding the underlying causes that motivate the enemy, has led to choices that worsen our problems rather than resolving them.
According to the most recent National Intelligence Estimate produced by the US intelligence community, the American invasion and occupation of Iraq have helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks
There was a complete absence of planning for the post invasion – Rumsfeld stopped the military from even proposing post invasion strategy under the belief that we would be welcomed as liberators, that Iraqi oil would pay for all costs, and that his idea of a small, lean military force was the answer.
Our initial attempt to manage post-war Iraq was the Coalition Provisional Authority. It was staffed by inexperienced Republican political hacks taken from Republican Congressional staffs, K St. lobbyists, and right-wing think tanks, rather than with experienced people who understood how to rebuild a country, who could speak the language, and who understood the culture. A $75 million project to build the largest police academy in Iraq has been so grossly mismanaged that the campus now poses health risks to recruits and might need to be partially, if not fully, demolished, U.S. investigators have recently found.
The Iraq undertaking has sapped our influence throughout the world in dealing with the significantly more pressing problems of terrorism, North Korea, and Iran. We’ve squandered the goodwill of the world following 9/11 and even our friends dislike us intensely. Our standard diplomatic posture is to refuse to talk with North Korea, Iran, or Moqtada al-Sadr, who appears to hold the major power in Shiite Iraq.
We’ve spent enormous sums of money in Iraq, most of it going for fighting the insurgency. Over 2,800 US soldiers have died. Thousands have been wounded. Iraqi deaths, depending on who is counting are at least 30,00 and may be 600,000. The heralded rebuilding of Iraq’s infrastructure plods along with only big US business reaping any benefit.
The educated Iraq middle class is either leaving the country or being murdered by insurgents. 500,000 Iraqis have relocated to sectarian areas leading to the de facto partition into three autonomous sections. Militias, who are the major source of violence, control the Iraqi police force. Iraq is in the midst of a civil war, although the Administration can’t admit it. Sunni/Shiite antipathy is the major problem, not terrorism.
There is no exit strategy other than Stay the Course. The precipitate dismissal of that phrase used constantly by Bush until a few weeks ago and replaced with Finish the Job is a change in words, not a change in policy.
Support the Troops, another favorite Bushism, in reality is just a PR concept. We sent insufficient troops to do the job. We gave them inadequate armor to safeguard them, just as we currently allow the Iraqi Army to ride around in open trucks with even less armor. Veterans returning with PTSD are not treated in VA hospitals. Benefits for military survivors have been curtailed.
The Bush cut and run policy, which saw us leave Afghanistan in order to move to Iraq, is now seeing the rebirth of the Taliban.
Bush’s failure to recognize how our dependence on oil is at the heart of our immediate and long-term difficulties is potentially the greatest threat we face. Other than mouthing platitudes about addiction, there has been no effort to establish a program to sever that reliance by seriously developing alternative energy, raising CAFÉ standards, and discouraging consumption.
As with Iraq, the response to Katrina and the claims about it, show the same pattern of incompetence, lack of planning, and inability to analyze facts that were presented in time for action to be taken. FEMA, Michael Brown, and the Presidential flyover are laugh lines in the US. Bush lied to the American public about not having advance knowledge that levees could break. He had been shown a video about that possibility months in advance.
The Corps of Engineers spent more in Louisiana than in any other state, but it wasted most of the money on ecologically harmful and fiscally wasteful pork that kept its employees busy and its political patrons happy, while neglecting hurricane protection for New Orleans and actually intensifying the effects of the storm.
Gas prices went through the roof in the last 12 months, but miraculously came down just before the election, although not quick enough to prevent Exxon from gaining the largest profit in corporate history.
Sleaze. It is hard to keep track of all the Republicans mired in scandal. With out going into the details a list of the names should bring back fond memories: Abramoff, DeLay, Scooter Libby, Foley, Ney, Weldon, Safavian, Sherwood, and Duke Cunningham.
This administration has clearly favored big business over working people from the start. Its tax cuts provided a few hundred dollars to most individuals while the tiny percent of highest income receivers got millions of dollars. The disregard of scientific judgments by political appointees primarily supports business interests at the expense of the environment. The FHA has 200 staff reviewing 800 requests for generic drugs, compared to 2,500 staff reviewing 150 new brand-name drugs each year.
In its drive to foster a more cooperative relationship with mining companies, the Bush administration has decreased major fines for safety violations since 2001, and in nearly half the cases, it has not collected the fines. This typical regulatory action gets little notice, unless there happens to be a major disaster, like the mine explosion in West Virginia.
The surplus in place at the start of the Bush presidency has been replaced by a major Budget deficit. But in true Bush speak; he has trumpeted the fact that it is lower than he originally thought.
Bush’s divisive political strategy is aimed at his base. Succeeding with 51% of the electorate is his ideal. That leads to a political policy that ignores the remaining 49% of Americans. He does not look for consensus or areas where a bi-partisan approach would work. He acts as if he is the President of the Republican Party, not the United States.
Finally the 2006 GOP Campaign is based not on the record of the Administration (see above to understand why) but rather on claims that only the GOP can fight the war against terror better than the Democrats (again see above). A debate over issues is avoided in favor of negative character attacks against Democrats.
The New York Times today summed this up in an editorial entitled the Great Divider:
As President Bush throws himself into the final days of a particularly nasty campaign season, he’s settled into a familiar pattern of ugly behavior. Since he can’t defend the real world created by his policies and his decisions, Mr. Bush is inventing a fantasy world in which to campaign on phony issues against fake enemies.
In Mr. Bush’s world, America is making real progress in Iraq. In the real world, as Michael Gordon reported in yesterday’s Times, the index that generals use to track developments shows an inexorable slide toward chaos. In Mr. Bush’s world, his administration is marching arm in arm with Iraqi officials committed to democracy and to staving off civil war. In the real world, the prime minister of Iraq orders the removal of American checkpoints in Baghdad and abets the sectarian militias that are slicing and dicing their country.
In Mr. Bush’s world, there are only two kinds of Americans: those who are against terrorism, and those who somehow are all right with it. Some Americans want to win in Iraq and some don’t. There are Americans who support the troops and Americans who don’t support the troops. And at the root of it all is the hideously damaging fantasy that there is a gulf between Americans who love their country and those who question his leadership.
Mr. Bush has been pushing these divisive themes all over the nation, offering up the ludicrous notion the other day that if Democrats manage to control even one house of Congress, America will lose and the terrorists will win. But he hit a particularly creepy low when he decided to distort a lame joke lamely delivered by Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. Mr. Kerry warned college students that the punishment for not learning your lessons was to “get stuck in Iraq.” In context, it was obviously an attempt to disparage Mr. Bush’s intelligence. That’s impolitic and impolite, but it’s not as bad as Mr. Bush’s response. Knowing full well what Mr. Kerry meant, the president and his team cried out that the senator was disparaging the troops. It was a depressing replay of the way the Bush campaign Swift-boated Americans in 2004 into believing that Mr. Kerry, who went to war, was a coward and Mr. Bush, who stayed home, was a hero.
It’s not the least bit surprising or objectionable that Mr. Bush would hit the trail hard at this point, trying to salvage his party’s control of Congress and, by extension, his last two years in office. And we’re not naïve enough to believe that either party has been running a positive campaign that focuses on the issues.
But when candidates for lower office make their opponents out to be friends of Osama bin Laden, or try to turn a minor gaffe into a near felony, that’s just depressing. When the president of the United States gleefully bathes in the muck to divide Americans into those who love their country and those who don’t, it is destructive to the fabric of the nation he is supposed to be leading.
This is hardly the first time that Mr. Bush has played the politics of fear, anger and division; if he’s ever missed a chance to wave the bloody flag of 9/11, we can’t think of when. But Mr. Bush’s latest outbursts go way beyond that. They leave us wondering whether this president will ever be willing or able to make room for bipartisanship, compromise and statesmanship in the two years he has left in office.
posted by John Weiss at 1:09 PM
1 Comments:
Excellent summary of the past six years. I am saving it for my Grandchildren. Thank you! Alfreda Weiss
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