Some of the euphoria that accompanied Obama's win in November is tempered by the realization that President Bush is striving to sustain and enhance his failed policies well into the future. His defenders meanwhile keep trying to make the case that he has been the victim of relentless "Bush bashing" and that he has been a good steward of the nation's interests. But even a sidelong glance at where the country stands on the eve of his departure belies any attempt to cast his tenure in rosy partisan hues.
Mr. Bush insists that "free markets" should remain unfettered by government regulations and that "free trade" benefits the United States and the world at large. Meanwhile the country teeters on the brink of financial disaster while his economic appointees try to find the formula to bring it back into, if not balance, at least some measure of financial viability. As usual, he claims his choices have been well-considered, his profligate spending without increased revenue streams perfectly reasonable. Since he never accepts any responsibility when bad things happen, he states the obvious when he says we face some hurdles, without acknowledging any complicity for failure by him or his team.
And as he gives away the store, penning outrageous giveaways that allow old-style energy industries to forage for fossil fuels here at home, ordinary citizens are left on the sidelines without a voice. Turning over vast tracts of land without proper public comment or environmental oversight is a betrayal of the American people, as fragile landscapes are pillaged for private gain. As Bobby McEnaney, at the Natural Resources Defense Council, put it "The Bush administration started its energy policy in back rooms with oil lobbyists, and it's fitting that's how they want to end it. They're destroying the whole process that is supposed to protect these lands. Once you get rid of wilderness you can't get it back." (WashingtonPost.com 11/29/08)
Aside from the giveaway contracts Bush also seeks to relax regulations that were meant to keep coal companies from dumping the dregs of their mountain-top mining operations into nearby streams destroying them forever. Apparently the Bush people believe environmental concerns should never trump business interests, and their policies are derived according to that belief. Some of them don't believe Global Warming is real, and others don't seem to care whether it is or not - - eight years with no serious attempt to reduce the use of fossil fuels or develop new sources of energy. For those who do care, in the words of Kermit the frog "It isn't easy being green."
When Bush supporters describe Bush as a great leader, time doesn't always permit a thoroughgoing critique of the Bush years. It may be just as useful to simply suggest that they look around and describe what they see both now and coming down the road. And the old ‘he's kept the country safe' doesn't fly because the intervals between the first Trade Center bombing during the Clinton presidency and the second one were exactly the same. People associated with the Bush administration make ludicrous claims that illustrate how intellectually-challenged they really are. White House staffer, Peter Wehmer, in a recent interview talked about "Bush bashing" as if criticisms of the president had no basis whatsoever - - that his embarrassing gaffes and lapses in judgment hadn't made him an astonishingly unqualified chief executive.
According to Wehmer, this country is "center right" never mind the rants of those few anti-war, "left-wing crazies." Why, he said, Bush liberated whole countries and got rid of Saddam Hussein, someone Wehmer compared to Cambodian dictator Pol Pot. Now, not to defend Hussein, but to accept such a comparison would be to ignore history - - the Viet Nam experience and U.S. involvement in the terrible events that occurred in that part of the world. Pol Pot evacuated cities and towns driving everyone into the countryside to establish his vision of an "agrarian utopia", killing millions of his own people and enslaving those who remained. Hussein was a brutal dictator, but Pol Pot he was not.
How sad that the very people who helped bring us to the sorry state we're in are still, through the auspices of a lame-duck president, working to keep us mired in the short-sighted policies that define this administration, and that his apologists would have us disbelieve what we can see with our own eyes and are experiencing in our daily lives.
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How Kin Ya Challinje Ar Prezdint?
Remember that "We make our own reality" line given to Ron Suskind by a member of the administration several years ago? It told us everything we needed to know about Bush and his crew. It was all a big con job based on a lame salesman's motto.
It's typical of salesmen to decide on a goal, and everything they think, do, and say is intended to advance toward realizing it. Facts and truth are not the friend of the salesman, only a strong belief that the goal will be achieved. Anything else impedes success.
That's how Bush could stay on message at the end of his misrule despite the history. He thinks he's achieved his goals whether he has or not, for failure was never an option.
how Kin Ya....