...George Bush is maddening. In his last press conference this week, he talked about some "disappointments" in his presidency. Helen Thomas said it best:
Here's a bizarre Bushism. In one of his strangest statements as president, Bush said that Iraq's "not having weapons of mass destruction was a significant disappointment."
Wait a minute. The absence of those weapons should have been good news.
But it was a huge disappointment for Bush because he had staked his public rationale for attacking Iraq on the existence of those alleged weapons. When none were found, it became a disappointment for Bush because it meant that he had committed U.S. military forces to invade Iraq in 2003 on either erroneous information or a lie.
More than 4,000 Americans have been killed in Iraq since then. Imagine the disappointment of their families and loved ones.
To this day, Bush has not given a credible explanation for his war that also has killed tens of thousands of Iraqis.
I think Bush's entire presidency has been a "disappointment." Hurry, January 20th.
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I think that point about the "disappointment" of not finding WMDs is an important clue into the way the Bush Administration approached foreign policy. The policy of preemption (or The Bush doctrine, seriously how did Palin not know that?) not only seeks out enemies whereever it can find them but also it REQUIRES enemies so that the policy can justify its existence. Therefore when this policy and the people behind it can't find a real enemy (Bin Laden) they make one up (Iraq).
This mindset would be comical if the lives of service people where not involved. Not to mention that the service people are most often taken from poor and minority communities. It becomes all the more insane when you factor in that the two people making these decisions (Bush and Cheney) never saw a second of overseas combat and both were in demographics that allowed them to get into Yale. To be honest, I think this lack of fighting experience is what makes Bush and Cheney so desperate to act like tough guys because they need to overcompensate for their lack of experience in that area. It is always striking how people who have seen real combat (such as Colin Powell and John McCain) are far more reserved in their war rhetoric.
Again, maybe this insecurity would be comical if it did not lead to the deaths of sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, friends and family members, and on and on.
None of this really scratches the surface of the cost this incompetence has brought, but there is another Presidential comparision I wanted to make. Actually, it is a comparison between presidential scandals. I wasn't even interested in politics during the Clinton years and I remember the Monica Lewinsky deal like it was yesterday. The uproar, the outrage, for WHAT? Cheating on your wife (when that was clearly a part of their deal from the start?) for "lying" about a personal question that it is questionable Star had a right to ask?
How do cheating on your wife and lying about it (with absolutely NO provable ramifications for the American tax payer) create more outrage than sending Americans to die for a highly dubious reason that turned out to be utterly false?
Okay, and finally, Bush likes to tout himself as Commander in Chief. Fine. The Armed Services have a chain of command, if I'm not mistaken. Therefore, in areas like Abu Ghrab and WMDs where can the blame or prosecution go but to the person at the top of the chain of command? If Bush has been the Commander and Chief of the military for these 8 years then, to follow his logic, he should be prosecuted for any and all war crimes that have taken place under his watch.
That said, I am excited about the new administration in terms of its change in rhetoric, its hiring practices (i.e. hiring people with experience and not buddies from Texas), and its desire to inspire the American people rather than hide information and images from them. I agree that Obama has a bit of "Bizarro Bush" about him but he's also smart enough to think bigger than that (i.e. wiping out his 2012 competition by nominating H Clinton for Secretary of State). I am not sure how much effect any President has on the day to day lives of citizens but at least now citizens can watch competence (remains to be seen, I guess, but there is cause for hope) from a distance rather than fatal incompetence.
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