Category Archives: George W. Bush

Turning History Into Fiction.

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Last week’s opening of the George W. Bush presidential library was remarkable in one respect. With the opening, Teapublicans began their attempts to rewrite history in earnest.

Last week, you heard Bush state that he still considers our invasion of Iraq a great achievement for exporting democracy to the world. There was no mention, of course, about the tens of thousands of casualties, the war’s estimated $3 trillion price tag, and the fact that the invasion actually strengthened Iran’s influence in the area.

You heard some Teapublicans speak glowingly of Bush’s economic policies, which will, in their opinion, make history. They view Bush as the greatest president in recent decades. (In case you’ve forgotten, when Bush assumed office, there was an annual surplus. And when he left, our economy was in absolute free fall.) You even heard Karl “Turd Blossom” Rove state that Bush’s image should be carved into Mount Rushmore alongside Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt!

Does this mean that, in the feeble minds of Teapublicans, Bush has now displaced Reagan as the greatest president ever?

Given the amount of b.s. being generated in Texas last week, no wonder it’s known as the Longhorn state.

George W. Bush Presidential Library – What It Should Include.

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No, I’m not going to suggest that it consist simply of My Pet Goat, the only book other than the Bible that Bush is known to have read. But if a presidential library is intended to represent the achievements of a presidency, here’s what I believe it should include:

Bush 9/ll Room – The highlight of this display would be the July 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing which was headlined “Bin Laden Determined To Strike In U.S.”

Bush Economic Policy Room – This room would consist of a glass bridge traversing a vast, deep hole representing the Bush administration’s effect on the US economy.

Bush Victory Room – It would contain Bush’s flight suit and the “Mission Accomplished” Banner which announced victory over Iraq more than 7 years before the war ended. The walls would be covered with quotes by administration officials used to sell the war, including the quote by Donald Rumsfeld which predicted that we would be welcomed as liberators and the quote by Paul Wolfowitz saying that the war would pay for itself.

There would also be a tiny empty shelf representing all the WMD found in Iraq.

Bush Patriotism Room – This would actually be a small closet consisting of a single empty file drawer intended for Bush’s missing military records covering the time he was AWOL. The only other item would be a photo of Valerie Plame, the CIA agent willfully exposed by the administration for her husband’s opposition to the Iraq War.

Puppet Master Room – This display would be devoted to Richard “The Dick” Cheney and Karl “Turd Blossom” Rove. In addition to The Dick’s Darth Vader costume, there would be the shotgun he used to shoot his hunting partner in the face and the Plan For A New American Century calling for the use of our military to exert our economic will around the world. There would also be a jar containing The Dick’s original shriveled heart.

Bush Justice Room – This would include a gallery of photos from Abu Ghraib, a map of sites for extraordinary rendition (aka torture), an explanation from “The Dick” explaining that nearly drowning someone repeatedly is not torture, and the 600-page report by the non-partisan Constitution Project which concludes that “it is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture” and that Bush and Cheney bore ultimate responsibility for it.

At the center of the room would be a replica of the statue of Justice with the cloak that former Attorney General John Ashcroft used to cover her bare breast.

Katrina Room – This room would be interactive. Once you enter, the water would begin to rise as a life-size image of Bush smiles and waves. No matter how much you beg, the library staff would refuse to help.

Tell me this wouldn’t be more accurate than the Bush library being portrayed in the media.

Most U.S. Problems Are The Result Of The 2000 Election.

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In some ways, those who predicted apocalyptic disaster as the result of Y2K were right. No, our computers did not stop working.  No, the millennium did not lead to the end of the world. But we did experience a disaster nonetheless.

Despite winning the majority of the popular vote, Al Gore was denied a recount in Florida and, as a result, the White House. Consider, for a moment, the implications of the Supreme Court’s decision to award George W. Bush the presidency.

That unpopular decision led to almost all of our most intractable problems.

Let’s begin with 9/11.  A Gore administration likely would have continued most of the policies of the Clinton administration, including its attempt to kill Osama bin Laden and destroy al Qaeda with a cruise missile (a strike derided by Bush as “sending a million dollar missile to blow up a camel tent”).  Unlike Bush, President Gore almost certainly would have listened to warnings by counter-terrorism experts of an imminent strike in the US using hijacked airliners.

And without 9/11, we wouldn’t have become mired in the 10-year war in Afghanistan which has cost us trillions of dollars.

Moreover, it’s highly unlikely that a Gore administration would have falsified evidence in order to justify the invasion of Iraq, leading to a second war costing trillions more dollars.

As for our economy, Gore would have continued the Clinton administration’s policies which led to budget surpluses – surpluses that were on track to eliminate the national debt by the end of 2012.  The Bush tax cuts, which added hundreds of billions of dollars to the debt, never would have happened (at least, not until the debt was nearly paid off).

As vice-president, Al Gore led the successful Reinventing Government Program that streamlined the federal government and cut wasteful spending.  He likely would have continued that program as president, continuing to down-size government.

Bush, on the other hand, oversaw the largest increase of the federal government in history!

Finally, Gore almost certainly would have led efforts to stem climate change at a time when smaller changes could have had great and lasting effects.  But thanks to Bush, Richard “The Dick” Cheney and all of their oil buddies, it now may be too late to avoid the predictable devastating effects of runaway carbon emissions.

Remember this the next time you hear Teapublicans complain about the budget deficit, the escalating national debt, and the cost of clean-up efforts following storms made worse by climate change.

Apocalyptic Politics.

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Many Americans seem convinced that the Apocalypse is upon us.  Remember Y2K? Remember Nostradamus?  Remember the Mayan calendar?

There have been dead-enders around as long as I can remember.  Usually, they were part of some wacko religious cult that had bet its future on the book of Revelation.  But, in recent years, the dead-enders have become mainstream, especially after the election of our first president of African-American heritage.

Fueled by Teapublicans and the right-wing media, we are constantly told to be afraid…be very afraid.  Unless we do as they say and accept their ideology, we will suffer the consequences of a failed, bankrupt state and, quite likely, the wrath of God.  (You know, the God who personally created America by taking land from the natives and giving it to God-fearing Christians.)

All of this is disturbing enough.  But our media seem to have bought into these fear tactics in the same way they bought into the Bush administration’s lies leading up to the invasion of Iraq.

As a result, we’re exposed to Teapublican and Christian evangelical fear-mongering at nearly every turn.  Fire-and-brimstone pastors preach fear from the pulpit and tell their flocks that they will go to hell if they support Democrats.  Hate mongers such as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Mark Levin spew apocalyptic nonsense daily.  And the gun manufacturers’ lobby, otherwise known as the National Rifle Association, tells you that your neighbors are out to get you and your government is coming to take your guns.

To make matters worse, mainstream cable channels offer studies in paranoia such as Doomsday Preppers.  Even the movie studios have gotten into the act with a never-ending series of disaster movies.  And, in the most egregious example, the History Channel recently produced a TV series on the Bible, casting an Obama look-alike as Satan!

The clear message is that we will all perish and go to hell unless we all become right-wing Christian Teapublicans who bow to multinational corporations, turn our backs on the poor, ignore the rights of women, show intolerance to minorities, and worship at the altar of intolerance and greed.

Now that would be a REAL apocalypse!

The Iraq War Summed Up In A Single Letter.

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Remember when Paul Wolfowitz said that the Iraq War would pay for itself?  He and others in the Bush administration claimed that we would be welcomed as liberators; that it would be financed by oil revenues.

Contrary to those claims, the cost is now more than $800 billion and rising.  When you take into account the cost of healthcare for Iraqi veterans, the cost will likely rise to as much as $3 trillion!

And that’s just the cost in dollars and cents.

The human costs are much higher.  We know that more than 4,400 US lives were lost. The cost of Iraqi lives is less clear…the most conservative estimate is approximately 198,000 men, women and children!

Moreover, many of our US troops came back from Iraq with serious issues.  Of course, they got a pat on the back and a “thank you for your service” from most Americans.  But little else.  Many have been forced to wait up to two years to receive care.  Many are amputees.  Many have PTSD and traumatic brain injuries.  And many have committed suicide.

But nothing sums up the war better than a letter written by Iraqi veteran Tomas Young to George W. Bush and Richard “The Dick” Cheney.  I challenge you to read his letter and still be able to justify this unnecessary war.

Nevertheless, in recent interviews, both “The Dick” and Wolfowitz have said they have no regrets; if they had it to do over again, they’d do the same thing.  And Congressional Teapublicans, many of whom were in a hurry to invade Iraq, seem unconcerned that sequestration and their proposed budget cuts will deny help for many more veterans.

There should be a special place in Hell for these people…alongside Saddam Hussein.

The Treason Party.

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Following the fallout of the Watergate break-in, we learned that Richard Nixon was a crook. Thanks to a documentary by the BBC and the Rachel Maddow Show, we now know that he was also a traitor.

The Thursday before the 1968 presidential election, President Johnson announced that the allies had reached a peace agreement with North Vietnam. But since Nixon had run on a platform promising to end the war, he couldn’t afford to have Johnson end the war a few days before the election.

So Nixon used an intermediary to convince the South Vietnamese to back out of the peace agreement!

Recordings of Johnson’s phone conversations reveal that he knew about Nixon’s treachery, but since he learned of it as the result of illegal FBI wiretaps of the South Vietnam ambassador’s phone, LBJ couldn’t make the information public.

The treason helped Nixon win a close election over Hubert H. Humphrey.  It also caused the war to rage on for another 5 years, costing 15,000 more American lives!

Of course, Nixon isn’t the last Republican president to play fast and loose with the Constitution. Reagan created a shadow government to covertly arm Iran in exchange for money to finance the Contras of Nicaragua.  George W. Bush led us into war with Iraq on false pretenses.  And his administration violated international treaties by torturing captives.

More recently, Teapublicans have used every parliamentary trick in the book and a record number of filibusters in order to block President Obama’s appointments and his attempts to improve our economy.

Yet they have the audacity to wave flags and call themselves patriots!!!

A Rare Slip Of The Tongue By Sen. McCain.

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It doesn’t happen often, but last Thursday, a nugget of truth slipped between the lips of the self-described maverick.

Appearing on Fox News Channel, he stated that the reason for the filibuster of former Sen. Chuck Hagel’s nomination for Secretary of Defense is Hagel’s statements regarding former President Bush. McCain said, “it goes back to there’s a lot of ill will towards Senator Hagel when he was a Republican, he attacked President Bush mercilessly and said he was the worst president since Herbert Hoover and said the surge was the worst blunder since the Vietnam War, which was nonsense. He was anti his own party and people – people don’t forget that.” 

So that’s it. That’s McCain’s reason for taking the unprecedented step of voting to filibuster the nomination of the Secretary of Defense? McCain cares so little about our soldiers in Afghanistan that he would block the nomination during a war? Apparently, if you’re a Teapublican, political payback is more important than patriotism. It’s come to a point that, if you’re a Republican, you can’t tell the truth about your own party if that truth is negative.

As it turns out, you don’t dare turn your back on them, either. Not even a kevlar vest could protect you from a back-stabbing like this. 

NRA Hypocrisy On Gun Laws.

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Since the massacre of children at Sandy Hook Elementary School, National Rifle Association leaders have spoken out against any form of gun control. Instead, they call for “enforcing the more than 20,000 gun laws already on the books.”

That’s interesting because the NRA and its Teapublican pawns in Congress have placed an increasing number of roadblocks in the way of those charged with enforcing the laws. They have continually discouraged mayors and city police from enforcing gun laws, saying that enforcement should be left to the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

Yet Teapublican senators in the pockets of the NRA have refused to confirm the appointment of an ATF director since 2006. They have not confirmed appointments by either President Obama or former President Bush for fear that those appointments will be too aggressive in enforcing laws. As a result, the current Acting Director B. Todd Jones must commute to Washington from his post as US Attorney in Minnesota.

That’s right, Jones is splitting time between two full-time jobs!

Moreover, as the result of budget constraints, the ATF has not added to its staff of 2,500 agents…the number it had when it became a separate bureau in 1972. These 2,500 agents are charged with policing the more than 100,000 licensed gun dealers in the US in addition to enforcing alcohol and tobacco laws. If that isn’t daunting enough, thanks to Teapublicans, the ATF is forbidden by law to inspect a dealer more than once per year. Of course, that’s hardly an issue, since the bureau doesn’t have enough staff to inspect each dealer more than once every 17 years!

In addition, an NRA-written amendment sponsored by a Teapublican Congressman and inserted into a Congressional spending bill banned the ATF from requiring gun dealers to track their own inventory. The amendment also gave dealers the power to ignore police requests for assistance in tracking guns. It ended the oversight of used gun sales. It required the destruction of background check records within 24 hours of the purchase in order to protect the privacy of gun owners. It also banned the ATF from creating a national registry of gun transactions or even publishing statistics on crimes committed with guns!

Further, NRA bills passed by Teapublican-controlled state legislatures have so liberalized gun laws that it is virtually impossible for law enforcement to prosecute “straw buyers” who purchase guns on behalf of drug cartels, gangs and other criminals. That is what led to the frustration of ATF agents who resorted to the tactics at the heart of the Fast and Furious operation.

Police and the ATF know that one percent of the nation’s gun dealers sell the weapons involved in 57 percent of crimes. Yet they are powerless to do anything about it as the result of NRA-endorsed Teapublican obstruction. Remember that the next time there’s a mass shooting.

More important, remember that the next time you vote!

Let’s Have A Real Debate About Drone Strikes And Torture.

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Over the past decade, our “war on terror” has led to two highly contentious policies. Extraordinary rendition (AKA torture) involving the US and 50 nations which acted in defiance of the Geneva Conventions’ ban on torture, and unmanned drone strikes (AKA assassination by remote control). These two policies were created and undertaken by the CIA and the US military without open debate.

It’s long past time for that debate to take place.

Today, Congress will have what promises to be a highly partisan circus of self-righteous statements by both parties during the confirmation hearing for the position of CIA Director. But it’s unlikely that we’ll learn anything from the hyperbolic statements of partisanship.

What we need is a series of non-partisan Congressional hearings and a public debate on both policies at the same time. After all, torture was authorized by the Bush administration and drone strikes by the Obama administration.

By addressing both policies simultaneously, we might see an honest debate without the usual posturing for the media that accompanies most Congressional hearings these days.

Admittedly, it’s unlikely that anything will actually be accomplished by such a debate other than focusing public attention on the issues. But at least voters would be informed and could make their opinions known to our elected representatives. Then, and only then, our elected officials might arrive at workable constraints that control these policies.

Better yet, they might prohibit the policies entirely. There simply must be better methods of pursuing terrorists and stopping them before they strike.

Torture and assassinations without due process have no place in modern society.

Absolutism And The 2nd Amendment.

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The National Rifle Association, right wing conservatives and gun collectors like to consider the rights granted by the 2nd Amendment as absolute. Even during testimony by a parent of one of the children slaughtered in Newtown, a heckler shouted “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Of course, people like this (and, unfortunately, there are many of them) neglect to mention the first clause of the amendment which states, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State…”

They also overlook the fact that none of the constitutional amendments are absolute.

For example, it’s illegal to slander, libel or defame others despite the 1st amendment’s guarantee of free speech. And, as I’ve previously mentioned, it is also illegal to falsely yell “fire” in a crowded theater.

Our nation has also placed some restrictions on our right to free assembly.

Moreover, in recent years, we have created exceptions to the constitutional limits on search and seizure. The Bush administration played fast and loose with the limits on imprisonment. And we’ve modified the Constitution in many ways to abolish slavery, to give women the right to vote, to expand civil rights, to ban poll taxes, and to prohibit then later legalize the sale of alcohol.

It’s clear the Founders never intended the Constitution to be absolute. Supreme Court rulings have acknowledged that fact. So if other constitutional guarantees are not absolute, why should the guarantee of the 2nd amendment be any different?

We can and should place limits on military-style weapons of mass destruction. We should limit the size of magazines. We really should prohibit the sale of all semi-automatic firearms. We most certainly should conduct thorough background checks before the transfer of any firearm. We should place limits on the sale of ammunition. And we should require safety courses for everyone who purchases a gun.

Without changes in our gun laws, we can expect more mass shootings, more murders of children, and more random violence. Isn’t continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different result a definition of insanity?