(WASHINGTON, DC) (September 6, 2006) Yesterday was the day President George W. Bush went into full meltdown mode. It was not be a happy day for America.
Almost seven (7) years ago, I produced a biting television commercial that aired in New Hampshire and questioned candidate George Bush’s ability to deal with the presidency. I was attacked by the local newspaper, the Union Leader, Jeb Bush smeared me, and Bush’s press secretary at the time dismissed my claims. Bill O’Reilly on Fox News attacked me bitterly. History has vindicated me.
Prior to becoming president, Bush had virtually no exposure to the rest of the world. He had never backpacked across Europe as a student, worked overseas, traveled extensively or done anything to connect him with “the world.” And one day the U. S. Supreme Court made him our president. Bush’s sole exposure to the Middle East was a short helicopter ride with Ariel Sharon.
GWB was born in a bubble, and he had lived his adult life in that bubble. Now we are paying the price. You really do learn something when you live out there among the people, seeing the real world the way it really is.
The presidency is the biggest and baddest bubble of all. Sycophants stand ready to agree with anything the president says or wants. The White House is no place for on the job training, and no one but a diehard Republican can deny that Bush has failed his six year internship in the Oval Office.
The Bush Administration today issued a laughable “National Strategy for Combating Terrorism,” and Bush reflexively went before a friendly audience of military officers to state his case. I can only say Bush should not quit his day job and apply to law school. He would be laughed out of the moot court competition.
Is there a war on terror?” Yes there is. There is a very serious war on terror going on. There is a very real wolf at the door. Many loyal Americans are fighting that war despite the best efforts of Bush and his administration to propagandize and capitalize on the conflict for their own petty, political profit.
Yogi Berra, of course, is known for the expression “It’s déjà vu all over again.” Today is not the 1930’s, as Bush argues; it is 1969 all over again and Bush is doing a pathetic riff on Vice President Spiro Agnew, who was sent out to attack the news media in a Des Moines, Iowa speech.
Bush’s claim today that Osama Bin Laden has a “media campaign” to use media against the American people is déjà vu all over again. When the news is bad, attack the media. It never works. But they keep trying.
The news today was not bad; it was atrocious. Horrible. While Bush said again he would never abandon his war, the New York Times carried two (2) full pages of coverage from Afghanistan documenting how Bush had initially toppled the Taliban in 2001, and then abandoned the Afghan people in a bean-counting, penny-pinching policy that withdrew U. S. support for putting an end to Taliban activity.
Five years into the War on Terror, “sanctuaries” that were so prevalent a concern during the Korean War exist in Pakistan for Taliban operatives and Osama himself. Why hasn’t Bush attacked those sanctuaries? Why is Osama taunting us five years later? Bush starved the Afghan mission, and he continues to starve our efforts there, while playing footsie with the Paki dictators who are doing nothing to end the “Taliban as we know it.”
I will believe that Bush is serious in fighting the war on terror when he attacks the Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan and takes on Osama with a serious military force.
The CBS Evening News carried a piece last night by Lara Logan from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, where Taliban solders plan attacks barely a dozen miles from U. S. installations. Yet Bush’s “National Strategy” says we have defeated the Taliban. Nope. The enemy isn’t beaten until he’s beaten. And he ain’t beaten.
Bush’s attempt to demonize the media will backfire in 2006 the same way it backfired in 1969 and 1970.
In the last few days Bush has reverted to apocalyptic scenarios, suggesting we fill “fight them in the streets of America if we don’t fight them on the streets of Baghdad.” Can “Rapture” be far behind? Yesterday Bush’s Scare-of-the-Day was a “mortal threat to the American people” lurking on the horizon. He’s been crying wolf so often he failed to realize the wolf is now outside his door.
President Johnson became a prisoner of the White House. So did President Nixon. President Carter made himself a prisoner of the White House. Now Bush is imprisoned in his White House bunker, venturing forth only to speak before carefully controlled audiences. Bunker. Now there’s an analogy for you.
Are there bad people out there that want to hurt America and the free world? You betcha. They scare me. But there are people within our own government who scare me even more, because they hold the levers of power and have no idea how to use them effectively and honorably.
Finally, don’t think because I criticize Bush I feel the Democrats are any better. Their own leaders have proven themselves hopelessly incompetent, slavishly self-promoting politicians who backed Bush when he looked strong and now attack because he looks weak. “Washington, we have a problem.”
Forgive me for feeling a little jaded. I lived through the 1960’s, and the current decade is a repeat of the sixties, not the 1930’s. It’s déjà vu all over again.
It’s enough to make me want to run for President. I couldn’t do a worse job than GWB, could I?