Year End Cleanup . . . .

Some end of the year cleanup is in order, and how fitting it is to feature the bush administration.

From Bob Herbert of the New York Times we get:

Add Up the Damage
By BOB HERBERT - December 30, 2008

Does anyone know where George W. Bush is?

You don’t hear much from him anymore. The last image most of us remember is of the president ducking a pair of size 10s that were hurled at him in Baghdad.

We’re still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel is thrashing the Palestinians in Gaza. And the U.S. economy is about as vibrant as the 0-16 Detroit Lions.

But hardly a peep have we heard from George, the 43rd.

When Mr. Bush officially takes his leave in three weeks (in reality, he checked out long ago), most Americans will be content to sigh good riddance. I disagree. I don’t think he should be allowed to slip quietly out of town. There should be a great hue and cry — a loud, collective angry howl, demonstrations with signs and bullhorns and fiery speeches — over the damage he’s done to this country.

This is the man who gave us the war in Iraq and Guantánamo and torture and rendition; who turned the Clinton economy and the budget surplus into fool’s gold; who dithered while New Orleans drowned; who trampled our civil liberties at home and ruined our reputation abroad; who let Dick Cheney run hog wild and thought Brownie was doing a heckuva job.

_______________


The catalog of his transgressions against the nation’s interests — sins of commission and omission — would keep Mr. Bush in a confessional for the rest of his life. Don’t hold your breath. He’s hardly the contrite sort.

He told ABC’s Charlie Gibson: “I don’t spend a lot of time really worrying about short-term history. I guess I don’t worry about long-term history, either, since I’m not going to be around to read it.”

The president chuckled, thinking — as he did when he made his jokes about the missing weapons of mass destruction — that there was something funny going on.

Paul Krugman, winner of the Nobel prize in economics, also of the New York Times now weighs in:

Looking for a word
December 31, 2008

Unusually, I’m having a vocabulary problem. There has to be some word for the kind of person who considers his mild discomfort the equivalent of torture, crippling injury, or death for other people. But I can’t think of it.

What brings this to mind is this from Alberto Gonzales:

"I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror."

This reminded me of Laura Bush’s remark on carnage in Iraq:

"And believe me, no one suffers more than their president and I do when we watch this."

Remember this. And remember, too, that for long years these people were considered heroic patriots, defenders of the nation.

And now it is time for them to go away . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Laura Bush has a pinched nerve. George goes on a date.

George W Bush is in Australia causing all kinds of grief for Sydneysiders because of a security clampdown. But, George isn't letting that get in the way of his fun.

Condoleezza Rice has been President Bush's foreign policy tutor, sports buddy, national security adviser and his secretary of state.

Bush came up with a new designation Wednesday at a dinner in his honor.

``She can be my date,'' the president said, reaching out his left hand to touch Rice's arm as they stood before the cameras at a dinner hosted by Prime Minister John Howard and his wife Janette at their residence, Kirribilli House .

Why, that's just so touching. One would think George would have taken his, you know, wife to dinner with the Howards.

First lady Laura Bush had stayed back in Washington, saying a pinched nerve prevented her from taking long flights.

She couldn't make a flight on the largest, best equipped private jet in the world?

Air Force One has a large presidential suite, more lounges than some hotels, a large galley and a medical room. To go with that all the staff that Bush and his entourage needs is provided. Why, even Laura's physician would be there.

It's starting to sound like Laura Bush has a pinched nerve named "George".

(Click on image to enlarge)

H/T Tengrain

Reasonable Al Gore . . . .

Our local library here in conservative-repuglican-land is becoming more Progressive-friendly thanks to our efforts. To counter the ann coulter, sean hannity and robert novak books in abundance, we have successfully gotten them to order "The One Percent Doctrine" by Ron Suskind, "Imperial Life in the Emerald City" by Rajiv Chandrasekaran and most recently "The Assault on Reason" by Al Gore. All have been great additions to our local literary options.

I checked out Al Gore's latest the other day and am about half-way through it. I found the following excerpt in the chapter entitled "Convenient Untruths" particularly good. He is describing how the bushco administration operates in regards to disseminating information to the US public. These paragraphs pertain to their one-time Iraqi point man Ahmed Chalabi:


Yet in spite of those analyses, President Bush chose to suppress those warnings and conceal that information, and instead he went right on conveying to the American people the absurdly Pollyannaish view of highly questionable and obviously biased sources like Ahmed Chalabi, a convicted felon and known swindler.

The Bush administration put Chalabi on its payroll and gave him a seat adjacent to First Lady Laura Bush at the State of the Union address. They then flew him into Baghdad on a military jet with a private security force. However, the following year the administration decided he was actually a spy for Iran who had been hoodwinking the president all along with phony facts and false predictions. Now Chalabi is a top official of the new government in Baghdad.

It has become common for President Bush to rely on special interests, like the one represented by Chalabi, for basic information about the policies important to these interests. ExxonMobil, for example, has apparently been his most trusted source of information about the climate crisis. Chemical companies are his most trusted sources on whether or not particular chemicals are hazardous to the environment. The major pharmaceutical companies are his most trusted advisers on the health risks of new drugs. Insurance companies are considered the most reliable source of data on any policy that affects them. And so forth.

And then, amazingly, the president seems to trust what these special interests tell him over and above objective information prepared for him by independent analysts who are charged with protecting the public interest. Since his ideology teaches him contempt for the very notion of "the public interest," he actually prefers to rely on biased information prepared by sources of questionable reliability - like Chalabi - who have a private interest in a particular policy outcome. The president has, in effect, outsourced the truth. (Emphasis mine.)


Once again, you've got to ask yourself: If ordinary folks like us can see stuff like this and be concerned about it, why didn't our elected "representatives" see it and apply their Constitutional responsibility of oversight over this crowd? Could it be they were protecting their cushy jobs and perks to the detriment of what was right?

A pox on all their houses . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moving to Vancouver)

Laura Bush really doesn't know, does she?

The annual White House Easter Egg Roll was held yesterday. US First Lady Laura Bush made happy with the first event of spring on the White House lawn. Readers need to be made aware now that Easter Monday is a secular event.

Well, sort of. Egg Rolling is traditional, but in some countries it is known as Dyngus Day or Wet Monday. Wet Monday involves boys sneaking into girls bedrooms and waking them by tossing multiple buckets of water on them. This is apparently a pre-Christian thing. But then, so are Easter eggs.

But I digress.

Thousands of kids dressed for winter weather scrambled for eggs - Easter eggs, that is - at a White House ceremony dating back to the 19th century

The annual White House Easter Egg Roll, started by President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1878, typically has been a rite of spring in Washington. But on Monday, it was afflicted by winter's parting bite - cold air and even colder grounds. Undaunted by any of this, the young guests sprang into action under the watchful eyes of their families, hostess Laura Bush and several Bush administration Cabinet secretaries.

"In Washington, we know spring has arrived when the White House lawn is filled with children for the Easter Egg Roll, one of the happiest traditions here at the White House," the first lady said.

The cold would explain why the White House went with Egg Rolling instead of tossing water on the females. (Take that anywhere you like, I was thinking more in terms of hypothermia.)

Anyway, after running around rolling eggs with spoons the little ones were treated to a special reading by Laura Bush of a book which one can only assume is on the shelf of the White House library. Remember, there were several cabinet secretaries in attendance.

After her welcome, the first lady sat in one of the area's designated reading nooks and read "Duck for President," by Doreen Cronin. It's a story of a duck who gets sick of farm chores and decides to run for office - first for head of the farm, then governor and, finally, president. In the end he decides running the country is too much work and goes back to the farm.

Oh. My. Gawd.

(H/T TBogg)

(Click on image for an even better description of Cronin's book)