The George W. Bush Presidency, In A Nutshell

August 31 2004
Counterbias.com
Doug Griffin

“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.” ~ George W. Bush

Help or harm?  This is what this election should boil down to.  I believe it will.  The two fundamental questions that every single American – black, white, red, brown, or yellow, male or female, straight or gay, Democrat or Republican, young and old – should be asking are:

“Am I better off today, than I was 4 years ago?”

“Is America better off than it was 4 years ago?”

There are several key issues that will not continue to be overshadowed, no matter how many Swift Boat hit squads George W. Bush can assemble.  And no matter how much the SCLM (So-Called Liberal Media) continues to focus on these deliberate distractions; these important issues must be put in the spotlight.

We’ve got a real crisis in this country and it ain’t necessarily the War on Terror!  The traditional terrorists are not my biggest concern as a citizen; it is the political terrorists known as the neo-conservatives that are the biggest threat to democracy and freedom.  President Bush says, “They (the terrorists) hate us because we’re free.”  Well, Mr. President, it appears to me that you and your administration hate us because of our freedom too!

How free are we when one must sign a loyalty oath just to be present at Bush-Cheney campaign events?  You’re the President of the United States of America (leader of the free world) and I as an American citizen am required to swear my loyalty to your campaign for re-election just to be present to ask you a question. 

Excuse me, sir, but do you not see the irony in this?

The president claims to love freedom but says things like: “If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator.”  The statement was made in jest back in 2000 (post election), but there is something about the way the Bush Administration has handled things that makes many people feel that the joke has been on us, the American people.  George Bush has turned this democracy into as close to a dictatorship as it has been since… well, since King George.

That is the issue from which all the rest stem.  The issue of this election is whether or not America can survive 4 more years of George W. Bush.

I’m not a real “War” President, I just play one on TV

Truth in advertisement, I always say.  Just because George W. Bush says he’s tough on terror doesn’t make it the truth.  Just because the SCLM says this is the president’s strongest attribute, doesn’t make it anymore valid.  George W. Bush has done more for al-Qaeda’s recruitment than Osama bin Laden has.  There are now more than 18,000 potential terrorists, since the War on Terror started.  Afghanistan is shaky at best.  Iraq is… Iraq is the new Vietnam.  And now, as many predicted, it appears Tehran is the next capital the Bush Regime would like to plunder.  This is progress?

Let’s recap the War on Terror:

·        September 11, 2001 – America gets Pearl Harbored by several Muslim extremists, the majority of which were from Saudi Arabia.  The entire world pours out sympathy and displays solidarity with the United States as a result.  (This goodwill was subsequently lost with the illegal invasion of Iraq.)

·        America invades Afghanistan for harboring the terrorist organization responsible for the attacks on America.  The world population is solidly behind us in this true act of self-defense.

·        America passes the Homeland Security and Patriot Acts.  The Homeland Security Act created the Orwellian Department of Homeland Security.  The Patriot Act gave the Bush Administration carte blanch in treating the American citizenry as it saw fit.  Anyone reading (or writing) this article, for example, could be considered an enemy combatant simply because the president says so.

·        The 9/11 Commission, which the president at first vehemently resisted.  The commission determined key lapses in intelligence and lack of action from both the Clinton and Bush II administrations as key elements that led to the attacks.

So far that’s as far as the war on terror has gone.  We were told by the DHS to buy duct tape and plastic to protect ourselves.  There have been subsequent warnings about possible terrorist plots but these appear to be more politically timed than actual warnings of imminent danger.

The Bush Administration told us Iraq had WMD and that Saddam Hussein had a working relationship with al-Qaeda.  We invaded.  Both proved false.  What’s ironic is that two other countries on the Axis of Evil list (Iran and North Korea) actually do have nuclear capabilities and basically dared the United States to do anything about it.  True to form, the dress-up president chose the easy target – Iraq.  Not only that, the country that had more to do with the attacks of 9/11 – Saudi Arabia – was protected by the Bush Administration.  Remember Sharpie-gate?

I guess the president was just protecting his fellow oil brethren… I mean his fellow Americans.

Do you really want 4 more years of constant war that continue to drain our resources?  The battle plans for invading Iran are no doubt well underway, if not completed.  Syria may follow soon after.  War followed by war followed by more war.

Is that what’s best for America?

I’m not a real “Economy-minded” president, I just play one on TV

Three words: Surplus to deficit! Three more words: Records for both!

Nuff said!

But wait.  There’s more.

A newly (very early) released report from the Census Bureau states that for the third straight year, the ranks of the impoverished and the uninsured rose.  The population of those living below the poverty line grew by an additional 1.3 million in 2003 to 35.8 million.  This includes a dramatic rise in the number of children living in poverty to 12.9 million.  The uninsured rose by 1.4 million to nearly 45 million.  Again, nearly 36 million Americans live in poverty as of 2003 and 45 million of our fellow citizens do not have health care.  Guess which state has the most uninsured citizens – Texas, which has 24.7% of its population without insurance – higher than the national average – whoo hoo!

So this is compassionate conservatism!

I finally understand the meaning it.  It means you say you support social programs like Head Start, Social Security, Medicare, and No Child Left Behind but cut the funding so you can fund the tax cuts that benefit the rich minority (talk about wasted welfare) and the war in Iraq ($87 billion).  $87 billion that could have been used for other things like affordable healthcare or after school programs or affordable prescription drugs for seniors rather than fighting wars of choice and further filling the pockets of corporate cronies providing services – like logistical support, reconstruction, and torture.

We’ve got SUVs to drive.  Right?  To drive these SUVs requires lots and lots of gasoline, which requires lots and lots of oil.  Bush’s compassion is only for his base: the haves and the have mores.  That’s where his compassion ends. 

It was real compassionate to push through a new overtime law that takes money away from more than 6 million hard working Americans.

Remember, the president is just a regular guy.  He knows so well what it’s like to have to work overtime just to make ends meet.  Nobody in the Bush Administration knows what it’s like to live paycheck to paycheck.  President Bush even says it’s your own fault if you have to live that way.

The compassion is overwhelming.

I’m not a real “Education” president, I just play one on TV

No child left behind?  How many children have been left behind by George W. Bush?  We can begin with the nearly 13 million impoverished children here in the richest country in the world.  More than 50% of high school freshmen in large metropolitan cities drop out.  The No Child Left Behind Act has been grossly underfunded.

It calls to mind the latest Bush-Cheney campaign ad I’ve seen saying, “There’s what John Kerry says, then there’s what John Kerry does.”  A large, and hopefully growing, consensus of Americans is realizing that it is George W. Bush who is duplicitous in his dealing with the American people.  Bush claims to be big on education and announces his bold initiative, NCLB, then fails to fund it and push the blame on the teachers and schools themselves.

Newsflash, America!  Schools, school districts, and teachers are not the only areas of accountability that need to be addressed.  Parents need to be held accountable too!  Come to mention it, so do presidents who don’t have a clue.

Many teachers here in Texas have had to start the year without books because the state couldn’t afford them.  The books are in the mail.  So the state says.

We’ll see.

There’s what George W. Bush says:

“In 2001, we passed what's called 'The No Child Left Behind' legislation. I love that phrase, because it's a commitment of our nation to make sure that not only does every child excel, but no child gets left behind.” And while campaigning in 2000, he said he would “fully fund the Pell grant program for first-year students by increasing the maximum grant amount by more than 50 percent, to $5,100.”

Then there’s what George W. Bush does:

In April of this year Senator Tom Daschle said, “Since he signed No Child Left Behind into law, President Bush has sent Congress three proposed budgets. When you add all three of his budget proposals together, the President has recommended under-funding No Child Left Behind by a staggering $26.5 billion. The President's proposed budget for next year contains $9.4 billion less for the act than the law promises.”  And that campaign promise?  According to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, “Just as college tuition is rising and the buying power of grants continues to erode, President Bush has frozen the maximum Pell Grant at $4,050 in his FY 2005 education budget. This is the 3rd year in a row that Bush has frozen or cut the maximum Pell Grant.”

A smarter America is the absolute last thing the Bush Administration wants.  It’s the last thing any neo-conservative wants.  An intelligent electorate is bad for business as far as the Bush Administration is concerned.  A smarter American public would be less likely to swallow the lies and keeping our children dumb and numb will insure their enslavement for future neo-cons.

Ah, the compassion of it all.

I’m not a “straight-shooting” president, I just play one on TV

The only time this president seems to tell the truth is when he’s joking about being a dictator or joking about looking for WMD.  And the word “joke” comes to mind when looking critically at the Bush Administration, except that the joke’s not so funny.  Surely George W. Bush would like to be a dictator, there would be no repercussions – least of all for himself – for all the chaos he has created here at home and around the globe.  Joking around looking for WMD under the desk and all, Bush knew before he invaded Iraq that chasing down the phantom stockpiles was BS.  With 970 American military deaths in Iraq thus far, and George W. Bush saying he’d do it all over again, how funny is that “joke” now?  By the way, the next highest death toll for any other coalition country is 65 – for England.  I’m not wishing there were more dead, but I do wish that the numbers were a little more even, given this is a coalition and all.  We carry 90% of all the costs – both human and monetary.  This is not the “straight-shooting” that I recall being told to the American people.  Wasn’t Iraq supposed to pay for its own reconstruction after we were greeted as liberators?

Somebody please tell me why we’re still talking about what John Kerry said or didn’t say upon his return from honorably serving in Vietnam?  Why is there any focus at all on what the since discredited Shit Float Veterans for Bush have to say?

Not all 527s lie, though.  MoveOn.Org ran a negative ad about the president poisoning children and pregnant women by allowing higher toxin levels in our drinking water from polluters who contributed handsomely to the Bush campaign for the privilege.

The straight up truth is that President Bush’s environmental policies are doing exactly what the MoveOn.Org ad suggests.  The people who are in charge of watchdogging the industries that pollute our environment are directly affiliated with those industries – as in former CEOs or former high-level employees of said polluters.

Conflict of interest?

To quote Justice Scalia, “Quack… quack.”

Of course Bush wants to get rid of all the 527s.  Most of the ads from the Democratic 527s, even though negative, were right on point.  Bush’s own approved ads don’t hold any more truth than those of the Shifty Swifties.  And by the way, the Bush Administration has been Nazi-ish.  That particular MoveOn ad from their contest wasn’t that far off!

This is only a small smattering of President Bush’s record.  None of this can be refuted.  It is the way it is.  President Bush has been a detriment to this nation and the world and anyone who supports his campaign either lives in a vacuum or truly hates America and Americans.

The Republican-held House and Senate have failed their constituencies by selling them out for political favor with this wayward administration.  The Democrats have failed theirs by being sheepish in the face of Republican-created adversity.  It appears that the Democrats and some Republicans have regained some spine.

Again, we’ll see.

Can America really handle 4 more years of the Bush Administration?  

The answer is simple.

No.