George W. Bush Doesn't Deserve Your Vote

October 26 2004
Counterbias.com
Dennis Jones

There are just a few days left until the beginning of the end of Bush II. The President has skillfully avoided fighting this campaign on the issues or on his miserable record. Instead he has relentlessly assassinated the character of Senator Kerry while grossly inflating his own - at least in the eyes of about half of the voting age population. Therein lays the danger of four more years with George W. Bush at the helm.

Ron Suskind writes in the New York Times Magazine that, "Whether you can run the world on faith, it's clear you can run one hell of a campaign on it. George W. Bush and his team have constructed a high-performance electoral engine. The soul of this new machine is the support of millions of likely voters, who judge his worth based on intangibles - character, certainty, fortitude and godliness - rather than on what he says or does. The deeper the darkness, the brighter this filament of faith glows, a faith in the president and the just God who affirms him."

Pat Robertson has said that "the blessing of heaven is upon [Bush]". God told him so! (Flash to Robertson: God told me that He doesn't dabble in partisan politics and that you are decidedly full of shit!).

As a C-Span junkie, I rarely miss Washington Journal every morning. For three hours, they discuss interesting political issues of the day. More importantly they take phone calls from viewers who are pro-Bush, pro-Kerry and
independents. After listening to hundreds of calls for the last six months I can tell you that there is one near universal for the pro-Bush callers: they almost never talk about any of his accomplishments or plans for the future. They do talk about how "strong" he is and what a Godly man he is. They also point out that Senator Kerry is neither of these things. They are drinking a brand of hallucinogenic Kool-Aid not yet sold over the counter. Like the President himself, they are immune from reality.

If we are going to consider the leadership qualities of George W. Bush, let's flash back to August 6, 2001. On that day the President received a Presidential Daily Briefing from the CIA titled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in U.S." Among other things the briefing stated that, "Al Qaeda members - including some who are U.S. citizens - have resided in or traveled to the U.S. for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks." 

It went on to say that, "We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a ---- service in 1998 saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman and other U.S.-held extremists. Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York."

I do not blame George Bush for 9/11, but any fair reading of the 9/11 Commission's report indicates that with a lot of luck we might have stumbled onto the plot in time to stop it.

Put yourself in Bush's place on that hot August day in Crawford. Wouldn't you want to know about those potential terrorists living in the United States? Wouldn't you want to know what measures had been taken to discourage hijackings? Wouldn't you want to know about that surveillance in New York City? The report also said that, "The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full-field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers bin Laden related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group or bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives." Wouldn't you want to know about those FBI investigations?

If you answered in the affirmative to any of those questions you would be more qualified to be president than the current officeholder. His reaction was - nothing! There were no specifics that required a decision from him and he assumed that if something came up it would be brought to his attention. Probably so, but can you imagine a detachment so complete that reading those things would stir absolutely nothing in your imagination? Wouldn't you have wanted to stir the bureaucracy to get answers where none existed? President Bush was on vacation and couldn't be bothered.

How about his actions on the morning of September 11, 2001? As he sat in a room full of school children his chief of staff, Andy Card whispered into the President's ear that "a second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack." Wouldn't you want to know immediately about any other airliners which might have been hijacked and where they might be and where they might be going? Wouldn't you have asked almost immediately what measures were being taken to stop any further attacks? Wouldn't you have wanted an immediate report on the situation in New York about casualties? Wouldn't you have wanted to get your butt up out of that chair to lead the country in a time of peril?

Answer any of those questions 'yes' and once again you show yourself more qualified to run this country than George W. Bush. For seven long minutes he sat like a bump on a log, claiming that he wanted to project calm and strength until he could better understand what was happening. He didn't want to scare the kids, he said.

 How exactly was he going to understand without getting out of there and asking some questions? We were damn lucky that it wasn't a nuclear strike, because seven minutes in those circumstances would have been a lifetime. Frankly, I think that he was waiting for someone to come ask him for decisions because he didn't have the slightest idea what to do.

Examine the meeting on the morning of December 21, 2002, the events of which have conveniently been laid out for us by Bob Woodward in his book Plan of Attack. At that meeting, George Tenet and John McLaughlin of the CIA presented the strongest case on WMD to the President, Andy Card and Condoleeza Rice.

At the end of an underwhelming presentation, the President said, "I don't think this is quite - it's not something that Joe Public would understand or would gain a lot of confidence from." He asked Tenet, "I've been told all this intelligence about having WMD and this is the best we've got?"

In a reply for the ages Tenet answered, "It's a slam dunk case!" When Bush asked him how confident he was he offered, "Don't worry, it's a slam dunk!"

If you were president and you were on the verge of making a decision to send the country to war wouldn't you have wanted the answers to a few more questions? Given the opposition in the country at the time if you couldn't sell it to Joe Public wouldn't you have wanted more proof? If the CIA Director was so sure of himself wouldn't you wonder why he wasn't able to persuade you?

Once again, any positive answer would place you ahead of George W. Bush in qualifications for the presidency. He took it for granted and asked no further. What, me worry? All the evidence suggests that after he made the decision to go to war he was similarly disengaged about the details for winning the peace... of which there obviously were none!

Ron Suskind further notes that "A cluster of particularly vivid qualities was shaping George W. Bush's White House through the summer of 2001: a disdain for contemplation or deliberation, an embrace of decisiveness, a retreat from empiricism, a sometimes bullying impatience with doubters and even friendly questioners. Already Bush was saying, Have faith in me and my decisions, and you'll be rewarded."

President Bush is said to be a leader on the model of the chief executive of a company. He delegates everything that he can and makes those decisions that only he can make about the general direction of the country. That's true as far as it goes, but good leaders listen to others, ask questions, encourage dissent and gather all of they facts that they can before making strategic decisions. The method of the decision is every bit as important as the decision itself. A poor decision made in haste on faulty information is still a poor decision regardless of some ethereal principle on which it might have been based.

Bush tried to portray John Kerry as a spineless coward without a moral compass with whom we dare not entrust the safety of the country. But three debates have destroyed that idea. What we saw was a man who commanded the facts behind his arguments. We saw a man whose principles are grounded in reality and whose leadership qualities are superior to Mr. Bush's. We heard from a man with the character and courage to beach his boat intentionally and charge ashore to destroy his enemy before that enemy destroyed him. We heard from a man who clearly wants all of the information he can get before making a decision. We also saw a man who is unafraid of making the tough decisions that await him. We saw a man who would have gotten up off of his ass in that schoolroom and led the nation in the moment of its peril.

That's why I will vote enthusiastically for John Kerry.