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WASHINGTON -- As he leaves office, President Bush is passing on to his successor two wars and a growing economic debacle. What a way to go!
Because of Bush's policies, the U.S. also is complicit in the Israeli attack on the Palestinians on the Gaza Strip by providing a "made-in-America" high-tech arsenal for the assault and blocking a ceasefire for nearly two weeks, a move intended to help the Israelis consolidate their hold.
Not to worry, Bush says he isn't concerned about how history will view his militant eight years in the White House, telling ABC News that he "won't be around to read it."
Well, they say that journalism is the first draft of history. So I am going to predict that those future historians will not deal kindly with the Bush presidency.
It's true -- as Bush and company point at their proudest achievement-- there have been no new terrorist attacks on the U.S. since Sept. 11, 2001.
But they fail to acknowledge administration mistakes before and after that fateful day, starting with the fact that White House and security officials ignored significant early warnings of an imminent strike against the U.S.
The second half of the double 9/11 mistake was the trampling of our constitutional system and American values by the administration's infamous torture policies, illegal interrogation practices, including water boarding (simulated drowning), secret prisons abroad and U.S. run jails at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. Post- 9/11 Bush strategy also nurtured a climate of fear that enabled the self-styled "decider" to lead the country into a senseless war against Iraq, a calamity still underway as he leaves office almost six years after the invasion.
Add the administration's pathetic response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and you have basis to dub Bush's eight White House years as the "Bush error."
He was to be the great "unifier" but instead he became a great polarizer.
While he remained stubbornly steadfast to his core social convictions, he did a 180-degree turn when it came to the role of government in the economy when he bailed out the collapsed giants of Wall Street.
He told CNN: "I've abandoned free market principles to save the free market systems." So much for all the anti-government rant of Republican conservatives.
After the 9/11 attacks, Vice President Dick Cheney and then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice drummed up the fiction that Iraq was linked to the al Qaida attacks and sold that fable to a naive Congress and jittery American people. During the first crisis meeting after the 9/11 attack, neo-con advisor Paul Wolfowitz, said: "Let's bomb Iraq."
There were no Iraqis involved in the attack and no evidence that Saddam Hussein had any role in planning or executing it.
Other falsehoods that these officials peddled included the tale that Iraq's Saddam Hussein had an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. Cheney told his Sunday television audiences, "We know where they are."
Official inspectors found none. The non-existent weapons were used to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
Bush is not about to admit that his costly inhumane attack on Iraq was a mistake. How could he tell grieving families of more than 4,000 American service members that their loved ones had died because of his error?
In addition to the flawed decision to attack Iraq, Bush and Co. used the aftermath of 9/11 to take wholesale swipes at our civil liberties, including warrantless wiretapping.
So those future historians will have a clear view of the 43rd president as they look back on the early years of the 21st century.
A list of Bush's accomplishments also should include his efforts to pay more money and political support into helping victims of AIDS and malaria in Africa. And he is proud of his controversial program "No Child Left Behind" to upgrade public school students by imposing national standards on an education system that had none.
Those future historians should also take note that Bush was hailed for his "likeability" when he came into office and was dubbed the guy you would like to share a beer with.
However, a CNN poll last year suggested that Bush had become the most unpopular president in modern American history. That CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey indicated that 71 percent of the American public disapproved of how Bush was handling his job as president.
Bush must have a sense of relief in giving up the presidential burdens.
He is confident that those future historians will vindicate him and his presidency.
But no one is expecting him to wind up on Mount Rushmore.
94 Comments so far
Show AllHelen forgot to mention how we invaded IRAQ to get control of the oil so we can continue our lives-of-leisure.
Helen described the invasion as an "error".
It looks more like mass-murder and resource-robbery.
Would Bush have made that "error" if there was no oil there?
To be fair,
I love Helen and can't stand W (an understatement), but...
"He told CNN: "I've abandoned free market principles to save the free market systems." So much for all the anti-government rant of Republican conservatives."
She has criticized him many times and rightly so, for dogmatically sticking to his principles no matter what. The one time he doesn't, she criticizes him for hypocrisy. What gives? I can't help but guess that she would have nailed him if he had done his usual shtick and dogmatically stuck to his free market principles.
Bush is still the guy most people would like to share a beer with. If he was strapped to a slanted board, with a cloth over his face and beerboarded.
Bush had a cow when reporters suggested that his Katrina response was too slow. I didn't know partying in San Diego while my beloved city drowned could count as a response.
Sept 11 was an inside job and American exceptionalism coupled with blind nationalism is the true religious faith of this country. These media pundits chosen by CD to be featured on their web site are more interested in "returning America to it's rightful place in the world" than getting to truth about how this country has always been run by rotten bastards and the American people have always supported them.
Such a mess left behind by Bush that I was able to describe a complete disaster in my post of a few minutes ago and not even remember to mention the combination of homeless and empty homes that exist as Bush leaves office. Now that's a happy combination. Empty houses and millions of homeless, most of whom used to live in those now empty houses. No, Bin Landen didn't do this to us, and nor did the Communists. The capitalists did this to us.
That's an important point to make.
loopless January 12th, 2009 7:01 pm, true, the predatory, utterly unscrupulous form of multi-national corporate 'capitalism' as practiced by the Bush family and their corrupt friends on Wall Street and in Big Oil are entirely responsible for this current crisis, but the edifice is crumbling as the markets tumble. Some few of the wealthy, the 'insiders,' will, unfortunately, make off like bandits, as they did after the crash of 1929, but the system will have to be reregulated and brought down to size or else we'll all be eating weeds, including the upper classes. That prospect will put fear into the shriveled hearts of Congress and force them to take action.
Your description of empty houses reminds me of a scene in the suburbs -- rows of homes in a subdivision with real estate company 'for sale' signs out front and one house, obviously owned by someone who had retained their sense of humor, with a hand-made sign in the window: "FOR SALE CHEAP -- Bushworld Reality".
In 2004 I met some old lefty friends from three decades earlier. I was surprised when they spoke of the necessity of Kerry beating Bush. But, if you're really against American Imperialism, I said, you've got to support Bush. Even Bin Laden could not dream to commit equal injury to the Empire. No communist uprising could equally gut the Empire. Helen Thomas describes that Bush has done just that since being re-elected. The world's leading economy in tatters. Budget surpluses turned into 10 trillion dollars of debt. Money pouring out of the country, lots of it into a China still led by a single Communist Party. Two wars that are both bleeding the American military and bleeds American ethical standing in the world, the rest of which views us as Barbarian butchers. American infrastructure crumbling. Schools that worry not about the learning and well being of the children but about test scores. Jobs outsourced. Disparities of income of an unimaginable dimension. A medical system that truly is malfunctioning. Our industrial base shriveled to the size of George Costanza after a cold shower. More citizens in prison than any other country can boast, the majority of whom are there for nonviolent--often victimless--crimes that shouldn't be on the books to begin with. As I predicted four years ago, only four more years of Bush could have produced such a disaster for the American Empire. No collection of other enemies could have rivaled such damages. Bin Laden, eat your heart out; Bush has left you in the dust as an enemy of America.
I told friends in 2000 that the GWB presidency would be the worst in history..
Hate to say I told them so! Wish I had been wrong!
But my feeling is that is that his presidency was really nothng different in terms of U.S. foreign policy. Just more in your face about it.
Rick January 12th, 2009 9:10 am, I've never been fond of Republicans anyway, but I could see dimwit Junior coming when he was running in the primaries. You could tell back then he didn't have a thought in his head, just a collection of memorized 'talking points' and he rarely answered a question directly. Like his female clone Sarah Palin, every question was merely an opportunity to wave the flag, pat his own back, or babble about his mediocre accomplishments and boneheaded agenda. And, if you're caught by a reporter at your game, you cry that the media is out to get you. It's still hard for me to understand why anyone would vote for this dope -- or even want to have a beer with him.
It is obvious that Helen Thomas is trying to be "nice". This is a very mild
article that omitted a lot and embelished a lot. By now every thinking soul
knows what a disatster GW Bush's eight years were especially for the average
Joes/Janes.
"But no one is expecting him to wind up on Mount Rushmore."
Perhaps Halliburton and Carlyle Group investors can fund a Mount 'Bushmore' featuring the graven images of Poppy, Dubya, Karl Rove and Lee Atwater, and locate it atop a landfill in Texas. Ken Blackwell and Katherine Harris can be hired to tend to the monument.
She's right, but only partially. It wasn't just Bush; his co-conspirators in the Republican and, in many cases, Democratic parties in Congress, the servile and stupefied media, the conservative Christian and Jewish religious communities, the military and federal bureaucracies all made the most catastrophic presidency in American history possible. The Bush-Cheney 8 year crime spree was, as Hillary Clinton once said in another context (in which she wasn't implicated, unlike the present one) "a vast right wing conspiracy."
The danger with blaming it all on Bush and Cheney is that the others who have engaged in criminal conduct, or at least shown disastrous judgment, get off scot free to continue harming the nation.
Alex
LawyerAlex wrote:
The danger with blaming it all on Bush and Cheney is that the others who have engaged in criminal conduct, or at least shown disastrous judgment, get off scot free to continue harming the nation.
COMMENT:
I see the greatest danger to be that the American people will fail to see that the blame resides in all of those other things you listed plus the blame due the American people for letting it happen and that the American people will let it happen again.
he "won't be around to read it."
The sooner, the better.
He doesn't read.
Is Bush the conservative revolution's last ghasp? They still have all the money and power.
I've abandoned free market principles to save the free market systems.
I've destroyed freedom to save it from those who hate our freedom.
I've used terror to protect us from terrorists
I've used preemptive war to defend us from war.
I've stolen elections to protect democracy.
I've imposed dictatorship at home and abroad in order to bring democracy to the world.
- George W. Bush (with Cheney helping with the spelling)
Sioux Rose
Clever and well-stated!
If a school board decided to buy a history text about their high school football team's latest season, they would not choose one written by statisticians, or the coaches, or the football players. They would choose one written by the cheerleaders during a slumber party.
History may not save Dubya but already the Republicans and most Democrats have done his dirty worked like a pack of abused spouses. Besides, Obama's already made it clear he intends to stay the Bush course. The Democrats had the power for the last 8 years, even in their minority status, to stop him but they didn't do jack shit other than pander to him. I don't know what you people are smoking and drinking but until we severely punish the Democratic Party for being GOP-lite, all you're going to get are more Dubyas to screw you.
I don't believe it's fair to say the Democrats pandered to Bush. In fact, the opposite is true:
"President Bush's success rating in the Democratic-controlled House has fallen this year to a half-century low, and he prevailed on only 14 percent of the 76 roll call votes on which he took a clear position.
"So far this year, Democrats have backed the majority position of their caucus 91 percent of the time on average on such votes. That marks the highest Democratic unity score in 51 years."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1728952&mesg_...
http://public.cq.com/docs/cqt/news110-000002576765.html
I like bashing the Democrats in Congress as much as anyone. But if they broke a 50-year record in fighting the President's agenda, it won't do to say they caved in to him.
I hasten to say I realize this is exactly what everyone says. It is clearly the dominant paradigm. It's just not true, is all.
PS: Tell me if you think this clip is too partisan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Paq_fIxPCM
WYGUNSTON wrote:
until we severely punish the Democratic Party for being GOP-lite, all you're going to get are more Dubyas to screw you.
COMMENT:
Exactly. If Democrats had gone to the caucuses and primaries and voted for Kucinich or some other anti-establishment person for president, and voted for members of Congress not currently in the pockets of big business, real change could be coming before this month is out. Like single payer universal health care. It won't.
If Americans want real change, they can have it, but sadly, most are too damn stupid to do what it takes. Some folks get irate when mass stupidity is pointed out, but consider, if 30 second spots didn't work, they wouldn't be the main standby of political campaign spending, and the 30 second spots only influence the votes of stupid people. Very stupid people.
So the Republicans are bragging that Bush is great because we haven't been "hit again" since 9/11. Somehow noone seems to remember that we went 60 (AS IN SIXTY) years without being hit UNTIL Bush was president and went to sleep on his watch. It was Bush that gave us the first "hit" in 60 years; ignoring a clear warning given to him personally in August of 2001. Some legacy!
There was no intelligence error.
Intelligence was manipulated, truncated, or invented to support decisions made long before 9/11.
Squidd
This is an unwarranted attack on a person who has consistently and relentlessly exposed Bush for the failure that he is. I agree with you that journalists should not socialize with the people they are supposed to cover. Amy Goodman, for one, would never dance on stage or otherwise make nice with politicians. David Gregory's dance with Karl Rove sickened me. But Helen is an old school journalist who "plays the game" at the correspondents' dinner, but she is one of the few mainstream journalists who can separate her social graces from her professional work.
Thank you Helen for your continuing progressive work.
is an old school journalist who "plays the game"
thanks for confirming my point. running the country involving the welfare of hundreds of millions is not "playing" a game.
Sioux: No self respecting shark would even think of taking a bite. The infectious genes that have poisoned the Bush gene-pool would spoil even a cold blooded creature's hope of evolving a bit more.
Ms. Thomas might remind the Psychotic Monkey that no aliens have landed since 00/00/0001. Good job! to the guys that have kept us safe all this time.
helen - you went to a correspondents dinner - got up on stage - held
hands and sang and laughed and swayed with this imbecile -
Gridiron Club's Annual Spring Dinner on March 8, 2008
if you REALLY want us to have taken you seriously - you'd have more
credibility if you weren't schmoozing with the people who have WRECKED
this country -
in my HUMBLE opinion - YOU - and all the other media CELEBRITIES are
just as culpable for all you lay out in your article -
i saw george w bush for what he was BEFORE he was handed the office -
YOU - the media - held him out as the guy you'd like to have beer with -
not ME.
i didn't vote for him - i have never supported him - i didn't write any
favorable press about him and certainly never attended a posh dc insider
gala event with him -
helen - i used to respect you - esp those press room briefings - until i
saw you on stage - with that BASTARD who jokes about WMD in another
parody -
where's the outrage from the press - ask the poor 25 year old veteran in
Hollywood Florida with no arms and no legs - and very little help from
the government that lied to send him there -
Helen - YOU are as despicable as the s*** you write about. RETIRE. go to
some ball games with dubbyah. have beer. dance. sing. hold hands. you
are as complicit in his crimes as he. you legitimized him.
thanks for nothing. stop wasting news space.
.Your over the top diatribe betrays a complete lack of knowledge about the body of work of Ms. Thomas. I suggest you educate yourself by reading her columns and then come back and apologize.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
And Helen Thomas' questions and followups and press conferences with 7(?)U.S.Presidents. So strong was she, that she got removed from the front row seat she'd had for a long time. Her recent questions to the current president's press person were great.
"...the body of work of Ms. Thomas"
i AM familiar with. closest thing to a molly ivins or seymour hersch.
re-read my post.
in my OPINION. actions speak louder than words.
this is why we are where we are - idolize those who have the voice - it's just so much easier to blog -
if someone is responsible for YOUR kids' death dismemberment and all the other disasters befallen on the people of this country - you don't go and make merry with them - you put them in jail.
.Seeking change by alienating our allies is not exactly a succesful way to operate. Helen Thomas, as NYCa aptly noted, was one of the only reporters to ask the difficult questions and then insist upon accurate answers.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
The quote--that we see things as we are rather than as they are--should be attributed, I think, not to Anais Nin but to John Milton. This is a line from Paradise Lost, is it not? Anyway, the idea holds that we construct the way we see the world, we don't has a cognitive-representational copy of it as it is. Akin to the Kantian distinction between knowing the phenomenal world but not the noumenal one. Our view of the world is just that: our view of the world; it is not the world.
.sorry, loopless, wrong answer....
http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Anais_Nin/
Fifth line from the top...drat, now you got me thinking about Milton .....
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Ya know, he may indeed end up on mt. Rushmore. I can see it now, all the usa has to do is convict him of warcrimes, pass the death penalty, bring back public hanging for a one time event and sell tickets to help pay off the national debt...
Looking at Dubya Bush's "positive accomplishments" is kind of like lauding Mussolini because he madE the trains run on time (actually he did no such thing) or Adolph Hitler because "he put Germany back to work". It is hard to imagine any president since either Buchannan or Nixon (also Repuiblicans) who was more detestable and whose detestability was their own fault and not due to circumstances beyond their control (as was the case, for instance, with Herbert Hoover).
Poet
On the one hand no one is perfect and she is better than most in her role. But on the other hand my moma said nice girls do not hold hands with war criminals.
I had to read that accomplishment part a couple of times to try and figure if she was serious or not. I think she was! No children left cognizant, drastically under funded and considers education to be primarily passing standards not critical thinking. Now what kind of government would sponsor that kind of "education"? Also brother bush sold the standards exams. Also a school needs help, so you reduce funding(?) and have vouchers. That helps corporate charter schools. Boy that privatization works so well they privatized the Treasury( Naomi Klein). As for Aids Aid Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha you can have some money as long as you tow the self loathing christian foundamentalist line and never speak of birth control or condoms.
Sioux Rose
POET: Good one!
I must hurry and catch up with the others for I am their leader
"It's true -- as Bush and company point at their proudest achievement-- there have been no new terrorist attacks on the U.S. since Sept. 11, 2001."
Well, no. Not really. What about the anthrax attacks? And Richard Reed?
Another big lie Bush Inc. is peddling to those who let stuff fall down the memory hole: Saddam Hussein would not let the WMD inspectors in. So Hans Blix and the other inspectors had to boogie on out of Iraq when Dubya decided to invade - but they don't count.
"It's true -- as Bush and company point at their proudest achievement-- there have been no new terrorist attacks on the U.S. since Sept. 11, 2001." - Helen
This is one point of argument that I will not concede: didn't someone just kill 8 people in one go in L.A.? How about the rape murders at the Quaker school? And then there's Richard Cho at Virginia Tech...no "terrorist" acts on this continent? I'm to enmeshed with the American Ghetto to not know many of it's inhabitants suffer from the chronic trauma of going to sleep in a state of "terror"...and the communities are call "gated" why? because of love or being terrorized by fear?
To separate the link of the socioeconomic realities on this continent to the realities overseas weakens the argument for defining justice in progressive terms, lessening the power of recognizing the human reality of the "homeland" situation. Does not the chronic stress of facing loss of job and home, exasperated by the cost of militarism, create a state of "terror" in some?
Since when has being successfully attacked been a credit to a military commanders record? Is there a "I have been successfully attacked medal"? The only times attacks are a credit is when it is an attack into an ambush. In this case the attack was a first feint into leading the USA into ill conceived wars and economic collapse.
As a supplement to Puck's excellent post, I think this may be the opportune time to pull out this statistic:
"...since the murders of Robert Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1868, well over a million Americans have been killed by firearms in the United States. That's more than the combined U.S. combat deaths in all the wars in all of American history."
cited from "Hooked on Violence," by Bob Herbert, April 26, 2007, New York Times, also posted on Common Dreams at that time.
Thank you, Puck, for reminding us of these gravest of facts about which this country is in denial, as it is about so much else.
Hey Pal....these other terrorists don't count--they weren't Muslim....We ain't got no problem with Christian terrorists, neither here nor in killing Muslims in Gaza...And if Muslims talk on any of our good Christian airplanes, we will just yank their butts off.
Not that he ever travelled extensively before becoming president, Bush now faces arrest and prosecution for war crimes if he travels to Europe.
Remember Pinochet?
Mordechai has a way with words.
If Bush ends up on Mt Rushmore they need to use Common Dreams pictures of him for reference.
Bush's face will never be carved into Mt. Rushmore. And that fact makes him so jealous that it wouldn't surprise me if he arranged to have bombs dropped on the mountain as his last official act.
On January 20, everyone hang up a pair of shoes in the window with a sign reading
"BYE BYE BUSH!"
A nod to all of the above (or is it below?)... Bush deserves not "to be around" to read, but to shiver and stink in the bleakest "hole" in the most onerous prison the world has to offer - nothing too slimy or forsaken for the most heinous war criminal since perhaps Pol Pot or Stalin, or Nixon or Kissinger. Great company for the nightmares coming your way, wanker shrub!
Alas, Bush didn't work in a vacuum to parlay his 8 years into a cultural, social, legal, and ecological disaster - he had the assistance of his predecessors and plenty of mindless, vacuous twits who voted for his twisted version of governance, leaving aside for the moment the treasonous support of the Congress. The ignorance and stupidity (a product, in part, of corporate-sponsored "dumbing down") still manifests in a huge proportion of Americans who continue to believe that Iraq sponsored the 2001 WTC attack and that torture is necessary to protect our "freedoms." This huge void of disenlightenment, religious fundamentalism, and supreme antipathy and intolerance persists even as the flock worships at the feet of yet another military-corporate shepherd. Bush is a war criminal and a traitor, but he hasn't lacked plenty of help in his dubious accomplishments. And the new shepherd brings his own wolves to the door.
Perhaps a monument to Bush and his fellow war criminals can be carved into one of the mountaintops that will be sheared away to create yet another coal-mining disaster - fitting that his ugly mug would end up in toxic sludge. If only the flood of contaminated waste could be channeled directly into and through the halls of Congress and the Pentagon....perhaps then the black hole that is legislative and military leadership could experience first-hand the world they've helped Bush to shape. For all the terror and mayhem Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and their co-conspirators fostered and perpetrated, the likes of Pelosi, Hastert, Reid, Hoyer, Feinstein, Emanuel, and hundreds of other over-privileged, mind-warped misanthropes who dare to claim they represent my "interests" also deserve a place in the toxic tombs they create.
This is my "interest": the very worst for Bush, his cronies, and all the chickens**t cowards and traitors who've facilitated and supported his crimes against life and the living.
Sand flea,I couldn't agree with you more.I also admire you command of language,i wish i was that articulate.Keep up the good woods.
Goldenboy, thank you humbly and graciously. Sometimes the words come out OK. Keep up your writing and your own courage to speak up!
Peace to you from sand flea.
as to the attacks on 911, to me the quinessential question is this. Given that the VP has admitted "we would have gone into iraq regardless, one has to ask-Would the invasion into Iraq have been approved by Congress without the twin towers falling?
YES, if that is AIPAC wanted.
" But no one is expecting him to end up on Mt. Rushmore ". The only mountain the cheerful,village, idiot should end up on is the mountain of BS!!!
I'm sorry, you need to come up with another material, IMO. BS, or cow dung, is considered a useful material in some parts of the world - for lining the floor and walls (due to its insect-repellent properties), as fuel for cooking, as an insulator, as a fertilizer (which is actually sold to a fellow farmer, believe it or not) and so on.
Highintel: Can we do better?
Ms. Thomas,
Thank you. Let's look on the bright side. We are about to enter an era that witnesses the emergence of a new form of historical narrative; one that Bob Woodward should play a role in crafting:
The "specialty of presidential investigative narrative and rehabilitation." Or, if you prefer the acrimonious acronym...SPINR.
As a case in point, let's review the work of Fred Barnes...
Incredible. A president who cares nothing about the future, nothing about the past. A leader of a nation whose concern for the future is based on whether he's around to read about it or not. Only massive ignorance and apathy could have let this cad come to power and stay there eight years in the service of his "base", as he called the wealthy. He is a very bad man.
The man is a f**king sociopath.
Mt. Rushmore? The man belongs in jail. A bona fide War Criminal. Iraq was no mistake. It was a crime against a sovereign nation.
Bush don't give a f**k about how history will view his eight years in office, 'cuz he "won't be around to read it."
Cynical, selfish bastard!!
I like the term "moral pygmy" except for its unfairness to the African group.
I prefer the term 'moral leper' although I suppose you're supposed to pity those with leprosy...
Hansen's disease is now treatable.
.The sad truth is that what lies ahead of us will no more inspire or enable us than what has come before.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Hey Helen
On which date has a peace treaty been signed with North Korea?
While I appreciate Thomas' journalistic contributions and consistent criticism of the Bush administration, to continue calling Iraq Bush's "error" is absolutely inexcusable. There is overwhelming evidence that Bush and Cheney and their neocon allies deliberately fabricated evidence and lied us into that war--it was no "error." Furthermore, Bush's two "successes" were failures in their own right--aid to Africa was tied to refusing abortion and contraception, thereby keeping aid from millions; and the No Child Left Behind was deliberately underfunded and left to fail. Even had No Child been funded, it is an insidious attack on teaching critical thinking, since teachers were required to "teach to the exams"--it's rote learning that kills any hope of developing critical thinkers--and critical citizens. Bush made no "errors"--he followed the neocon guidebook to the letter and produced exactly what they intended: chaos in the Middle East and massive US military basis that will remain far into the future; and the Patriot Act at home to mute criticism of this government's war crimes.
I believe the aid to Africa was really just aid to US pharmaceutical companies. The companies were complaining that Africans were starting to use knock-off drugs rather than the expensive anti-AIDS drugs they were producing. So the Bush plan was to give the money to the Africans to buy the US pharmaceuticals' anti-AIDS drugs and kill the knock-off industry, which would reward the US pharmaceutical companies for funding Bush and other Republican candidates. No one should ever make the mistake of thinking that Bush would ever, under any circumstances, do anything for the common good of the people in Africa, the US, or the world. He would rather light himself on fire.
Sioux Rose
DONNA: Good points.
As for a monument to Bush, the only substances suitable are either human feces or toxic wastes. Perhaps some artists can don the appropriate gear to pay homage to the most insidious leader of Western civilization in several generations.
Hilarious...!
How about waterboarding Chainey, Bush 41, Bush 43, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bolton, and Rice into the dunk tank of human excrement and toxic waste... Pay per view, with all proceeds going to the families and victims of extraordinary rendition and CIA black sites...?
" ... it's rote learning that kills any hope of developing critical thinkers--and critical citizens."
And, it is so enormously boring to anyone with an ounce of real intelligence and creativity that it destroys any further desire to learn. It just fuels the urge to get the hell out of school, it encourages dropouts.
-- ekaton aka d.k.shaw
. . . aid to Africa was tied to refusing abortion and contraception, thereby keeping aid from millions . . .
Many many thanks for pointing this out. The legion of primping, pimping cannibals in the MSM who have been desperately trying these last few weeks to find some fly speck of accomplishment from the Bush regime keep pointing this out. Bush's answer to AIDS in Africa: "Stop fucking!" After all, he himself hasn't had relations his his wife or anyone else for years. So why can't those lowly darkies from the dark continent do the same?
Does anyone remember the "boy's town" scandal in Omaha, Nebraska during Reagun's administration?...
and the late night "Limo service" bringing children to the white house during bush 41's tenure...?
Jeff Gannon the reporter/male prostitute that had overnight visits to the white house was one of the sex boy toys of "Boys town"...
This may be off topic, but it is evidence of the depravity that the Bush crime family functions at...
How many folks are aware of the wholesale sex slave trafficking that is being carried out by military contractors like CACI and Halliburton...?
They have even been convicted and fined, yet still recieve sweetheart no-bid contracts from their enablers in congress and wall street...
Sioux Rose
Is that Viagra in your pocket, or are you glad to see me? (stated in Mae West voice)
If them Africans would just take some personal responsibility--like Bush twins did--there wouldn't be no problem.
Not to worry, Bush says he isn't concerned about how history will view his militant eight years in the White House, telling ABC News that he "won't be around to read it."
And, if we're extraordinarily lucky, there won't be any other Bush MoFo's around to read it either. They'll all be graveyard dead, in prison or delivering pizza. As for George Wanker Bush himself, don't be fooled by a lifetime of pathological lying. Even an intellectual and emotional blank slate like him, the human equivalent of watching paint dry, knows a Monster Fuck-Up when seeing it in the mirror. There are numerous times now, when unsuccessfully attempting to masturbate in the shower, or taking a dump, that he wishes he'd never been president. Half the world is laughing at him; the other half is wiping their feet on the Bush doormat they bought for 75% off at the flea market. What hurts most of all are the daily recordings from the home of Jeb Bush, a home George Wanker has had secretly bugged from top to bottom, in which his older brother curses him non-stop with red faced fury for destroying his political future. The Wanker hears Poppy Bush talking to Jeb about how he'd like to throttle that whiskey swilling, coke snorting screw-up of a son, "the last wretched scoop of mashed potatoes in the Bush barrel." . THAT HURTS!
Mordechai that was precious.
"Bush and company point at their proudest achievement-- there have been no new terrorist attacks on the U.S. since Sept. 11, 2001"
As an achievement this a logical fallacy - there were no attacks in the same time period preceding 9/11.
Bush says he "won't be around to read it." We can only hope.
Thanks, Sanctuary.
Your post inspired my following letter just submitted to my local paper here in Wisconsin. I did "tighten" it a bit:
"...In the closing days of the Bush administration, it's time to tout achievements. One of the proudest is that there have been no new foreign terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since September 11, 2001.
Less noted is that there were also no such attacks in the same time period PRECEDING 9/11..."
(Sanctuary, the African embassy bombings and the USS Cole attack in Yemen did come later in the Clinton era, as did the work of Timothy McVeigh.)
Ray "soiled thinking" Kondrasuk
Why is 911 still being identified as a 'terrorist attack' ? When it is so obviously not what was presented to the unwashed masses?
I love Helen Thomas, but let's face it - to think that George Bush learned of the September 11 attacks at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida is utterly beyond belief.
To say also that they are guilty merely for having "ignored significant early warnings of an imminent strike against the U.S."
is also misleading, or misguided, or naive.
They - they White House, Bush, Cheney, Rice, et al - knew what was happening. They were making it happen.
Helen Thomas is much too kind in her assessment here.
While these idiots did their share to make it happen, they have had lots of help going back decades from presidents who saw these people as nothing more than rag heads at the Americun Filling Station.
That is well worth remembering.
The greatest tragedy to come from the Bush era will be if Americans simply blame all the bad on one guy, promptly forget like they have with all the past president's lies, and allow future administrations to repeat the crimes anew with other countries, other economies, and the trashing of the Constitution.
Sioux Rose
CONSCIOUS: Exactly, one need be a mediocre sleuth to connect the published dots. They needed a pretext to attack Iraq, they understood a "Pearl Harbor" style event would cause the greatest alarm and in the midst of that frenzy, allow potentially intelligent thinkers to act on the basis of raw emotion, overzealous patriotic impulse, or utter confusion. I can just imagine Rove, or whoever came up with the Hollywood style scenes: 1. Bush in the flightsuit on the aircraft carrier 2. Bush cutting turkey for the troops one Thanksgiving 3. Bush reading "My Pet Coat" of all alibis indicative of "innocence"... yeah, life is not THAT coincidental, nor would forces align to favor the dark side, and by that I mean, what has turned into the decimation of probably a million Iraqis, and the precedent for other unstable nations (Israel, Pakistan?) to follow suit with their own versions of pre-emptive wars. And then there is the resonant economic collapse that perhaps like an ill-fated omen was indicated the moment those Wall St towers came simmering down. Disaster Capitalism in action.
Siouxrose January 11th, 2009 4:06 pm, I read somewhere that producer Jerry Bruckheimer ("Top Gun"; "Con Air"; "The Rock"; "Armageddon" et al) [1] was an advisor to the Bushites on the carrier landing stunt, and the producers and writers of the TV show "24" also helped 'script' some of Junior's media events. BTW, I understand the troops didn't actually get any of that photo-op turkey Bush was carrying around that Thanksgiving in 2003 -- their holiday meal, predictably, came from KBR, then a Halliburton subsidiary, while The Decider and the Brass Hats ate specially catered food. Isn't this a perfect microcosm of the Bush presidency -- a fake photo-op turkey and the troops get cafeteria crap from KBR while the elite get catered caviar?
"The reputation of White House spin doctors for obsessively manipulating President George W Bush's image came under the spotlight again yesterday when it emerged that the turkey he appeared to be serving to troops in Baghdad was not for eating." [...]
"But yesterday it emerged that the Bush turkey, images of which were published round the world, had been a "model" adorning the end of the buffet line and that soldiers were served their meals from cafeteria steam-trays."
-- Alec Russell, "Bush Thanksgiving Bird Turns Out to Be Another Turkey," The Telegraph (UK), Dec. 5, 2003.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1448605/Bush-Thanksgiving-bird-turns-out-to...
Then there's this:
"I may be a bit naive, and it has been a while since I served on active duty, but I can't recall ever sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner at 6:00 AM. Air Force One touched down at Baghdad International Airport, under cover of darkness, at 5:20 AM Baghdad time. Bush was on the ground for two and a half hours, his plane departing Baghdad at around 7:50 AM."
-- Wayne Madsen, "Surprise Thanksgiving Dinner at 6 AM?" Counterpunch, Nov. 28, 2003.
http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen11282003.html
[1] http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000988/
Sioux Rose
RSJ: Thanks for the data to back my not-so-cosmic case. Wonder if any Hollywood glitterati were on board for choosing the Pentagon and Wall St to make a statement to rival Pearl Harbor, hit the ignition switch necessary for a unitary executive, a war on blurred cause, and a massive confiscation of citizens' liberties... presto. Problems solved!
Siouxrose January 12th, 2009 1:35 pm, I think everything that's happened since Bush was installed by the Supreme Court was planned years before (read the neocon Project for the New American Century [1]), waiting for someone as vile and vain as Junior to take office and put it into effect. Bush/Cheney, like Hyman Roth in 'The Godfather,' have 'made money for their partners' in the Military-Industrial-Oil Complex and their own families. They also cut taxes for themselves and their cronies.
There's also the suspicious fact that someone, or some consortium, made over $15 million by 'shorting' United Airlines, American Airlines, Morgan Stanley and other stocks just before 9/11.
[1] PNAC: http://www.crisispapers.org/Editorials/PNAC-Primer.htm
"FTW - October 9, 2001 – Although uniformly ignored by the mainstream U.S. media, there is abundant and clear evidence that a number of transactions in financial markets indicated specific (criminal) foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In the case of at least one of these trades -- which has left a $2.5 million prize unclaimed -- the firm used to place the “put options” on United Airlines stock was, until 1998, managed by the man who is now in the number three Executive Director position at the Central Intelligence Agency.
"Until 1997 A.B. “Buzzy” Krongard had been Chairman of the investment bank A.B. Brown. A.B. Brown was acquired by Banker’s Trust in 1997. Krongard then became, as part of the merger, Vice Chairman of Banker’s Trust-AB Brown, one of 20 major U.S. banks named by Senator Carl Levin this year as being connected to money laundering." [Buzzy Krongard is also on the Blackwater Advisory Board.] [...]
"It is necessary to understand only two key financial terms to understand the significance of these trades, “selling short” and “put options”.
“Selling Short” is the borrowing of stock, selling it at current market prices, but not being required to actually produce the stock for some time. If the stock falls precipitously after the short contract is entered, the seller can then fulfill the contract by buying the stock after the price has fallen and complete the contract at the pre-crash price. These contracts often have a window of as long as four months.
“Put Options,” are contracts giving the buyer the option to sell stocks at a later date. Purchased at nominal prices of, for example, $1.00 per share, they are sold in blocks of 100 shares. If exercised, they give the holder the option of selling selected stocks at a future date at a price set when the contract is issued. Thus, for an investment of $10,000 it might be possible to tie up 10,000 shares of United or American Airlines at $100 per share, and the seller of the option is then obligated to buy them if the option is executed. If the stock has fallen to $50 when the contract matures, the holder of the option can purchase the shares for $50 and immediately sell them for $100 – regardless of where the market then stands." [...]
"A September 21 story by the Israeli Herzliyya International Policy Institute for Counterterrorism, entitled “Black Tuesday: The World’s Largest Insider Trading Scam?” documented the following trades connected to the September 11 attacks:
-- Between September 6 and 7, the Chicago Board Options Exchange saw purchases of 4,744 put options on United Airlines, but only 396 call options… Assuming that 4,000 of the options were bought by people with advance knowledge of the imminent attacks, these “insiders” would have profited by almost $5 million.
-- On September 10, 4,516 put options on American Airlines were bought on the Chicago exchange, compared to only 748 calls. Again, there was no news at that point to justify this imbalance;… Again, assuming that 4,000 of these options trades represent “insiders,” they would represent a gain of about $4 million.
-- [The levels of put options purchased above were more than six times higher than normal.]
-- No similar trading in other airlines occurred on the Chicago exchange in the days immediately preceding Black Tuesday.
-- Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co., which occupied 22 floors of the World Trade Center, saw 2,157 of its October $45 put options bought in the three trading days before Black Tuesday; this compares to an average of 27 contracts per day before September 6. Morgan Stanley’s share price fell from $48.90 to $42.50 in the aftermath of the attacks. Assuming that 2,000 of these options contracts were bought based upon knowledge of the approaching attacks, their purchasers could have profited by at least $1.2 million. Merrill Lynch & Co., with headquarters near the Twin Towers, saw 12,215 October $45 put options bought in the four trading days before the attacks; the previous average volume in those shares had been 252 contracts per day [a 1200% increase!]. When trading resumed, Merrill’s shares fell from $46.88 to $41.50; assuming that 11,000 option contracts were bought by “insiders,” their profit would have been about $5.5 million."
-- Michael C. Ruppert, "Suppressed Details of Criminal Insider Trading Lead Directly into the CIA’s Highest Ranks," Here in Reality.
http://www.hereinreality.com/insidertrading.html
Sioux Rose
RSJ: I know of these sinister contrivances, but appreciate your adding the exact quotes as I have so much data it's tough to keep track of it all. I wish I had a Virgo employee for that!
The only historical footnote I wish to ever see about Bush is that he was the first president to be indicted, tried, convicted and imprisoned for life in solitary confinement and waterboarded on a daily basis.
Sioux Rose
I think HBO should do one of those pay-per-view events (all proceeds going to families who have lost loved ones in Iraq or Afghanistan) where Bush is slowly lowered into a pool of sharks that haven't eaten in some time. But to make room for commercials, and allow the event to last for an hour. The sharks should only get to make first runs at him. I generally practice forgiveness, but it's quite easy to make an exception in his case. Somehow when the number of persons killed with a smirk goes beyond one, I don't find myself feeling very "Jesus-y."
And then perhaps he would have something in the way of an accomplishment to leave behind for persons of his ilk, a method of torture not yet done at the likes of Quantanimo or one of the other offshore prison complexes.