January 15, 2009
With less than a week before the end of George Bush’s Presidency, we are seeing numerous retrospectives on the successes and failures of the Bush Administration. Of course, the failures have been plentiful and catastrophic. Quite a bit of attention has been focused on the inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina. The use of warrantless wiretaps has become a rallying cry for those calling for the prosecution of Bush Administration officials. The politicization of the Justice Department is back in the news with the disclosure that a former Justice Department official, Bradley Schlozman, refused to hire attorneys he considered too liberal. The Administration’s use of torture at Guantanamo is also in the headlines with the revelation by Susan Crawford that Mohammed al-Qahtani (a man alleged to have been the would-be twentieth hijacker from September 11, 2001) was tortured. Crawford explained that as a result of the treatment of this prisoner, she would be unable to bring him to trial. Crawford is a former Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, who in 2007, was appointed to the position of convening authority for military commissions. In that post, she is the top Bush Administration official overseeing the military trials of suspects held at Guantanamo.
As we reach the end of his second term in office, we cannot help but realize that George W. Bush, as Commander in Chief of our armed forces, never caught America’s worst enemy: Osama bin Laden. Despite the cowboy posturing, the “wanted: dead or alive” rhetoric and the numerous assurances to the contrary, George Bush has been unable to capture or kill bin Laden. Once bin Laden escaped from the battle of Tora Bora, fleeing into the mountainous region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, many observers believed Bush had lost his chance at bringing this villain to justice. These critics turned out to be right. Some of my friends believe that Bush never really wanted to catch bin Laden. Under that theory, bin Laden was more valuable as a “bogeyman”, who could be used to justify the infringements on our liberties and the “harsh interrogation methods” employed by the Bush Administration. Regardless of whether such theories are true or not, Bush’s pursuit of Osama bin Laden has become yet another abject failure of this administration’s legacy. If the al-Qaeda attack against the United States had taken place at a later time during Bush’s tenure, he could invoke the excuse that he “didn’t have enough time” to catch bin Laden. As it turned out, Bush had seven years and four months to capture or kill bin Laden, yet he failed to do either.
In a villa somewhere in western Pakistan, bin Laden is probably watching an American cable newscast and chuckling with delight about his victory over George Bush. Bush never got him, nor will he ever have a chance at it again. He must enjoy watching the video clips of Bush doing his little bounce, squinting in attempt to make a tough, cowboy face, cranking up the faux Texas accent, and making some hollow threat to “get bin Laden”. In his latest audio message, bin Laden taunts President Bush by emphasizing the harsh reality that Bush has been unable to catch him. As reported by Khaled Wassef and Tucker Reals of CBS News, bin Laden’s newest discourse includes a dig at Bush’s low approval rating:
“Can America keep up the war with us for more decades to come? All reports and analysis indicate that this is not possible. In fact, 75 percent of American people are happy with the departure of the president who got them into wars they could not possibly win.”
Bin Laden goes on to say President Bush “drowned” the American people in economic woes and “left his successor a difficult legacy, and left him one of two bitter choices … The worst heritage is when a man inherits a long guerrilla warfare with a persevering, patient enemy – a war that is funded by usury. If he (Obama) withdraws from the war, that would be a military defeat, and if he goes on with it, he’ll drown in economic crisis.”
As President Bush and his minions struggle to re-define the Bush Legacy, we have America’s worst enemy providing an assessment of the Bush years in terms that are painfully close to the truth. Heckuva’ job, Bushey!
We’re All Headed Into The Hudson
February 9, 2009
It’s Monday, February 9 and Change Airlines flight 2008 is just taking off from Senate Airport. In the cockpit are: Captain “Barry” Barackburger, Co-pilot “Turbo” Geithner, and Flight Engineer Larry Summers. During its takeoff roll, the plane came dangerously close to an open container belonging to the Bad Paper Company. The Bad Paper was to be loaded onto a Xeng Airlines flight, bound for Beijing. As the Change airplane passed the open container, a large amount of the Bad Paper was sucked into the plane’s jet engines. Just after takeoff, the airliner’s Captain radioed the tower:
Captain Barry: Senate tower this is Change twenty-zero-eight. That paper container was too close to the runway and our engines sucked most of it in. We’re losing thrust and we need to come back around.
Senate tower: Change twenty-zero-eight you are clear to land on runway 18.
Captain Barry: We can’t make it back. That’s too far for us. Do you have anything closer?
Senate tower: Can you make it to Taxcut International?
Captain Barry: Are you kidding? Taxcut doesn’t have enough runway. C’mon! Help me out here! We’re running out of time!
Senate tower: I have our navigation technician here to come up with something. What do you have, Irene?
Nav Tech I. Newton: Your best option looks like runway 27-Left at States Field.
Larry Summers: What the hell do you know about math or physics, Missy? This plane has a much higher “sink rate” than your estimate. Save your science fair project for those broads on The View. I’m sure they’ll be impressed.
Captain Barry: Larry! Chill!
Captain Barry: Senate tower, we’re going to be making a hard landing and I don’t want to try it on a runway. There’s no time for that, anyway. We’re going to have to set down in the river.
Senate tower: That sounds awfully wasteful! Do you know how much that plane costs?
Captain Barry: At least we can get some salvage value out of the plane this way. Besides, I can’t gamble with the health and welfare of my passengers.
Senate tower: But first, you should at least try . . .
Captain Barry: Hey! I’m the Captain. Remember? Okay, Turbo! Throw the “ditch switch” and alert the passengers for a water landing!
Will Captain Barry be able to make a “soft landing” in the river? Will Senate tower delay this attempt long enough to make that impossible? Stay tuned.
In the mean time Steven Mufson and Lori Montgomery have reported in the Washington Post, that conservative-minded economists are in agreement with liberal economists that an economic stimulus bill should be enacted as quickly as possible:
There is no doubt that the fight over the stimulus bill has turned into a partisan political battle. This was best exemplified by the fact that no Republican in the House of Representatives voted in favor of the House version of that legislation. Battle lines have also been drawn by many commentators. In his February 5 op-ed column for the New York Times, Paul Krugman (recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics) complained about Republican efforts to downsize the spending provisions in the bill and to add more tax cuts. He was particularly upset about President Obama’s willingness to make compromises in those areas:
The very characteristics of President Obama’s behavior that are causing so much anxiety for Mr. Krugman would seem to make it unlikely that Obama will follow Krugman’s advice. The President has done plenty of talking about his bringing us into an era of “post-partisanship”. As David Brooks pointed out on February 5, there are many in Congress headed in that same direction. For Obama to abandon them would not only be unlikely, it would be political suicide:
One reason why Barack Obama is the President is because many voters are impressed by his willingness to sit down and work out solutions with his opponents. Now is his chance to show them that he can deliver results by using that strategy.