Keep Us Safe?
A few thoughts on President Bush's argument
that his presidency is successful because he kept America safe after
9/11/2001.
President Bush has made the case these past
60 days that after September 11, 2001 his goal, his highest priority was to keep
the American people safe. Thus, by any and all means necessary his
administration went about massaging the constitution, existing laws, and the
fears of the public to do just about whatever the chief executive, or should we
say the vice-chief executive, wished. If this is the argument that President
Bush wishes to be judged, then let us examine it, really examine
it.
It is a given that we have
‘not been hit’ again on the homeland by a terrorist attack from an
outside group. On this point I am willing to concede that the President
fulfilled the ‘daddy’ responsibilities of his type A personality to
keep Americans and the homeland safe. After that though I think the argument
breaks down given:
• Billions of dollars lost, misplaced,
mismanaged or flat out stolen in the run up to the Iraq and ongoing occupation
of Iraq. Mis or disinformation to the American public about the need to invade
Iraq, the purpose in doing so, and the consequences to the future of humanity on
this planet.
•
• Thousands of lives lost, maimed, and
displaced as the United States of America acts out as a nation in stage 2 and 3
grief with military might.(1)
•
• Though there is plenty of blame to go
around, the federal response to New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina
juxtaposed to the relative ease of states to the east led by Republican
governors to respond to the disaster and photo op of the white chief executive
peering out a plane window at the ‘mainly poor and black’ disaster
below.
•
• Further deregulation of financial markets
that assumed adults would act ethically and not become drunk on limitless
credit, interest only loans, and a “we are indispensable to the system to
be allowed to fail” thinking. Have you been to Vegas? Everyone craps out
and the shouting becomes silence. These past eight years the financial sector
has been one big craps table and the Fed (our tax dollars) is expected to cover
the losses.
•
• A war on terror that has no foreseeable
end and has not created one job in this country nor shared sacrifice through the
conversion of industries to the production of equipment designed to help win and
end a war. And the problem is you can’t defeat those that rely on terror
with conventional or modern weapons of war. It is ideas that win the day. It
is actions that don’t include helicopters, missiles, and machine guns that
persuades someone from one ideology to
another.(2)No outside force has
committed an act of terrorism in the ‘homeland’ since 2001, but an
argument can be made that leaders at all levels of our federal and state
government loyal to this co-Presidency perpetuated other forms terrorism on our
citizens more deadly to the spirit, idealism and idea of America than any dirty
bomb or virus could do. Is President
Bush a nice guy, a misunderstood leader who acted in the best interest of the
United States? I’m not sure. I don’t know the man, but to take him
at his word the answer is yes. As I observed the President during his candidacy
and through out his Presidency a better explanation of these eight years is
this: "A wealthy kid who used the influence of his family and his wealth to
benefit himself more often than not at the expense of others became President of
the United States in 2000. Rather than rising to the challenge he carried this
mentality into the White House and governing." No other President in my short
lifetime has so throughly lived out of a caste system mentality as has President
Bush.As I recall the President swore
an oath, twice, “execute the office of President of the United States, and
will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of
the United States.” Did he? If only a real reporter would examine the
record and ask the same
questions.Notes1.
Stages of Grief, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross.
2. Did President Bush act like Bruce Wayne
in “The Dark Night.” Alfred and Bruce talking. “Targeting me
won't get their money back. I knew the mob wouldn't go down without a fight, but
this is different. They crossed the line. Alfred: You crossed the line first,
sir. You squeezed them, you hammered them to the point of desperation. And in
their desperation they turned to a man they didn't fully understand. Bruce:
Criminals aren't complicated, Alfred. Just have to figure out what he's after.
Alfred: With respect, sir, perhaps this is a man that *you* don't fully
understand.” Given the evidence of the last seven years, I think our
President and VP didn’t fully understand Bin Laden. Maybe they
didn’t care to.
Filed Fri - January 16, 2009, 10:31 AM in
Return to: |