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The bungling Bush presidency is falling apart
James Klurfeld


March 3, 2006

An old acquaintance in Washington - a former member of Republican administrations whose foreign policy views are decidedly hard-line - recently had this to say to a friend about the Bush administration: This might be the most inept administration in American history.

Considering some of the bozos who have served in the White House - James Buchanan and Warren Harding are two names that come to mind - that is a breathtaking statement. Considering the stakes involved with the United States, the most powerful nation in the world, it is also frightening.

But it should come as no surprise that President George W. Bush has fallen to an approval rating of 34 percent in a recent national poll. Just look at the events in this winter of his discontent:

Iraq appears to be on the cusp of a civil war even as U.S. soldiers continue to be killed each week.

A just-released tape shows Bush was warned before Hurricane Katrina that New Orleans' levees could be breached and the city devastated. The president, as we all remember, said he was taken by surprise.

Members of his own party have turned against him on the issues of whether a company owned by the United Arab Emirates should control six major ports in the United States.

As more and more information leaks out about the unauthorized and very likely illegal eavesdropping by the National Security Administration, there is more talk - only whispered at the moment - that there ought to be an impeachment inquiry into Bush's behavior.

While I've not been a big fan of most of Bush's policies, I have occasionally marveled at his decisiveness and willingness to take bold stances. Bush has proved to be a much stronger leader than I ever could have anticipated, especially given the lack of any electoral mandate from the American people.

But I fear we are now seeing the other side of the coin with Bush. His lack of historical perspective, his crusading religiousness, his Texas-style shoot-first-ask-questions-later approach to complex problems - that is, all the shortcomings that were obvious from the beginning of his presidency - seem to be catching up with him now. It's one thing to be a decisive leader. It is quite another to be consistently making the wrong decisions.

The tape of him being briefed on Katrina by Federal Emergency Management Agency officials is particularly damning. It's a glimpse of the man without his eloquent speechwriter, Michael Gerson, putting words into his mouth. Bush doesn't ask a single question about the government's level of preparedness even while being told how concerned officials are. He manages only the most cliched assurance that the government is prepared to do whatever will be necessary. Not only was that not true, but when the finger-pointing started, Bush said he was surprised by the storm's impact.

In short, Bush was not only unprepared; he seemed to be detached from what was happening and then, worst of all, lied about it. That 34 percent approval rating was registered before the Katrina tape came out.

The White House said not to make too much of the tape because it doesn't reflect the totality of the president's effort on the storm. Fair enough. But over the past six months Bush has failed to react to the devastation in New Orleans except for one stage-managed speech from the French Quarter.

This is a presidency coming unraveled before our eyes. It is not a pretty sight, and it is not good for the country. What a difference a year makes. After his re-election, Bush said that he would use his political capital.

Soon he won't have any left. Then what?
Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.

What kind of political retardation has caused the long delay in acknowledging what has been evident even before this man became President, Didn't anybody think about the facts that the collapse of most anything attempted by G W Bush failed. The Texas governship is a figurehead position, most of the real work there done by others due to the state constitutional set-up, maybe that gave W the idea he could wing it through a presidency - someone should have clued him in and saved him from the savage reality that history is going to write about his terms in the office. Rove will not be able to scrub off the failures the historians will reveaol

I suppose the obvious answer is they are blinded by the mirage of power.


lenal

History is written by the winners, lenal. Those who control the present, control the past. They control history and how it is written. The only way the history of this Administration will be written from the perspective we see as reality, is if we become the winners. Those who control how the history books will be written are currently the guys running this trainwreck, and you know how they'll write it: the train wrecked exactly like it was supposed to, and the nation is better for it.

And don't forget...all the truthful records and documents will be locked up for eternity, thanks to Bush's executive order cancelling the public's right to know after 25 years.

Contrast this to the Clinton Presidential Library in Arkansas........warts and all are hanging out there.

That's the difference between success and failure, I guess.