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Bush's Egomania Grows Exponentially

Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2005 2:53 pm
by Rspaight
News flash: Bush and his crew have done absolutely nothing wrong ever. Iraq is a wonderland of hope and freedom and the American people can't wait for more soldiers to die there. The fact that he won the election by two points proves it.

In the interview, Bush said the public ratified his approach toward Iraq when they re-elected him rather than Democrat John Kerry. Bush also said there is no reason to hold any administration official accountable for mistakes or misjudgments in the planning or conduction of the war.

"We had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 elections," Bush said. "The American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me."


Link

Ryan

Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2005 4:41 pm
by dcooper
And there is this quote from CNN:

Pres. Bush said of inauguration: "I really don't view this in personal terms, John. I view it as a celebratory moment for America."

Well, 48% of America won't be celebrating on Thursday, you pompous prick.

Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2005 6:06 pm
by Dob
Here's Paul Krugman (a noted Bush basher) on the "accountability moment." From today's NY Times, edited by me for brevity.

A charming man courts a woman, telling her that he's a wealthy independent businessman. Just after the wedding, however, she learns that he has been cooking the books, several employees have accused him of sexual harassment and his company is about to file for bankruptcy. She accuses him of deception. "The accountability moment is behind us," he replies.

Last week President Bush declared that the election was the "accountability moment" for the war in Iraq - the voters saw it his way, and that's that. But Mr. Bush didn't level with the voters during the campaign and doesn't deserve anyone's future trust.

Now that the election is over, we learn that the search for W.M.D. has been abandoned. Meanwhile, military officials have admitted that even as Mr. Bush kept asserting that we were making "good progress," the insurgency was growing in numbers and effectiveness, that the Army Reserve is "rapidly degenerating into a 'broken' force," and oh, by the way, we'll need to spend at least another $100 billion to pay for war expenses and replace damaged equipment. But the accountability moment, says Mr. Bush, is behind us.

Maybe we can't hold Mr. Bush directly to account for misleading the public about Iraq. But Mr. Bush still has a domestic agenda, for which the lessons of Iraq are totally relevant.

White House officials themselves concede - or maybe boast - that their plan to sell Social Security privatization is modeled on their selling of the Iraq war. In fact, the parallels are remarkably exact.

Everyone has noticed the use, once again, of crisis-mongering. The mild, possibly nonexistent long-run financial problems of Social Security have somehow become more important than dealing with the huge deficit we already have, which has nothing to do with Social Security.

But there's another parallel, which I haven't seen pointed out: the politicization of the agencies and the intimidation of the analysts. Bush loyalists begin frothing at the mouth when anyone points out that the White House pressured intelligence analysts to overstate the threat from Iraq, while neocons in the Pentagon pressured the military to understate the costs and risks of war. But that is what happened, and it's happening again.

The New York Times reports employees of the Social Security Administration are being forced to disseminate dire warnings about the system's finances - warnings that the employees say are exaggerated.


How long before we start seeing the "Don't blame me, I voted for Kerry" bumper stickers?

Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2005 2:38 am
by czeskleba
I try to take solace in the fact that no President since Eisenhower has really had a successful second term. Anyone as arrogant and lacking in insight as Bush has got to eventually take a fall, I hope. I think the parallel for Bush's second term will be LBJ: ambitious radical domestic agenda undone by increasing war quagmire.

Re: Bush's Egomania Grows Exponentially

Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2005 9:08 pm
by Ron
Bush said. "The American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me."

I agree with this part. But as far as accountability goes, I don't know what the Statute of Limitations is for a president [and his team] misleading/lying his way to war. Or invading a sovereign state. But unfortunately, unlike accounting fraud with clearly observable cooked books, cooked intelligence can be [and certainly has been] all too easily waved off as a judgement call. Small consolation to the many thousands of American [and British] soldiers killed or maimed or the untold thousands of Iraqi casualties, but I'm afraid history, whose prescriptive period is unlimited, remains the only likely forum wherein those responsible will be held accountable.

Krugman's example of a woman marrying a liar is off the mark here, I think. An accurate parallel would be one where the woman received phone calls from sexually harassed women warning her of her fiance's behavior. Or from whistle-blowers informing her of his company's shaky finances. Maybe she'd think it's all sour grapes and choose to ignore it and marry the guy anyway. Or she could look into it to determine if there's any truth to the allegations. So, too, American voters. Say what you will about the press dropping the ball [or worse] or an ineffective Kerry campaign, there nevertheless was sufficient information available to one and all to have nailed Bush on Iraq. A majority of voters simply chose to ignore that information. Or if they were aware of it, they somehow felt other qualities in the man were more meaningful.

The election *did* mean something. And Bush has every right to feel that his decisions and policies were supported by a majority of the electorate [albeit a very slim majority]. But the real accountability is ours. We knew the stakes. We knew Kerry was in trouble. But how many of us actually did anything about it? Other than bitch on boards like this one, that is. Other than voting, what else did we do to participate in the democratic process? Democrats, instead of wringing their hands at their loss, should feel some degree of shame for having been so damned complacent. America has been diminished. Accountability? The shoe sure fits me.

Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2005 11:56 pm
by krabapple
Funny thing is, Bush is now making a push to scrap the GS system and make government employment more performance-based. So, if you you're a GS 5 and you fuck up, you can be summarily fired..but if you're in the White Hosue or cabinet and you make a boo boo about WMD.... oh, the irony.

(see the front page of Thursday's Washington Post for details)

Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2005 8:54 am
by Rspaight
It does appear that failing upward is S.O.P. in the Bush White House. Look at Rice. She, as National Security Advisor, presided over the worst security failure in US history, and she has been rewarded with a promotion to Secretary of State.

Ryan