The Bully-in-Chief
At this point, nobody should have any illusions about Mr. Bush’s character. To put it bluntly, he’s an insecure bully who believes that owning up to a mistake, any mistake, would undermine his manhood — and who therefore lives in a dream world in which all of his policies are succeeding and all of his officials are doing a heckuva job. Just last week he declared himself “pleased with the progress we’re making” in Iraq.
In other words, he’s the sort of man who should never have been put in a position of authority, let alone been given the kind of unquestioned power, free from normal checks and balances, that he was granted after 9/11. But he was, alas, given that power, as well as a prolonged free ride from much of the news media.
The results have been predictably disastrous. The nightmare in Iraq is only part of the story. In time, the degradation of the federal government by rampant cronyism — almost every part of the executive branch I know anything about, from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been FEMAfied — may come to be seen as an equally serious blow to America’s future.
[from Paul Krugman, "Limiting the Damage", New York Times, 6 November 2006.]
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on Tuesday, 7 November 2006 at 02.25
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So true, which is why I've been saying the outcome of this election had better make it possible to put Bush, Cheney and the gang in a virtual straitjacket for the next two years. Dead in the water. Rendered inert. Pick your analogy, the idea's the same.
All the better if Bush and his minions can be kept busy fending off legal threats of political annihilation.
By either means, the less they do, the less harm they can do. Tragically, maddeningly, it's that simple.
on Tuesday, 7 November 2006 at 05.54
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Bush's presidency is not that bad. The culture of FEMA and cronyism is endemic to the modern bureaucracy. It was there before Bush, it will be there afterwards.
Bush kept the economy humming along, as is demanded by the populace.
Also demanded by the populace was a strong response to foreign threats, which Bush had done, with less happy results.
on Wednesday, 8 November 2006 at 03.34
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Come on, RSF, come toward the light, toward reality. You can't live on RNC spin forever. Bush and his people have proven themselves unfit to administrate Crawford, Texas, much less the whole country. Don't tell me it was that bad under previous presidents; I know better — and so do millions of others.