meta-roj

The Case Against George W. Bush

i’m not sure if this essay makes me a rationalist or a “crypto-Islamist car bomber” but i will not be voting for bush (had you figured that out by now?).

how’s the economy doing? some pretty serious people wrote an opinion…

An Open Letter to the American Public, August 25, 2004 [pdf from the kerry campaign site]

The differences between President Bush and John Kerry with respect to leadership on the economy are wider than in any other Presidential election in our experience. President Bush believes that tax cuts benefiting the most-wealthy Americans are the answer to almost every economic problem. The Bush Administration’s tax cuts were poorly designed and therefore have given insufficient stimulus to job creation. The principal effect of the Bush administration’s fiscal policies has been to turn budget surpluses into enormous budget deficits. President Bush’s fiscal irresponsibility threatens the long-term economic security and prosperity of our nation. At a time when our nation should be saving for the future, to pay the Medicare and Social Security benefits for the baby boomers, our national debt is swelling; the social contract that binds one generation to another is being threatened with unraveling. Increased borrowing from abroad– now almost five percent of our GDP–leaves our country, our economy and global stability increasingly vulnerable to changes in sentiments of foreign, or even domestic, investors. At the same time, his policies have exacerbated income inequality, failed to address the real wage declines and rising health care costs beleaguering American families, and ignored the need for critical investments to spur long-term growth.

it sounds like political mumbo-jumbo inside-the-beltway elitist claptrap! signed by these people:

Paul A. Samuelson, Nobel Economics 1970 (for the scientific work through which he has developed static and dynamic economic theory and actively contributed to raising the level of analysis in economic science)
Kenneth J. Arrow, Nobel Economics 1972 (for pioneering contributions to general economic equilibrium theory and welfare theory)
Lawrence R. Klein, Nobel Economics 1980 (for the creation of econometric models and the application to the analysis of economic fluctuations and economic policies)
Robert M. Solow, Nobel Economics 1987 (for contributions to the theory of economic growth)
William F. Sharpe, Nobel Economics 1990 (for pioneering work in the theory of financial economics)
Douglass C. North, Nobel Economics 1993 (for having renewed research in economic history by applying economic theory and quantitative methods in order to explain economic and institutional change)
Daniel L. McFadden, Nobel Economics 2000 (for development of theory and methods for analyzing discrete choice)
Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Economics 2001 (for analyses of markets with asymmetric information)
George A. Akerlof, Nobel Economics 2001 (for analyses of markets with asymmetric information)
Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Economics 2002 (for having integrated insights from psychological research into economic science, especially concerning human judgment and decision-making under uncertainty)

so it’s 10 nobel economists… what do these people know about economies?

the unfeeling president E.L. Doctorow, the east hampton star, september 9, 2004

But this president does not know what death is. He hasn’t the mind for it. You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the weapons of mass destruction he can’t seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to the stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd, smiling and waving, triumphal, a he-man.

He does not mourn. He doesn’t understand why he should mourn. He is satisfied during the course of a speech written for him to look solemn for a moment and speak of the brave young Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

this is really like shooting fish on a bicycle…

president george w. bush, springfield, ohio, september 27, 2004

In order to make sure America is safer, the President must speak clearly and mean what he says.

the man has a point….

Remarks by President Bush and Prime Minister Allawi of the Interim Government of Iraq in a Joint Press Availability, the White House Rose Garden, September 23, 2004

The Prime Minister said something very interesting a while ago, and it’s
important for the American people to understand. Our strategy is to help the
Iraqis help themselves. It’s important that we train Iraqi troops. There are
nearly 100,000 troops trained. The Afghan (sic) national army is a part of
the army. By the way — it’s the Afghan [sic] national army that went into
Najaf and did the work there. There’s a regular army being trained. There
are border guards being trained. There are police being trained. That’s a
key part of our mission.

we’re clearly training the troops. somewhere. iraq. afghanistan. detroit. somewhere. nearly 100,000 troops. yes.

no. wait. let’s ask the pentagon.

Bush claim on training of Iraqis disputed [seattle times, september 27, 2004]

The Pentagon documents show that of the nearly 90,000 people now in the police force, only 8,169 have had the full eight-week academy training. Another 46,176 are listed as “untrained,” and it will be July 2006 before the administration reaches its goal of a 135,000-strong, fully trained police force.

Six Army battalions have had “initial training,” while 57 National Guard battalions, 896 soldiers in each, are still being recruited or “awaiting equipment.” Just eight Guard battalions have reached “initial (operating) capability,” according to the documents.

Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee estimated that 22,700 Iraqi personnel have received enough training to make them “minimally effective at their tasks.”

erm. ok, well, that’s not exactly what we mean. we meant something else.

Bush claim on training of Iraqis disputed [seattle times, september 27, 2004]

The White House defended its figures, and a senior administration official defined “fully trained” as having gone through “initial basic operations training.”

ok. wait. what was i writing about? oh yeah.

the president must speak clearly and mean what he says.

‘Staying the Course’ Isn’t an Option [newsweek, september 24, 2004]

Two thirds of America’s combat brigades are now tied down in this war which, under present conditions, is categorically unwinnable.

a collection of speculative essays discuss the future under the second bush administration…

just a brief note (time flies):

Moulton woman says she lost job for sporting Kerry sticker on car [decatur daily, decatur, alabama, september 12, 2004]

“We were going back to work from break, and my manager told me that Phil said to remove the sticker off my car or I was fired,” she said. “I told him that Phil couldn’t tell me who to vote for. He said, ‘Go tell him.’ “

[nothing quite like three layers of quotes]

so, a nod to lynne gobbell of decatur alabama for standing up for her opinions, and a little space in my corner of the web for her former employer:

EnviroMate Insulation
13855 Court Street
Moulton, Alabama 35650
800.339.3531

i hope this gets picked up.

just to put this on the record as the spinning gets going….

vice president dick cheney, september 8, 2004, des moines iowa

It’s absolutely essential that eight weeks from today on November 2nd we make the right choice, ’cause if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we’ll get hit again, that we’ll be hit in a way that’ll be devastating from the standpoint of the United States, and that we’ll fall back into the pre-9/11 mindset, if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts and that we’re not really at war.

vice president dick cheney, september 10, cincinnati enquirer

I did not say if Kerry is elected, we will be hit by a terrorist attack

i suppose this means that the “wrong choice” on september 2 was ralph nader? or maybe it was to supersize the fries? so many choices… i need to know which ones are going to cause terrorist attacks, dick.

how do you get something done, when you don’t want to look bad doing it? you ask your friends. it’s good to have friends.

i bring this up because there’s a thing about ben barnes that’s picking up traction in recent days, and will probably show up on 60 minutes over the weekend. it’s the story of how president bush got into the national guard.

i first saw it over at talking points memo, from josh marshall, and they conveniently provide a link to a pretty horrible video and provide a transcript of the comments:

Ben Barnes, May 27

Let’s talk a minute about John Kerry and George Bush and I know them both. And I’m not name dropping to say I know ‘em both. I got a young man named George W. Bush in the National Guard when I was Lt. Gov. of Texas and I’m not necessarily proud of that. But I did it. And I got a lot of other people into the National Guard because I thought that was what people should do, when you’re in office you helped a lot of rich people. And I walked through the Vietnam Memorial the other day and I looked at the names of the people that died in Vietnam and I became more ashamed of myself than I have ever been because it was the worst thing that I did was that I helped a lot of wealthy supporters and a lot of people who had family names of importance get into the National Guard and I’m very sorry about that and I’m very ashamed and I apologize to you as voters of Texas.

now there are some holes in this story, as with everything in politics, particularly 35 year old politics, recollection is hazy and facts aren’t easy to establish, but doubt is.

the first problem is that ben barnes apparently wasn’t the lt. governor when he did the favor for the younger bush – he was the speaker of the texas house. he did end up being the texas lieutenant governor a little later, tho. so there’s a fuzzy question about which office he was sitting in when the call came in to save bush from vietnam.

this thing broke on the net, but it’s reached all the way to the white house press rom:

Ex-Lawmaker Regrets Helping Bush in Guard [ap via phillyburbs.com, august 29, 2004]

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said of Barnes’ comments: “It is not surprising coming from a longtime partisan Democrat. The allegation was discredited by the commanding officer. This was fully covered and addressed five years ago. It is nothing new.”

that, of course, doesn’t mean that the allegations from the swift vets that have also been discredited, in some cases, decades ago aren’t worth revisiting again and again.

but back to my original line of thought on this subject…

Ben Barnes in Heavy Rotation [austin chronicle, september 3, 2004 (yes, a day ahead)]

The original rumors also held that then-U.S. Rep. George H.W. Bush himself had asked Barnes to get his son into the Guard. However, Barnes testified instead that the late Houston oilman (and Bush buddy) Sidney Adger, not Bush’s family, had interceded on young George’s behalf – a loophole that allowed the then governor (already a presidential hopeful) to claim (as he does still) that he knew nothing about it.

plausible deniability and call in the favors. keep that in mind.

last night, zell miller said this:

zell miller, september 2, 2004 at the republican national convention

George W. Bush wants to grab terrorists by the throat and not let them go to get a better grip.

From John Kerry, they get a “yes/no/maybe” bowl of mush that can only encourage our enemies and confuse our friends.

i’m going to make just a little leap from “terrorists” to “evildoers” and put this on the record for a little chuckle:

President George Bush, State of the Union Address, January 29, 2002

Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction. Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September the 11th. But we know their true nature. North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens.

Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people’s hope for freedom.

Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens — leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections — then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world.

States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.

now, for a quick review the scorecard on the axis of evil:

weapons of mass destruction: iraq (no), north korea (yes), iran (maybe)
military intervention by the united states: iraq (yes), north korea (no), iran (maybe).

from george w. bush, we get a yes/no/maybe track record to compare with our “bowl of mush” from john kerry. oh, and by the way, it seems like we have more enemies (having been ‘encouraged’) and fewer friends (having been ‘confused’) over the past few years, but that’s a topic for another day.

the tactic i see from the republican party, over and over again, is one that a blogspammer used on me once, and it’s particularly uncomfortable in politics where there’s actually real stakes: accuse your opponent of whatever it is you think you might be vulnerable on. do it first, do it hard, and keep them explaining, that way they’re losing.