Bush Fatigue

I have been remiss lately, certainly in the paucity of my blog entries in general, and specifically in my lackadaisacal response to the continued inanity of the current Administration. Eight years ago, when Clinton was in his sixth year as President, a pallor fell over the otherwise content populace that the pundits called "Clinton Fatigue." This was a vague malaise caused, essentially, by boredom and lack of any national crisis (yeah, it was a good era). Clinton fatigue ended with the Lewinsky scandal and the absurd Impeachment proceedings, which jump-started the Republicans successful series of character assassinations that continue to this day.

Becuse Bush has been such an easy target, at least since he sent our troops to their purposeless war, we have experienced something like "Bush Bashing Fatigue." It's too easy, too familiar, too rife. Few people want to hear what they know to be true about our awful Chief Executive, much like they turn off to the daily statistic of another 100 civilians/soldiers killed in Baghdad. But I think it's time, at least on these rarely-read pages, to reassert a major historical truth. George W. Bush is not a bad President. He is a Catastrophic president. Now let me count the reasons.

1. The Iraqi War. Gee, it's been over three and a half years and absolutely nothing has been resolved. It's been longer than the span between Pearl Harbor and V-J Day. There is a clear civil war going on, the debates are now about whether the country should be subdivided, which means returned to its fragmented past of a century ago. We are inextricably involved-- both "cut and run" and "stay the course" are unsatisfactory approaches. Bush did not even know, at the onset of the war, that Sunnis fought Shiities (didn't he pay attention when Iran first went blooey in 1979?). The war was ignited over two erroneous premises--even admitted by Dubya--that Saddam had WMDs, and that he conspired with Al Qaeda on 9/11. Now , in this quagmire, we cannot provide sufficient troops to tame Baghdad, and have drained our military resources so badly that all soldiers are forced to reup, and we have nothing left to challenge the more obviously threatening Iran regime. Face it, George, you fought Iraq because Saddam tried to off your father. Not a nice thing to do, but not worth changing the course of history and maligning our country in the eyes of the rest of the world.

2. Your advocacy of torture. Here is the great Moral Christian president doing what he can to subvert international law as embodied by the Geneva Conventions to give a legal standing to torture. Not only does this--as Colin Powell observed--undermine any moral authority we may still have salvaged from our Bill of Rights and Constitution, but it's been demonstrated that torture simply doesn't work very well. Ask John McCain, who's been there, done that. Jack Bauer and the CTU minons of "24" aside, torture is not just cruel, it is incompetent.

3. And speaking of incompetence, let's not forget Katrina, and the Administration's appallingly inept efforts to deal with the incipient tragedy and its aftermath. From denying the money for better levees to the subverting of a once capable FEMA by folding it into the Department of Homeland Security and its cast of hapess cronies, the Adminsitration's ineptitude has not just tragically altered the lives of thousands of citizens, but intensifies the insecurity we all feel for when another major disaster or terrorist strike recurs. Ironically, the only time Bush was able to efficiently gather his forces was in the all-out government effort to prolong the horrendous unconscious life of a comatose Florida woman.

4. The Elevation of superstition, religious intolerance, and ignorance to National norms of acceptability. Only in America do we actively debate Darwin, Global Warming, and the usefulness of stem cell research. Bush has thumbed his nose at the Kyoto Accords, and, while somewhat acknowledging that climate change is real, insists it is up to private industry to regulate itself. So, global diaster on a scale unknown since the Ice Age is left to some coroporate CEOs, while the world's most powerful government twiddles its thumbs? This is not catastrophic?

5. The Politics of Division. Through his inflexible stupidity and stubbornness, he has done exactly the opposite of what leaders are supposed to do--unite his constituents, Democrat and Republican, in the interests of the Nation. What has emerged instead is the politics of Polarity, the Great Red/Blue division, that has sustained bad feelings from both sides of the podium to a degree I've never seen in my half-century of political awareness.

Six years into his Administration, Bush has divided the nation, involved us in a hopelessly tangled war, sapped our resources, drained our budget, ignored the victims of domestic tragedy, alienated us from most of our allies, so angered our Moslem enemies that the CIA has determined terrorism is a greater threat than ever, and delayed the necessary scientific and industrial efforts we need to rescue our environment from potential--even likely cataclysm. And we still have 28 months left of this horrendous dolt. Will we even make it that far?