HA HA!
Posted on 01/31/2006 10:23:45 AM PST by Chi-townChief
Nothing is more costly or dangerous than a failed presidency. The powers of the office are without rival. The scope of responsibility spans the globe. When a presidency fails, we all pay the price -- no matter what our politics.
As George Bush serves up his State of the Union address, his presidency is in virtual collapse. None of this will be apparent on the TV screen. The address will be "interrupted" with numerous standing ovations. The pundits will be respectful. The Democratic response will seem muted. As Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton understood, a president never looks better than on these ceremonial nights.
But beneath the bunting and the applause, this president is in trouble. His war of choice in Iraq has gone bad. Our military is near "snapping," according to a report commissioned by the Pentagon. Iraq has become a training ground for international terrorists. The elections have produced a Shiite plurality, led by religious parties that have formed a mutual defense pact with Iran. The Iranian president has called for the destruction of Israel, and the Iraqi leaders that our soldiers are dying to defend stand by his side.
The reconstruction of Iraq is a joke, with literally billions wasted or stolen, while citizens still have no stable source of electricity. We can't leave because a civil war, already started on the ground, will flare up. We can't stay because our presence simply feeds the terror and destabilization. Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz now projects the actual cost of the Iraq war at $1 trillion.
Iraq has undermined the war on terror. Osama bin Laden is still alive, but that matters little. What matters is that the U.S. is more despised across the Muslim world.
The administration has done nothing to move us toward energy independence. And by simply being in denial on global warming, it has isolated us in the world on a clear and increasingly present danger.
At home, it's the same sorry record of catastrophic failure. The administration's trade policies are hollowing out our manufacturing and high-tech sectors. Bush has run up the largest trade deficits in the history of man, while leaving us increasingly dependent on the willingness of the Chinese to finance our spending.
The administration's top-end tax cuts have failed to produce. Take away the jobs produced by government at all levels and by the military buildup, and the United States has lost an estimated 1 million private sector jobs since Bush came into office. Yet those same tax cuts have helped rack up record deficits and staggering national debt.
The prescription drug program confounds seniors and will end up costing many of them more for drugs, even as it prohibits Medicare from negotiating a better price and shovels billions to HMOs. The effort to cut and privatize Social Security was blocked, but that debate blocked any sensible response to the growing crisis of pensions.
The minimum wage has been frozen, while CEO salaries have soared. The administration does nothing to help labor under corporate assault, even as wages stagnate. African Americans and Latinos suffer disproportionately, even as the administration retreats from the commitment to equal opportunity.
And the ticket to the American Dream -- a college education -- is being priced out of reach for more and more working families. The administration and the Republican Congress are about to raise interest rates on student loans, adding to burdens that are already a stretch for most families.
Katrina exposed the administration's incompetence. But the catastrophic failure to reconstruct the Gulf Region is adding to the suffering of those who survived the storm.
And on homeland security, the independent and bipartisan 9/11 commission gives the administration failing grades in area after area.
The president will no doubt condemn corruption and partisanship. But the head of procurement of his budget office has been taken out of office in handcuffs. Vice President Cheney's chief of staff is under indictment for misleading prosecutors in the case concerning the leaking of a CIA agent's name. The president is pretending that he never knew Enron chief Ken Lay, one of his leading donors, or conservative activist Jack Abramoff, a major contributor who partied at the White House.
The list can go on. It is to no one's advantage. This isn't about an election that is nearly a year away. It is about governing. It's not about Republicans and Democrats. It's about the country. This president has three more years in office, and we will all pay dearly if the failures continue.
mailto:jjackson@rainbowpush.org
Sounds like he's warming up for a run for presidency of Iran. Or top editor's job on Al Jazeera.
Bust out the can'o SMEGME
HA HA!
Hey, Jesse - this all sounds like the usual psychotic ravings of the loony left..... must really hurt to know that your contemptible babblings are scoffed at or ignored by the vast majority of Americans. Good think you don't have to work for a living - you couldn't make it in any real business or organization that doesn't run on hot air....
That was worth me having to clean the spittle off my monitor and keys.
Jesse Jagmo, indeed.
Say, they haven't banned the "J" word yet, have they?
Article states,"The administration has done nothing to move us toward energy independence."
I may be wrong, but isn't this one of the goals of the Alaskan Pipeline (the one that the Dems and Greens INSIST would result in the end of the world!!). Looks like Jesse better brush up on his current events!
There's nothing here but just another pack of lies.
Jesse lost his access to public funds when president Bush was elected. I'm not surprised he's unhappy.
Sigh, I know Jessie, I know. Wouldn't be great if we could go back to that time of love, brotherhood and endless choruses of Kum Bi Ya like we had before we invaded Iraq. Like for instance on September 10 2000...oh wait a minute....
With the passing of Coretta Scott King this morning, the "Black" Community loses another sane voice and sinks further into the black hole of obscurity with leaders like Jesse Jackson, Harry Belafonte, Cynthia McKinney, Ray Nagin, Al Sharpton, John Conyers, etc. American Blacks, poor souls, are lost on a sea of weak and distainful leadership. They are going nowhere politically, oppportunity wise, or economically. Hispanics, Asians and other minorities are passing them by as if they were standing still!!! What a shame!!! They just don't get it, and never have!!!
What a riot!
Unemployment is @ 4.9%; 69% of all Americans own their homes(this is an American and World record); consumer confidence is at a 3-year-high; interest rates are still at 40-year lows; we're killing thousands of terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan; John Roberts is the new chief justice of the SCOTUS; Justice Alito will be sworn onto the Court today. Hey, there's a lot of good news out there.
Jesse thinks times are bad 'cause his outfits aren't getting enough federal dough. Simple as that.
He is also another splendid example of "Do as I say and not as I do."
Besides, what do we care what other countries think about us? Since when have we ever used that as a barometer to determine what we should do in the world and to protect ourselves?
YOU WISH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lies? From Jessie Jackson? Oh no, how can you be so hateful? Are you a racist?
"The pundits will be respectful."
Wow...Jesse watches FOXNews?
Yup Jesse ....... your statement here is correct as we found out during the Clinton era and we're STILL paying for the lack of attention during those years to matters of national security and the degradation of the values that make America such a great nation. Thank God our current President has a pair of brass ones in his pants instead of an intern.
4 hours, huh? That's a number I've not seen before, but I'll consider myself properly chastised.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
His war of choice in Iraq has gone bad.
If you listen to the MSM, it sure has. Just like the American Revolution, WWII, and all the other wars we've ever won would have, if the media had covered them with the same unremitting 24/7 negativity.
Iraq has become a training ground for international terrorists.
Jesse ignores the evidence that Iraq was a training ground for terrorists long before GWB even took office.
The elections have produced a Shiite plurality, led by religious parties that have formed a mutual defense pact with Iran.
If true, so what? When you have free elections, you have to be willing to accept the outcome. We can't just tell a freely-elected sovereign government what they can and can't do.
The Iranian president has called for the destruction of Israel, and the Iraqi leaders that our soldiers are dying to defend stand by his side.
Gee, "Hymietown" Jesse's sure concerned about Israel all of a sudden. Tell you what -- you don't worry about Israel. She (with our help if needed) can take care of herself.
The reconstruction of Iraq is a joke, with literally billions wasted or stolen.
Funny, coming from the pen of one whose organization has paid hush money to at least one mistress with whom his adulterous affair produced at least one child. Such an authority on the efficient use of money. And -- see the previous comment about negative press.
Osama bin Laden is still alive, but that matters little.
That's debatable. If he is, he's reduced to hiding out in caves. Some big terrorist leader he is.
What matters is that the U.S. is more despised across the Muslim world.
Good thing we don't conduct foreign policy on the basis of Muslim opinion polls, then, isn't it?
The administration has done nothing to move us toward energy independence.
The administration is not responsible for ANWR and other sources of domestic production not being opened. Your friends in the green movement are.
And by simply being in denial on global warming...
Unproven junk science, based on unreliable computer models.
The administration's top-end tax cuts...
Intellectually dishonest. The top income groups pay a higher, not lower, percentage of the taxes than five years ago.
Take away the jobs produced by government at all levels and by the military buildup, and the United States has lost an estimated 1 million private sector jobs since Bush came into office.
Since we are at near functional full employment, we can only conclude from this statement that government hiring "at all levels" has sucked jobs out of the private sector.
...tax cuts have helped rack up record deficits and staggering national debt.
This wouldn't be an issue if the drunken sailors in Congress could control their spending a bit.
The prescription drug program confounds seniors and will end up costing many of them more for drugs, even as it prohibits Medicare from negotiating a better price and shovels billions to HMOs.
Just proving that Bush should stop trying to act like a Democrat and stop advancing more big spending boondoggles.
The effort to cut and privatize Social Security was blocked...
Use of the word "cut" is another lie. And, again, your friends in the AARP and the socialist wing of the Dem party blocked any reform, just delaying the inevitable accounting for the system.
...the administration retreats from the commitment to equal opportunity.
Yeah, just look at the appointments -- two black Secs. of State, a Latino AG, etc. No opportunity there.
a college education...is being priced out of reach for more and more working families.
The two sectors of the economy with the highest rising costs are higher education and health care. These are also the two sectors that put up with the most government interference and subsidy. This is not a coincidence, and has nothing in particular to do with this administration.
Katrina exposed the administration's incompetence.
It wasn't the administration's incompetence that flooded 80% of New Orleans needlessly. It was the incompetence of Nagin, Blanco, and their predecessors.
...the...9/11 commission gives the administration failing grades in area after area.
Based on having been in office less than 8 months at 9/11. What about prior administrations' culpability? Oh, that's right, we might blame your pal Clinton for some of it.
The president is pretending that he never knew Enron chief Ken Lay...
Whose transgressions happened on the Clinton watch.
...or conservative activist Jack Abramoff...
Who contributed to Republicans and Democrats alike.
There, that ought to just about do it.
Well answered - you should send that to the Sun-Times op-ed page.
"None of this will be apparent on the TV screen."
That's because none of it is true, Mr. Jeessee Jagoff!
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