Posted on 05/05/2006 1:31:43 PM PDT by TBP
There’s nothing harder in public life than admitting you’re wrong. By the way, admitting you’re wrong can be even tougher in private life. If you don’t believe me, just ask Bill Clinton or Charlie Sheen. But when you go out on the limb in public, it’s out there where everyone can see it, or in my case, hear it.
So, I’m saying today, I was wrong to have voted for George W. Bush. In historic terms, I believe George W. Bush is the worst two-term President in the history of the country. Worse than Grant. I also believe a case can be made that he’s the worst President, period.
In 2000, I was a McCain guy. I wasn’t sure about the Texas Governor. He had name recognition and a lot of money behind him, but other than that? What? Still, I was sick of all the Clinton shenanigans and the thought of President Gore was… unthinkable. So, GWB became my guy.
For the first few months he was just flubbing along like most new Presidents, no great shakes, but no disasters either. He cut taxes and I like tax cuts.
Then September 11th happened. September 11th changed everything for me, like it did for so many of you. After September 11th, all the intramural idiocy of American politics stopped being funny. We had been attacked by a vicious and determined enemy and it was time for all of us to row in the same direction.
And we did for the blink of an eye. I believed the President when he said we were going to hunt down Bin Laden and all those responsible for the 9-11 murders. I believed President Bush when he said we would go after the terrorists and the nations that harbored them.
I supported the President when he sent our troops into Afghanistan, after all, that’s where the Taliban was, that’s where al-Qaida trained the killers, that’s where Bin Laden was.
And I cheered when we quickly toppled the Taliban government, but winced when we let Bin Laden escape from Tora-Bora.
Then, the talk turned to Iraq and I winced again.
I thought the connection to 9-11 was sketchy at best. But Colin Powell impressed me at the UN, and Tony Blair was in, and after all, he was a Clinton guy, not a Bush guy, so I thought the case had to be strong. I was worried though, because I had read the Wolfowitz paper, “The Project for the New American Century.” It’s been around since ‘92, and it raised alarm bells because it was based on a theory, “Democratizing the Middle East” and I prefer pragmatism over theory. I was worried because Iraq was being justified on a radical new basis, “pre-emptive war.” Any time we do something without historical precedent I get nervous.
But the President shifted the argument to WMDs and the urgent threat of Iraq getting atomic weapons. The debate turned to Saddam passing nukes on to terror groups. After 9-11, the risk was too great. As the President said, “The next smoking gun might be a mushroom cloud.” At least that’s what I thought at the time.
I grew up in New York and watched them build the World Trade Center. I worked with a guy, Frank O’Brien, who put the elevators in both towers. I lost a very close friend on September 11th. 103 floor, tower one, Cantor Fitzgerald. Tim Coughlin was his name. If we had to take out Iraq to make sure something like that, or worse, never happened again, so be it. I knew the consequences. We have a soldier in our house. None of this was theoretical in my house.
But in the months and years since shock and awe I have been shocked repeatedly by a consistent litany of excuses, alibis, double-talk, inaccuracies, bogus predictions, and flat out lies. I have watched as the President and his administration changed the goals, redefined the reasons for going into Iraq, and fumbled the good will of the world and the focus necessary to catch the real killers of September 11th.
I have watched the President say the commanders on the ground will make the battlefield decisions, and the war won’t be run from Washington. Yet, politics has consistently determined what the troops can and can’t do on the ground and any commander who did not go along with the administration was sacked, and in some cases, maligned.
I watched and tried to justify the looting in Iraq after the fall of Saddam. I watched and tried to justify the dismantling of the entire Iraqi army. I tired to explain the complexities of building a functional new Iraqi army. I urged patience when no WMDs were found. Then the Vice President told us we were in the “waning days of the insurgency.” And I started wincing again. The President says we have to stay the course but what if it’s the wrong course?
It was the wrong course. All of it was wrong. We are not on the road to victory. We’re about to slink home with our tail between our legs, leaving civil war in Iraq and a nuclear armed Iran in our wake. Bali was bombed. Madrid was bombed. London was bombed. And Bin Laden is still making tapes. It’s unspeakable. The liberal media didn’t create this reality, bad policy did.
Most historians believe it takes 30-50 years before we get a reasonably accurate take on a President’s place in history. So, maybe 50 years from now Iraq will be a peaceful member of the brotherhood of nations and George W. Bush will be celebrated as a visionary genius.
But we don’t live fifty years in the future. We live now. We have to make public policy decisions now. We have to live with the consequences of the votes we cast and the leaders we chose now.
After five years of carefully watching George W. Bush I’ve reached the conclusion he’s either grossly incompetent, or a hand puppet for a gaggle of detached theorists with their own private view of how the world works. Or both.
Presidential failures. James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, Jimmy Carter, Warren Harding-— the competition is fierce for the worst of the worst. Still, the damage this President has done is enormous. It will take decades to undo, and that’s assuming we do everything right from now on. His mistakes have global implications, while the other failed Presidents mostly authored domestic embarrassments.
And speaking of domestic embarrassments, let’s talk for a minute about President Bush’s domestic record. Yes, he cut taxes. But tax cuts combined with reckless spending and borrowing is criminal mismanagement of the public’s money. We’re drunk at the mall with our great grandchildren’s credit cards. Whatever happened to the party of fiscal responsibility?
Bush created a giant new entitlement, the prescription drug plan. He lied to his own party to get it passed. He lied to the country about its true cost. It was written by and for the pharmaceutical industry. It helps nobody except the multinationals that lobbied for it. So much for smaller government. In fact, virtually every tentacle of government has grown exponentially under Bush. Unless, of course, it was an agency to look after the public interest, or environmental protection, and/or worker’s rights.
I’ve talked so often about the border issue, I won’t bore you with a rehash. It’s enough to say this President has been a catastrophe for the wages of working people; he’s debased the work ethic itself. “Jobs Americans won’t do!” He doesn’t believe in the sovereign borders of the country he’s sworn to protect and defend. And his devotion to cheap labor for his corporate benefactors, along with his worship of multinational trade deals, makes an utter mockery of homeland security in a post 9-11 world. The President’s January 7th, 2004 speech on immigration, his first trial balloon on his guest worker scheme, was a deal breaker for me. I couldn’t and didn’t vote for him in 2004. And I’m glad I didn’t.
Katrina, Harriet Myers, The Dubai Port Deal, skyrocketing gas prices, shrinking wages for working people, staggering debt, astronomical foreign debt, outsourcing, open borders, contempt for the opinion of the American people, the war on science, media manipulation, faith based initives, a cavalier attitude toward fundamental freedoms-- this President has run the most arrogant and out-of-touch administration in my lifetime, perhaps, in any American’s lifetime.
You can make a case that Abraham Lincoln did what he had to do, the public be damned. If you roll the dice on your gut and you’re right, history remembers you well. But, when your gut led you from one business failure to another, when your gut told you to trade Sammy Sosa to the Cubs, and you use the same gut to send our sons and daughters to fight and die in a distraction from the real war on terror, then history will and should be unapologetic in its condemnation.
None of this, by the way, should be interpreted as an endorsement of the opposition party. The Democrats are equally bankrupt. This is the second crime of our age. Again, historically speaking, its times like these when America needs a vibrant opposition to check the power of a run-amuck majority party. It requires it. It doesn’t work without one. Like the high and low tides keep the oceans alive, a healthy, positive opposition offers a path back to the center where all healthy societies live.
Tragically, the Democrats have allowed crackpots, leftists and demagogic cowards to snipe from the sidelines while taking no responsibility for anything. In fairness, I don’t believe a Democrat president would have gone into Iraq. Unfortunately, I don’t know if President Gore would have gone into Afghanistan. And that’s one of the many problems with the Democrats.
The two party system has always been clumsy and imperfect, but it has only collapsed once, in the 1850s, and the result was civil war.
I believe, as I have said countless times, the two party system is on the brink of a second collapsed. It’s currently running on spin, anger, revenge, and pots and pots and pots of money.
We’re being governed by paper-mache patriots; brightly painted red, white and blue, but hollow to the core. Both parties have mastered the cynical arts of media manipulation and fund raising. They’ve learned the lessons of Watergate and burn the tapes. They have learned to divide the nation for their own gain. They have demonstrated the willingness to exploit any tragedy for personal advantage. The contempt they have for the American people is without parallel.
This is painful to say, and I’m sure for many of you, painful to read. But it’s impossible to heal the country until we’re willing to acknowledge the truth no matter how painful. We have to wean ourselves off sugar coated partisan lies.
With a belated tip of the cap to Ralph Nader, the system is broken, so broken, it’s almost inevitable it pukes up the Al Gores and George W. Bushes. Where are the Trumans and the Eisenhowers? Where are the men and women of vision and accomplishment? Why do we have to settle for recycled hacks and malleable ciphers? Greatness is always rare, but is basic competence and simple honesty too much to ask?
It may be decades before we have the full picture of how paranoid and contemptuous this administration has been. And I am open to the possibility that I’m all wet about everything I’ve just said. But I’m putting it out there, because I have to call it as I see it, and this is how I see it today. I don’t say any of this lightly. I’ve thought about this for months and months. But eventually, the weight of evidence takes on a gravitational force of its own.
I believe that George W. Bush has taken us down a terrible road. I don’t believe the Democrats are offering an alternative. That means we’re on our own to save this magnificent country. The United States of America is a gift to the world, but it has been badly abused and it’s rightful owners, We the People, had better step up to the plate and reclaim it before the damage becomes irreparable.
So, accept my apology for allowing partisanship to blind me to an obvious truth; our President is incapable of the tasks he is charged with. I almost feel sorry for him. He is clearly in over his head. Yet, he doesn’t generate the sympathy Warren Harding earned. Harding, a spectacular mediocrity, had the self-knowledge to tell any and all he shouldn’t be President. George W. Bush continues to act the part, but at this point whose buying the act?
Does this make me a waffler? A flip-flopper? Maybe, although I prefer to call it realism. And, for those of you who never supported Bush, its also fair to accuse me of kicking Bush while he’s down. After all, you were kicking him while he was up.
You were right, I was wrong.
Carter swims at the bottom, but below him has to be the sleazy Lyndon Johnson with his "Great Society" which continues to perpetuate poverty and draw illegals over the border to this day.
I say let the Rats win....especially if Bush doesnt veto this spending bill.
Ackkkkkkkkkkkk!
Dont worry about me...I never have any candidates with an (R) next to them. The CAGOP is a complete failure in that aspect. Even the Pink RINO Dreier is over in the San Gabriel Valley
"He's suggesting we'd be better off with
AL GORE!!!!"
Uh no, he said just the opposite. Try reading it again.
Maybe 2-3 times.
Dreier: Just another aging political ho with a receding hairline.
The dirty little secret is that democracy doesn't at all reliably select the best person for the job.For example, we accept that Ronald Reagan was an excellent president between 1981-1989 - but for how long before that was Reagan the best man for the job? 1976, certainly - but for how long before that? Was Nixon better than Reagan would have been? Unlikely in the extreme.
Was Johnson better than Reagan would have been in 1965-69? Get serious - Jimmy Carter woulda been as good a president as that! Would Reagan have been a worse president than John "Bay of Pigs" Kennedy? Very unlikely.
I first voted in 1960, and in all that time Reagan was the only candidate I unambiguously thought was the right man for the job. And actually, that is only natural - because there is no principled way for the Republicans to select the best candidate in a multiperson race in the primary. You run into the "rock, scissors, paper" problem that in a field of three, you might choose A over B, if those were the two choices, or B over C, if those were the two choices, or C over A if they were the two choices.
The problem is compounded by the fact that the best person to be president does not necessarily even present him/herself as a candidate for the nomination - as Reagan did not, in 1960, 1964 and 1968.
First paragraph told me where this was going, so I did not read all of it.
I read enough to tell me, another dumb a*ss who will have to
eat his words, if he can get his foot out of his mouth.
SoCal ping
An excellent piece. He's right on target.
This perception, right or wrong, as an objective characterization of the truth, is what is tanking Bush. And he has tanked. I don't see him recovering. But there is always hope. That was the one thing left in Pandora's box.
I certainly agree with McIntyre's criticism about the runaway spending. It's worse than the liberal Democrats. Under Klintoon, domestic discretionary spending went up 2.3 percent per year. Under Bush, it's gone up 8.2 percent per year. It's completely out of control.
Iraq has in some ways been mismanaged, but basically his criticisms are off the mark. I do wish the Administration would promote the newly-translated documents showing the Al Qaeda-Saddam connection and showing that the WMDs were there. I also wish they'd bomb the Sunni Triangle. This would shorten the war by quite some.
It does disturb me that Osama bin Laden hasn't been found, but I know our guys are working on it. I just hope it gets done soon. (We should have bombed Tora Bora harder than we did.)
Bush is no conservative, by any means. Far from it.
So far, so good. While most of the blame for the post-Katrina mess rests with Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin, the Federal response was not as effective as it could have been. Harriet Miers was a disaster. McIntyre's right abouot that. The best line on Miers was Ann Coulter's "She wouldn't have been the most qualified female lawyer in 1875, when there were 75 of them." And everyone knows I found the Dubai Ports deal horrible, considering that Dubai si today (not pre-9/11 but now) and active supporter of Hamas and an active donor of funds to the families of homicide bombers. (China shouldn't be allowed anywhere near our ports either. In fact, we shouldn't allow Chinese goods into our country as long as they have nuclear warheads pointed at us.) And Dubai, China, and other hostile countries shouldn't be allowed anywhere near supplying our arms either.
It's really pathetic to watch a formerly-respectable conservative prostitute himself to a bunch of liberals so he can make certain they buy his next book.
A stud he is not.
I heard some of this live this morning on his show. I was cringing into my pillow.
I have listened to Doug since the first night he went live on KABC during the 2000 presidential election fiasco. He impressed a lot of us with his political and historical knowledge. No doubt about it, he's a smart and well-read cookie. He made waking up to nurse the baby almost fun.
I don't understand why Doug is not aware of the documents and other evidence (General Sadr [sp?] and his book!) that Saddam sure did have WMD and sure was using and planning to use them. The connections to Atta and Al Qaeda. The very real possibility that the anthrax used after 9/11 in the USA was from Saddam. I agree: Bush's PR on the Iraq war stinks up the place.
And Bush on immigration infuriates me. Don't get ANY of us SoCAL conservatives started on Bush and the illegals.
I know that Bush is not among our best presidents today, but what if the WOT works? What if we do outfight Muslim extremist terrorism like we did Soviet communism? It might take a while but it is possible if we lose political correctness and keep our courage up. Al Qaeda and our drive-by media are both enemies in this war, but we can do it.
I don't understand why Doug needed to pour forth his manifesto today. I don't agree with his bottom-of-the-heap assessment of Bush, agree that any assessment is premature, and also don't think the glass half empty pronouncement even helps in any way.
This is where I stopped. Anything else after that is pretty much boilerplate.
Moron Poster Bump. Anyone who says this NEVER voted for Bush in the first place. So not only is the author completely clueless, he OBVIOUS is a liar as well.
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