Richard Reeves: WHY BUSH WILL BE A ONE-TERM PRESIDENT

Yahoo Op/Ed ^ | Fri Apr 19, 2002 | Richard Reeves

[jern]

By Richard Reeves

WASHINGTON -- This was a day in the life of the president of the United States, Thursday, April 18, 2002:

• The circumstances of endless savagery in the Middle East forced him to look into a television camera and tell the world that Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) is "a man of peace."

• Halfway around the world, on the West Bank, the U.N. peace envoy to the Middle East, a Norwegian hardly given to flamboyant language, one of the first outsiders to inspect Mr. Sharon's recent work, looked into other cameras and said: "Horrifying, horrifying ... Israel has lost all moral ground in this conflict."

• In Kabul and Washington, members of the forces commanded by President Bush (news - web sites) had to face the cameras and apologize for the killing of Canadian soldiers, our best friends, by American bombs in yet another friendly-fire incident of the kind that punctuates long-distance, high-tech warfare.

• On Capitol Hill, it was Democrats who commanded the cameras, exulting in easily defeating Bush's most important energy initiative, the drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

• Back on television, the president gave a lecture to the elected president of Venezuela, an incompetent, if charismatic, lefty named Hugo Chavez, who had been overthrown two days before with some help and cheers from the right-wingers running the middle levels of the Bush State Department. Bush warned Chavez that he better do more of what we consider the right things, or we'll get his army after him again.

• Up the road in New Jersey, which happened to be one of the 13 original United States, the federal Justice Department (news - web sites) issued directives to prevent the state from releasing the names of hundreds of people who have been held in five Jersey jails without charges for as long as seven months. The order from "Justice" reads: "It would make little sense for the release of potentially sensitive information to be subject to the vagaries of the laws of various states within which these detainees are housed or maintained." Meaning no disrespect, I seem to remember we fought a revolution to protect the vagaries of state laws.

• In England -- now I remember that's who we fought the revolution against -- the ambassador from our favorite oily medieval monarchy, Saudi Arabia, has published poems he wrote about "God's Martyrs," the killers of Americans and Israelis at the World Trade Center and in shopping malls and restaurants.

• Back close to home, The Washington Post is beginning to publish photographs of Taliban prisoners in liberated Afghanistan (news - web sites). They are starving. Teen-agers are weighing in at less than 100 pounds. Are they bad guys? Probably. But they look like Auschwitz. What the hell is going on out there?

• And meanwhile, the president's men and women are on the Hill testifying that such things as workplace injuries can more effectively be controlled by filing lawsuits than by rules and regulations. That may be true, but only if the injured are both rich and graduates of Harvard Law School.

  That really is what it is like to be president of the United States. The job is so much more than one man can ever conceive of, much less "handle," because all of these things are happening at the same time. And in some way, George W. Bush, former slacker, will have to do something about each of them. You can already see that in his face. It is not blank anymore.

  Take this. While the president and his secretary of state have tried (and failed) to talk some sense into the helmeted head of Prime Minister Sharon, a New York Times reporter named C.J. Chivers was out in an Israeli settlement overlooking the Palestinian city of Ramallah -- the better to snipe from -- and the Times guy asked one of the settlers about Colin Powell (news - web sites)'s mission impossible. "What Colin Powell says, I do not care," said Baruch Zekbas. "This is not Colin Powell's country."

  It is not George Bush's either, but he will end up being held responsible for whether Zekbas kills or is killed. That is his job -- and I suspect he will end up giving it up or losing it in three years.

[jern]

have at 'em!

[DallasMike]

What an amazing doofus.

[WFTR]

You forgot to mention that this post is a barf alert. I was particularly disgusted with this little gem:

Back close to home, The Washington Post is beginning to publish photographs of Taliban prisoners in liberated Afghanistan (news - web sites). They are starving. Teen-agers are weighing in at less than 100 pounds. Are they bad guys? Probably. But they look like Auschwitz. What the hell is going on out there?

So that this idiot might begin to become educated, what's going on is that these people are our enemies. We are fighting our enemies. Sometimes, fighting means that people go hungry. People in jails during times of war often go hungry because food is hard enough to find for the innocent and even harder for the guilty. The Auschwitz reference is particularly offensive because the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, PLO, and all similar groups exist for the purpose of trying to finish what Hitler started.

I think that President Bush has made some serious mistakes during his term in office. Signing campaign finance reform will forever be a stain on whatever legacy he leaves. However, most of the situations listed in this article are not mistakes on his part. Some things haven't worked as well as we'd like, but that does not mean that people will stop supporting him.

WFTR
Julie II - The Education of Dr. Lee
Bill

[wingnuts'nbolts]

I wouldn't count on it! Our President will be reelected!

[kinghorse]

Literary equivalent of a pinata.

[sinkspur]

While the president and his secretary of state have tried (and failed) to talk some sense into the helmeted head of Prime Minister Sharon...

By implication, Reeves believes Arafat to be the the rational party, which tells you all you need to know about Richard Reeves.

[AF68]

Back close to home, The Washington Post is beginning to publish photographs of Taliban prisoners...starving...Auschwitz. What the hell is going on out there?

Cry me a river. These are the same religious fantics who directly and gleefully supported the killing, EN MASSE, of innocent people because because of their race or their religion or their nationality. Let them starve themselves to death for their jihad.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

My feelings exactly. But a mistake was made when photos were allowed of the prisoners at Gitmo.

[linn37]

feeelings,whoa whoa whoaaaaaaa,feelings

[McGavin999]

Back close to home, The Washington Post is beginning to publish photographs of Taliban prisoners in liberated Afghanistan (news - web sites). They are starving. Teen-agers are weighing in at less than 100 pounds. Are they bad guys? Probably. But they look like Auschwitz. What the hell is going on out there?

All these prisoners COULD have been in Gitmo, where the average prisoner has put on 20 pounds and have decent medical and dental care for the first time in their lives, but the liberal media called it cruel and unusual punishment. Therefore, it was necessary to leave those prisoners in Afghanistan in order to be treated humanely by their own culture.

[Howlin]

*Humming along*

[JessicaDragonet]

What an amazing doofus

The only way demo's can ever get elected is to cause Americans to doubt the wisdom of GW. They can't offer a better "mousetrap"...so they have to convince us that the one we have is dangerously inept and confused.

[AF68]

Now that the call has gone out from the Grand Mosque in Mecca to exterminate the Jews, they should prepare themselves to go to their Sand Nazi moon god's whorehouse in the sky.

[Timesink]

Ah, it's always so cute watching the liberals dream.

[right wing]

Is this article written by the shoe bomber Richard Reeves?

[caltrop]

If Bush loses in '04 it'll be because the Democrats run someone who isn't offensive or reminiscent of Clinton/Gore and conservatives take stock of the administration's failure to put conservatives on the bench (I know the Dems control the Senate but there could be recess appointments), expansion of the Department of Education, failure to even attempt a roll back of the encrosions on the Second Amendment, overall expansion of the government, etc. Remember this is his first term so he can't afford the luxury of turning his back on us - yet. Given this first term, what can we expect in his second?

[F.J. Mitchell]

This is why I am thankful every day that Reeves no longer vomits his slime upon the pages of our local news paper.

Bush a one time President? In that bird brained columnist's delusional liberal pipe dreams!

[olliemb]

OH, yeah, let's get a recess appointment--did you forget that is temporary and not permanent? What good is that? Wake up-- Bush needs the help of the congress--go out and get the votes in to get the democrats out of senate control. You should have cried out when Jeffords gave that to the democrats. What have the democrats done in the senate--nothing but obstruct. Read the WSJ editorial from yesterday--the democrats have redefined gridlock--Daschle refuses to put out anything for a vote that might be harmful in the midterm elections or if he doesn't want it passed. So much for democracy and getting a vote!! Don't take out your anger or your worries on the president--I think he is doing a good job--the Mideast problem is unfixable by humans (we have tried for over 40 years). It takes a miracle to get these people to change their minds about hatred --

Bush will be elected a second term!!

[olliemb]

Ditto for the doofus comment about you. An argument that has not been settled for over 40 years and now calling Sharon a man of peace is enough to get Bush not reelected. Boy, the democrats are really grasping for issues. WAAAAAAAH!!

[tbg681]

According to this typically cynical left wing asshole, GWB will either a) "give up" or b) lose his job.

Give up his job? Like, uh, quit? The President is many things -- and not altogether perfect, for sure -- but a quitter is certainly NOT ONE OF THEM!

Lose his job? To whom? The socialist scumbags are going to run Gore again (out of default). George W Bush DOES NOT LOSE to "Adlai" Gore in '04. Not a chance.

BTW, this Richard Reeves claims that at one time he was a "conservative", but has since -- you guessed it -- "grown".

Puke, puke, puke!!!!