A NEW WORLD? I PREFER THE OLD ONE
When George Bush took office in January 2001, he did not have majority support of the nation or the legitimacy of a genuine winner, but he did have a nation at relative peace, a budget in surplus, a Dow Jones Industrial Average that was approximately 30 percent higher than it is today, a nation with most of our civil liberties intact and the good opinion of much of the world, particularly our NATO allies. That America is gone forever now. And while much of the changes that ensued can be laid at the feet of Al-Qaeda and the attacks of 9/11, a great many of them are merely the result of the Bush Administration’s unconscionable but successful exploitation of that tragedy.
We are now about to enter a world in which the values we practice are pre-emptive war, fiscal indiscipline, domestic theocracy and the good opinion of human kind be damned. Since 9/11, Bush and company have done almost everything possible to alienate the world and inspire more terrorists to hate us, despite the initial wellspring of sympathy and solidarity the attacks inspired worldwide. Meanwhile, for all its collective bluster, the Bush crowd has done almost nothing to protect the nation from the entirely predictable consequences of their folly and the hatred we have engendered across the Islamic and Arab worlds. (Read this incredible TNR story on homeland security by Jonathan Chait if you doubt my word.)
All I can say at this deeply depressing moment in our history is that may Providence have mercy on our nation and those who are about to become the victims of our misguided crusade, and may its beneficiaries in Iraq make the most of it.