GOOD (Sucko, screwed, bollixed) JOB, BUSHIE
Four Body Blows to a Staggering Presidency
This morning's NY Times and Washington Post front pages features four stories documenting the gross failures of the Bush Administration (and its enabling Congress). Economic, foreign and domestic failures stack on the stinky pile Prez Bush is leaving for his successors to try to clean up.
ECONOMIC
NY Times:
Some excerpts:
Today, as the mortgage crisis of 2007 worsens and threatens to tip the economy into a recession, many are asking: where was Washington?
An examination of regulatory decisions shows that the Federal Reserve and other agencies waited until it was too late before trying to tame the industry’s excesses. Both the Fed and the Bush administration placed a higher priority on promoting “financial innovation” and what President Bush has called the “ownership society.”
“The Federal Reserve could have stopped this problem dead in its tracks,” said Martin Eakes, chief executive of the center (for Responsible Lending). “If the Fed had done its job, we would not have had the abusive lending and we would not have a foreclosure crisis in virtually every community across America.”
FOREIGN
NY Times:
As the "W" spinmeisters try to put a good face on this foreign policy failure with stuff like:
“If the Russians are willing to do that, which I support, then the Iranians do not need to learn how to enrich,” President Bush said Monday. “If the Iranians accept that uranium for a civilian nuclear power plant, then there’s no need for them to learn how to enrich.”
"Which I support???" Just yesterday John "Badass" Bolton contradicted his Commiserator-in-Chief with... “When I was under secretary for arms control, we spent a lot of time trying — successfully — to convince the Russians not to ship the fuel,” John R. Bolton, the former United States ambassador to the United Nations, said in an interview on Monday.
FOREIGN II
Washington Post:
Boy hidey! (A Bush-ism) Take our best friends in Iraq (the Kurds) and totally piss them off... now there's a genius foreign policy move. Excerpts:
The United States is providing Turkey with real-time intelligence that has helped the Turkish military target a series of attacks this month against Kurdish separatists holed up in northern Iraq, including a large airstrike on Sunday, according to Pentagon officials.
The United States is "essentially handing them their targets," one U.S. military official said.
Sunday's airstrikes provoked outrage in Baghdad, particularly among Kurdish members of the country's leadership.
Hello, Right Hand? This is Left Hand. Hello? Hello?
DOMESTIC
NY Times:
With resignation, anger or stoicism, thousands of former New Orleanians forced out by Hurricane Katrina are settling in across the Gulf Coast, breaking their ties with the damaged city for which they still yearn.
The tragedy is directly a result of -- the kindest judgment -- incompetence; -- the more realistic judgment -- maliciousness, of the Bush Administration. By its complete failure to repatriate the rightful residents of New Orleans they changed the politics and culture of a great city. As the Times noted:
The break came fairly recently. Sometime between the New Orleans mayor’s race in spring 2006, when thousands of displaced citizens voted absentee or drove in to cast a ballot, and the city election this fall, when thousands did not (most could not. sd) — resulting in a sharply diminished electorate and a white-majority City Council — the decision was made: there was no going back. Life in New Orleans was over.
George W. Bush: "Tell me, team, how's the legacy building going?"
Bush Team: (Embarrassed silence)
(A bit more on the W legacy from Vanity Fair: )
This morning's NY Times and Washington Post front pages features four stories documenting the gross failures of the Bush Administration (and its enabling Congress). Economic, foreign and domestic failures stack on the stinky pile Prez Bush is leaving for his successors to try to clean up.
ECONOMIC
NY Times:
Fed Shrugged as Subprime Crisis Spread
Some excerpts:
Today, as the mortgage crisis of 2007 worsens and threatens to tip the economy into a recession, many are asking: where was Washington?
An examination of regulatory decisions shows that the Federal Reserve and other agencies waited until it was too late before trying to tame the industry’s excesses. Both the Fed and the Bush administration placed a higher priority on promoting “financial innovation” and what President Bush has called the “ownership society.”
“The Federal Reserve could have stopped this problem dead in its tracks,” said Martin Eakes, chief executive of the center (for Responsible Lending). “If the Fed had done its job, we would not have had the abusive lending and we would not have a foreclosure crisis in virtually every community across America.”
FOREIGN
NY Times:
Iran Receives Nuclear Fuel in Blow to U.S.
As the "W" spinmeisters try to put a good face on this foreign policy failure with stuff like:
“If the Russians are willing to do that, which I support, then the Iranians do not need to learn how to enrich,” President Bush said Monday. “If the Iranians accept that uranium for a civilian nuclear power plant, then there’s no need for them to learn how to enrich.”
"Which I support???" Just yesterday John "Badass" Bolton contradicted his Commiserator-in-Chief with... “When I was under secretary for arms control, we spent a lot of time trying — successfully — to convince the Russians not to ship the fuel,” John R. Bolton, the former United States ambassador to the United Nations, said in an interview on Monday.
FOREIGN II
Washington Post:
U.S. Helps Turkey Hit Rebel Kurds in Iraq
Intelligence Role Could Complicate Diplomacy
Boy hidey! (A Bush-ism) Take our best friends in Iraq (the Kurds) and totally piss them off... now there's a genius foreign policy move. Excerpts:
The United States is providing Turkey with real-time intelligence that has helped the Turkish military target a series of attacks this month against Kurdish separatists holed up in northern Iraq, including a large airstrike on Sunday, according to Pentagon officials.
The United States is "essentially handing them their targets," one U.S. military official said.
Sunday's airstrikes provoked outrage in Baghdad, particularly among Kurdish members of the country's leadership.
Hello, Right Hand? This is Left Hand. Hello? Hello?
DOMESTIC
NY Times:
With Regrets, New Orleans Is Left Behind
With resignation, anger or stoicism, thousands of former New Orleanians forced out by Hurricane Katrina are settling in across the Gulf Coast, breaking their ties with the damaged city for which they still yearn.
The tragedy is directly a result of -- the kindest judgment -- incompetence; -- the more realistic judgment -- maliciousness, of the Bush Administration. By its complete failure to repatriate the rightful residents of New Orleans they changed the politics and culture of a great city. As the Times noted:
The break came fairly recently. Sometime between the New Orleans mayor’s race in spring 2006, when thousands of displaced citizens voted absentee or drove in to cast a ballot, and the city election this fall, when thousands did not (most could not. sd) — resulting in a sharply diminished electorate and a white-majority City Council — the decision was made: there was no going back. Life in New Orleans was over.
George W. Bush: "Tell me, team, how's the legacy building going?"
Bush Team: (Embarrassed silence)
(A bit more on the W legacy from Vanity Fair: )
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