Is BUSH really a failure?

[Shizen Shigoku]

re: Technopunk, "...LOOK AT MY BUSH!" and put that sort of thing in context with the WHOLE picture. But yep. Bush remails SOLEY accountable.

Of course you're right about the president taking more heat than he deserves (though he deserves plenty!), since the executive is only one of three branches of government.

However, a president is also much like a monarch in a country where the head of government is a prime minister or somesuch - they may not be completely in charge (or at all in charge), but they still function as a figurehead representing the whole country.

So it's only natural that the figurehead becomes the scapegoat.


But you're right, we must not forget about our congressmen - START WRITING LETTERS!!!!!!

 

[hardheadjarhead]

Bush may in fact be a bad president, but the blame for the state of our nation is not solely his, and it is not fair to place it all on him. There are others equally if not more to blame.

HE appoints his cabinet, Bob.

He appointed Gail Norton, a land development advocate and former lawyer at Mountain States Legal Foundation, an anti-environmental law firm, as Secretary of the Interior. She then promptly rescinded an order protecting 2.6 million acres of forest in Utah that was a wildlife refuge.

Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles was a former lobbyist for the coal-bed methane industry and consulted for several companies hoping to drill in Wyoming's Powder River Basin. After appointment Griles tried to block an EPA report that criticized the environmental effects of coal-bed methane development in the Powder River Basin...this after signing two recusal memos in which he promised not to participate in decisions that affected past clients of his.

Bush appointed William Geary Myers to the position of Interior Department solicitor. Myers lobbied to preserve federal grazing subsidies before he got the job. Want to guess what happened after he took office? The Department backed off their plan to double grazing fees on Federal lands. As is, ranchers only pay ten percent of the market value for grazing.

Bush's Assistant Secretary of Energy for Fossil Energy, Carl Michael Smith, was...and perhaps you can see this coming...a veteran of the oil industry. He famously informed representatives of the oil and gas industries that his job was to determine "how best to utilize taxpayer dollars to the benefit of industry." Isn't that kleptocracy?

That's just the tip of the quickly melting ice berg. Google "Bush Environment" and see what comes up.

Bush has yet, to date, to veto a single spending bill. In fact, he has yet to veto ANY bill. One would think conservatives would be up in arms about this, what with their past calls for fiscal restraints. Why, he even allowed yearly increases in spending for that horrid institution the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA). Horrors! He's surely exacerbated the decline of American culture and the degradation of our morals.

The Senate didn't award CIA director George Tenet the Freedom Medal after he screwed up the intelligence estimates on Iraq (or, perhaps, edited them to favor a casus belli)...George Bush gave Tenet the medal. The running joke now is that to get rewarded by the White House one has to mess up.*


I'd say that its perfectly reasonable to hold Bush accountable for not reigning in a profligate congress. I'd say its also perfectly reasonable to hold him, his appointees, and the members of his administration accountable for corruption and lying.

Indeed, I wish someone would...so maybe your assessment of Congress is partly right after all.



Regards,


Steve

*Note: FEMA head Mike Brown is FINALLY of the government payroll after mishandling the Katrina relief debacle. He collected a paycheck until November 9.

www.cnn.com/2005/US/11/09/katrina.brown.ap/

 

[sgtmac_46]

Liberals? What liberals? The Repubs own the legislature and the executive. The liberals have had no power whatsoever in the past 5 years.

Not that anything would be any better WITH them in power.

 

[Phoenix44]

Not that anything would be any better WITH them in power./QUOTE]

Maybe, or maybe not, but you sure can't blame them for the past 5 years of public policy.

 

[sgtmac_46]

Not that anything would be any better WITH them in power./QUOTE]

Maybe, or maybe not, but you sure can't blame them for the past 5 years of public policy.

No, but we can certainly blame them for the previous 8. Again, the whole notion of the past 5 years is predicated on them being a collosal failure....which I dispute whole-heartedly.