Radical Avenue

Being George Bush means never having to say you’re sorry. He has structured his presidency around a philosophy of protecting his fat cat cronies at all cost. But Americans have gotten tired of footing the bill for these careless screw ups.

Even in the waning moments of his disastrous tenure in Washington, Bush has the audacity to lecture us about sound financial practices while failing to take one ounce of responsibility for the cascading bank failures currently plaguing our economy. The next president needs to clean house at every federal agency in the country.

Crash Happens
Mr. Bush would have us believe that our economy arrived on the brink of collapse through some sort of cosmic misalignment. He’ll never admit that lax enforcement of SEC regulations by his administration contributed mightily to Wall Street’s reckless behavior. That would call into question his fundamental certitude that all regulations are inherently evil.

Our president continues to foolishly believe in his own abilities despite overwhelming evidence of his failures all around. His confidence before candor approach leads him to see the world as he wants it to be, rather than as it really is. If what he now says is true, that Wall Street needs a $700 billion bailout to avoid a financial meltdown, then his repeated assurances about the fundamental soundness of our economy were false. Does Mr. Bush believe that Americans can’t figure this out on our own?

Sycophants in Charge Under Bush
Strong leaders surround themselves with subordinates willing to challenge them intellectually, especially on critically important matters. Under President Bush, silent incompetence doesn’t matter, as long as you pledge absolute fealty to GW.

Not many of us get to walk into our boss’s office and say “Sorry about running your company into the ground, but I’ll need immediate access to billions of dollars in cash with no strings attached in order to clean up the mess.” Executives at the Wall Street firms now expecting a massive government bailout from the US Treasury have lobbied for deregulation of their industry for decades. American taxpayers have every reason to now expect these high rollers to live according to the dictates of the free market which they love so dearly.

Bush Says “Trust Me” Again
Congress should reject President Bush’s irresponsible crony protection plan disguised as a necessary financial intervention. Mr. Bush has no credibility when it comes to the investment of taxpayer money. His fiscal record has been a disaster. He doesn’t believe in accountability. And his administration is dishonest about everything from torture to global warming.

At least a few Americans still believed President Bush and Senator McCain’s assurances about how the American economy is fundamentally strong… up until about a week ago. Now suddenly we’re on the brink of the next Great Depression? Fundamentally strong economies don’t need $700 billion dollar bailouts.

Deregulation Fails Again
If large lending institutions had all voluntarily agreed to a set of legitimate banking standards, along with an enforcement mechanism to keep everyone in line, government regulations would not be necessary. Instead these organizations ask for our trust, then recklessly gamble away our life savings.

Apparently the fat cats on Wall Street figured Uncle Sam would surely come to their rescue at the last minute. The Federal bailout of the Savings & Loan industry in the 1980’s set a terrible precedent.

Monopolies in Trouble
When privately owned companies claim that they are too big to go bankrupt, it indicates that the Securities and Exchange Commission has failed to prevent corporations from monopolizing industries. We now see the consequences of allowing giant conglomerates to swallow each other one by one until there’s a only a few fish left in the sea.

AIG should have never been allowed to grow into such a behemoth in the first place. Now that taxpayers own the company, we should split it up again and sell off the unprofitable sectors.

What made John McCain think that he could ridicule the woman who lives a ridiculous life? Yesterday the grumpy McCain camp released this beauty in response to the latest Paris Hilton campaign promotion:

Paris Hilton might not be as big a celebrity as Barack Obama, but she obviously has a better energy plan.

Such witticisms will surely send independent and swing voters rushing out to the polls in support of this year’s Republican candidate.

Apparently McCain has decided to run an intensely negative campaign but doesn’t quite know how to attack Senator Obama. So he compares his opponent to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. The word “unseemly” comes to mind.

I think I can speak for thousands of bloggers, comedians, talk show hosts and Hilton publicists in offering my heartfelt thanks to you Mr. McCain. I couldn’t have asked for better material.

Paris has the Photogenetics
I don’t know how to break this to you Senator McCain, but as a crimson blooded American male I just find Paris’ advertising more, shall we say, aesthetically pleasing. Paris likes to poke fun at her own glamorous image, but remember she’s spent a little time in the slammer as well. She knows what it’s like to eat nothing but stale baloney and white bread every day for a week.

Having avoided the Washington bubble, Paris understands the everyday concerns of real Americans. And by the way, what has McCain done to promote energy independence during his fifty years in the Senate?

No Such Thing as Bad Publicity
Maybe we should call him the Silver Fox. Perhaps by picking a fight with THE pop icon of the New Millennium, McCain has elevated his own stature. Seriously, how many people had ever even heard of the Senior Senator from Arizona before Paris Hilton got involved?

Pink Is for Peace
No one really believes that Paris would paint the White House pink if elected. She respects the traditions and institutions of this great country which have allowed her to inspire so many of her followers. Who knows what John McCain might do if elected? His approach seems rather mean spirited by comparison. He undoubtedly prefers a more melancholy color pattern.

Mathematically inclined historians may calculate for decades before finding the right equation to fully assess the Bush presidency. While measuring the gap between the federal budget surplus Bush inherited and the massive deficit he will leave behind is a start, those numbers merely hint at the burdens that this president will pass along to future generations. Here is an initial attempt to quantify the damage.

Woodrow Wilson – Empire dreams
Like Bush, Wilson never accepted responsibility for the failings of his administration, but instead blamed his political opponents in Congress for hurting the country by blocking his initiatives. Woodrow Wilson had an expansive view of US influence in the world and would have understood the sentiment behind Bush’s plan to create a “beacon of hope” through democracy in Iraq. Wilson’s grandiose plans were never realized. The beacon in Iraq is still a little dim.

Herbert Hoover – Poor get poorer
Bush’s philosophy on government closely resembles President Hoover’s hands off approach to regulating industry. The disparity between rich and poor is greater now than at any time since the Hoover years. Isn’t that what got Louis XVI into trouble?

James Buchanan – Fiddling while Rome burns
The original bubble boy, President Buchanan managed to anger both northern and southern politicians prior to the countries descent into civil war. Rather than aggressively respond to South Carolina’s secession from the United States, Buchanan argued that the Constitution did not allow the federal government to coerce a state into submission.

In the last months of his presidency, Buchanan retreated to his country home and left a broken nation behind for his successor to deal with. Buchanan was followed in office by a lanky lawyer from Illinois.

George W. Bush, Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, James Buchanan

King Henry VIII had the Tower of London. Nikita Khrushchev had the Gulags of Siberia. Guantanamo Bay seems to be George Bush’s barbaric detention center of choice.

During previous conflicts, US troops near the front lines took the lead in processing battlefield detainees. But as with every other military precedent, the Bush team figured they knew a better way. So detainees rounded up in 2002-2003 were shipped off to secret prisons around the world. Many of these men ended up in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The Bush administration spinmeisters then came up with the term “illegal enemy combatants” to describe fighters captured in Afghanistan, as though these prisoners were completely different from any other soldiers seized by American forces in the past. Here again the president employed misleading rhetoric designed to keep Americans from learning the truth about his legally and ethically questionable decisions.

The Geneva Conventions apply to enemy soldiers captured by US forces on the battlefield. According to this international treaty signed by the United States, prisoners must be humanely treated, and must at all times be protected “against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity.”

The Bush administration’s relentless drive to bypass co-equal branches of government has left the Guantanamo detainees in legal limbo for six years. The Supreme Court recently blocked the president’s latest power grab by ruling that the Guantanamo Bay prisoners indeed have the right to challenge the legality of their detention in Federal Court.

Respect is a two way street. George Bush has shown no respect for international law, for the US Constitution or for those who disagree with him. That’s why so many people have lost respect for his presidency.

Guantanamo Bay, George W. Bush, Bush Administration, Prisoners of War, Enemy Combatants, Geneva Conventions

Remember this jingle? “…we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” In other words, our leaders expected us to believe that Iraq had the bomb, but they didn’t plan to tell us that directly. Based on former presidential spokesman Scott McClellan’s accounts, the Bush administration used innuendo to describe the nuclear threat from Iraq.

If another country has a nuclear bomb which they intend to detonate inside the United States, then the president should warn the American people about that forthrightly. These words would be appropriate: “the United States government believes that country XYZ has an atomic weapon which they will soon use in an attack against us.”

Americans have no reason to oppose the president’s legitimate attempts to protect the country. But that’s not how things played out during the run up to the war in 2002 and 2003. Instead some pollster came up with a clever turn of words and Mr. Bush used them to toss us in the spin cycle.

October 7, 2002: “Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof — the smoking gun — that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”

January 28, 2003: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

Insincerity is not appropriate when the elected president of the most powerful nation in the world sets out to identify the most serious threats known to mankind. Effective leaders recognize when candor is absolutely essential. It’s disheartening to realize that our president places partisan politics above all else, including the personal safety of American and Iraqi citizens.

George Bush, mushroom cloud, smoking gun

Apparently President Bush isn’t the only politician wondering about his legacy these days. With Mr. Bush’s approval ratings now below freezing, and no indication that Americans will ever warm up to W again, former presidential spokesman Scott McClellan became the first of the longtime Texas insiders to jump ship.

In his new book, What Happened, Mr. McClellan makes it clear that he now considers the War in Iraq a serious strategic blunder:

“As I have heard Bush say, only a wartime president is likely to achieve greatness, in part because the upheavals of war provide the opportunity for the transformative change that he hoped to achieve. In Iraq, Bush saw his opportunity to create a legacy of greatness.

I do not know how the war will be viewed decades from now. What I do know is that war should be waged only when necessary and the Iraq war was not necessary. Waging an unnecessary war is a grave mistake. But I’ve come to believe that an even more fundamental mistake was made - a decision to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed.

In the autumn of 2002 Bush and his White House engaged in a carefully orchestrated campaign to shape and manipulate sources of public approval to our advantage.”

Iraqi Nuclear Threat Vastly Overstated
The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945 killed around 70,000 people, many of them instantaneously. A second nuclear device which the US detonated over Nagasaki, Japan shortly thereafter resulted in similar casualty figures. These events brought an end to World War II and changed the planet forever.

No chemical or biological weapon has ever approached the destructive capacity of an atomic bomb. By lumping nuclear weapons in with chemical and biological weapons, American politicians have purposely misled the public for partisan political reasons.

WMD Propaganda
The phrase “Weapons of Mass Destruction” is a product of the Bush-Cheney propaganda machine. Scott McClellan described it like this: “the administration chose a different path - not employing out-and-out deception but shading the truth; downplaying the reason for going to war; trying to make the weapons of mass destruction threat and the Iraqi connection to terrorism appear just a little more certain than they were; quietly disregarding some of the crucial caveats in the intelligence and minimizing evidence that pointed in the opposite direction.”

“They also encouraged Americans to believe as fact some things that were unclear and possibly false (for example, that Saddam had an active nuclear weapons program) and other things that were overplayed or wrong (for example, that Saddam might have had an operational relationship with Al-Qaeda).”

Iraq had no atomic bomb and no capacity to build one when the United States invaded in 2003. George W. Bush promised to restore honesty and integrity to the office when he became president seven years ago. Instead he led the country into war based on false pretenses. The United States can’t afford such recklessness from its commander in chief.

Scott McClellan, WMD

Don’t look now, but the Straight Talk Express has derailed again. Lately, the senior Senator from Arizona has been serving up enough whoppers to make the Burger King proud.

Surely by now someone in the McCain campaign has noticed that 70% of Americans disapprove of President Bush’s leadership on the economy. You’d think McCain would be distancing himself from Bush’s policies. Instead McCain has embraced Bushonomics wholeheartedly.

Economics for Dummies
In 2001 McCain opposed Bush’s economic prescription because he “could not in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us.” McCain has since flip flopped on the matter. He now hopes to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. Extending the Bush legacy will cost an estimated $2 trillion over the next 10 years, according to the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan group.

But wait, McCain also wants to lower corporate tax rates, reduce the estate tax, allow accelerated write off of corporate investments and completely eliminate the Alternative Minimum tax. These proposals will cost America more than $550 billion a year, around $6 trillion over 10 years. Nevertheless McCain says he’ll produce a balanced budget by the end of his first term.

The Numbers Don’t Add Up
McCain says he’ll compensate for his massive reduction in federal revenue by eliminating earmarks and “changing the way Washington does business”. Both of these statements are ludicrous. Earmarks have constituencies. McCain won’t likely veto the many spending bills which benefit American veterans. And you’d have to go all the way back to FDR to find a transcendental president. Roosevelt took office in the midst of the Great Depression. We haven’t fallen to that level of desperation yet in this economy.

For argument’s sake, let’s say that McCain ends all earmarks. That would save the country around $18 billion annually. McCain says he would save another $32 billion annually by closing tax loopholes, program review and through reduced Medicare benefits. The budget would still be well over $500 billion in the red under those circumstances. A third grader could figure it out. The Republican candidate must think Americans don’t do math.

McSame, McCain, economy, taxes

Shortly before leaving office in 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower warned Americans about the rising influence of the military establishment and its corporate sponsors.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

President Bush’s missile defense program serves as a prime example of such unwarranted influence run amok. The president purposely antagonizes Russia on missile defense rather than using good old fashioned diplomacy to reduce the need for ballistic missiles and missile defense programs.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin should negotiate mutually beneficial treaties for once, instead of always talking past each other. Diplomacy doesn’t cost American taxpayers a hundred billion dollars.

Too Easy to Defeat
Since we live in a peaceful neighborhood, it would probably take long range missiles to attack the US. Very few countries in the world have Intercontinental Ballistic missiles. Great Britain and France pose no threat. And the chances of Russia and China bombing us from afar have greatly diminished in the past two decades.

Lots of countries have suicide bombers capable of making their way into America. Terrorists can smuggle bombs into the US by boat, plane, train, automobile or motorcycle. While the threat from incoming ICBMs diminishes, the threat from small terrorist cells grows. We should focus more directly on this security risk.

Too Expensive
The US has already spent $120 billion on missile defense since 1985. The Bush administration now wants $12 billion more for 2009. This money is better spent increasing port security, inspecting more cargo containers, supplying our troops with armored Humvees and helping to improve conditions in areas that may become havens for terrorists.

Too Unproven
All of the Defense Department’s tests have involved shooting down American rockets at a known time and place. These tests don’t account for steps the Russians and Chinese have taken to defeat missile shields. Missiles don’t always fly straight. They sometimes wobble, tumble or follow irregular flight patterns. It’s not clear how well a missile defense system would work against such rockets.

It’s essentially impossible to simulate a real world ICBM attack and we wouldn’t want to find out about our defense system the hard way. Our leaders should spend more time negotiating arms control agreements and less time touting questionable defense technology.

Eisenhower, military industrial complex, missile defense, ICBMs

Don’t expect John McCain to do the Democratic presidential candidates any favors between now and November. The game is already on for the big prize and there’s no reason to expect any let up until it’s all decided. So the Democrats would do well to just strap themselves in and get ready for another bumpy ride.

It’s not tiddlywinks. Presidential campaigns are vitriolic, partisan affairs which last for months and leave polite contenders in the dust. Every candidate will get roughed up sooner or later. The Democratic slugfest could help Democrats in the long run.

Who can take a punch?
Some people considered George H.W. Bush’s 1988 Willie Horton advertisement racist and unfair. But there’s no law against nasty political ads. In fact, such ads are protected by the First Amendment. Dukakis didn’t handle the attack well and lost the election.

In 2004 John Kerry failed to adequately respond to the Swift Boat ads questioning his patriotism and service in Viet Nam. Voters expect to see candidates defend themselves, forcefully if necessary.

Who can run a marathon?
This election has been in the news for over a year, and it’s still seven months away. Candidates that don’t wear well have no chance. The successful job applicant must maintain a steady course despite the inevitable hazards on the road to the White House.

Who can play the margins?
It wouldn’t matter much if Obama lost a few thousand Clinton voters in California just as it wouldn’t matter if McCain lost a few thousand Huckabee voters in Texas. Turning out the vote in swing states like Missouri, Ohio and Florida makes the difference in close elections. We’re in for another bruising battle.

Democrats, Obama, Clinton, McCain

During a recent trip to the Middle East, presidential candidate John McCain repeatedly suggested that Iran was training Al Qaeda in Iraq. Senator Joe Lieberman eventually corrected Mr. McCain. Iran, inhabited mostly by Persian Shia, does not support Al Qaeda or its Sunni Arab leader, Osama Bin Laden.

The purposely misleading rhetoric sounds like it could have come from the lips of Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney still believes that Saddam Hussein aided Al Qaeda, even though the 9-11 Commission found no such collaboration. Men who can not clearly and honestly identify the enemies that we’re fighting overseas are not fit to serve as commander in chief.

Actually improved relations with Iran would benefit the US in many ways.

Enemy of Our Enemy
Iran assisted us in our fight with the Taliban in Afghanistan. More cooperation between the US in Iran would help isolate the Taliban and their allies, Al Qaeda. After all, Iran never attacked the United States. Al Qaeda has declared war on the US and has attacked us repeatedly.

Friend of Our Friend
The new government of Iraq has made a point of developing a friendship with Iran. Iranian President Ahmadinejad was recently welcomed to Baghdad with open arms. If the US hopes to leave Iraq more secure than when we invaded, a positive relationship between Iraq and Iran is essential.

Potential Peace Partner
Iran has ties to Hezbollah of southern Lebanon. A lasting peace agreement between Israel and its northern neighbor will probably need to include help from Iran.

McCain , Iran

Joseph Lewis must have a lot on his mind today. He lost $1.6 billion in equity when Bear Stearns went belly up over the weekend. Bear Stearns was one of the most respected institutions on Wall Street. Now, with a little help from the Fed, they’ve been sold for less than the value of the skyscraper they own in downtown New York. That got the attention of a few investors. And with Lehman Brothers stock losing 20% of its value on Monday, the bad news just keeps on coming.

Iraq
The latest estimates project the total monetary cost of the War in Iraq at over a trillion dollars. At the same time, political polls have shown that Americans are more concerned about the economy than Iraq right now. But American voters can still put two and two together.

If the federal government spent a trillion dollars on infrastructure improvements, we’d be fixing roads, bridges and public facilities all across the country. It would put ordinary Americans to work and breathe life into the economy. Iraq is like an anchor stuck in quicksand on the ocean floor. Most Americans have already figured out that we’ll need to cut that anchor loose if we ever hope to sail again.

Unhelpful Happy Talk
George W. Bush lives in an air tight bubble which the real world never penetrates. His response to a crisis never changes. He smiles blankly, assures us that everything is wonderful, slaps a few of his buddies on the back and goes back to watching baseball.

Bush was paralyzed by Katrina, clueless about the ongoing violence in Iraq and indifferent to a federal deficit spiraling out of control. There’s no reason to expect any presidential leadership on the economy either. We’ll have to wait until 2009 for that.

Bear Stearns, economy, Iraq, Bush

Blooming in the garden this week we have exploding canary daffodils, curly cue hyacinth and shocking pink geraniums. It feels like spring.

It also feels like our countries’ long political winter is finally coming to an end. Word has it the electorate is so motivated for a fresh start that even teenagers are voting.

In looking toward 2009, Obama supporters can’t help but wonder whether it’s better to be lucky than well seasoned. All of the grim news from today could add up to tremendous good fortune for President Obama next year if he wins the election.

High fuel prices, the mortgage meltdown, stagnant wages and inflation have brought our economy to a standstill. We may have already entered a recession. But the American economy has always recovered from downturns in the past. Some of our past recessions were followed by robust growth. No doubt the next president will take credit when we break out of our current doldrums.

The next president will also need to bring a substantial number of our troops home from Iraq. If the polls are true, Americans would welcome that news as well. After a five year grind, it looks more and more like Iraq will evolve into a loosely aligned, tribal country. The bottom line is Iraq posed no serious threat to the United States when we went in. It likely won’t pose much of a threat after we leave.

After 2-4 years, the next president can allow the Bush tax cuts to expire and use the increase in revenues to reduce the federal deficit. When Republicans crow about raising taxes, the new president will have a simple answer. “You passed the law in 2001. You could have made the tax cuts permanent then and you didn’t.” Our country seems ready to ask for a new beginning in November.

Barack Obama, Better Times, 2009

After George W. Bush selected Dick Cheney as his running mate in 2000, news outlets announced that Cheney would bring much needed gravitas to the Republican presidential ticket. Then, when Bush became president, he assembled a highly experienced national defense team which included Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. Nine months later this group failed to anticipate or do anything to prevent the 9-11 terrorist attacks. A year and a half later they launched a preemptive attack against a country that posed no immediate threat to us, and ordered our military to police the streets of the most violent neighborhoods in the world. Experience is overrated.

Hillary has touted her experience throughout the presidential campaign. It’s not working. John McCain has signaled that he will follow Clinton’s lead in the general election and present himself as the seasoned warrior in contrast to the untested Barack Obama. But there’s no reason to believe that he will succeed where Clinton has failed.

When a company hires a new CEO, they don’t always choose the most experienced candidate. Sometimes it’s better to hire the person who doesn’t claim to have all the answers. The candidate with the longest resume may not have the flexibility to adapt to a new world order.

Both Clinton and McCain seem to have an air of entitlement about them, as though they’ve earned the right to serve as president and Obama didn’t. But it should be obvious by now that voters aren’t looking to pick the “next in line” candidate this year. No one’s crossing bridges to the past anymore.

Barack Obama, John McCain, Hillary Clinton

Barack Obama kicked it up a notch in February and left Hillary in his wake. As spring approaches, it has become apparent that Senator Clinton and her staff failed to adequately prepare for a marathon campaign. Senator Obama ran off an impressive string of victories over ther last two weeks and now has the lead in elected delegates. As a result Clinton must win convincingly in Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania in order to catch up before the Democratic convention.

Clinton’s deficient campaign planning reflects poorly on her organizational skills and strategic thinking. Would she be caught flat footed by a natural disaster or military setback in Iraq as well? Senator Obama by contrast, had the foresight to develop a strong campaign presence in the primaries and caucuses after Super Tuesday.

Hillary’s attacks sound a little desperate these days. Her “Words are cheap.” line makes no sense. This phrase is used to describe someone who fails to honor their promises. Senator Obama has given no indication that he is such a person or that he will not follow through on his agenda.
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