The New Pollution

George W. Bush, after the initial escalation of the war with little returns as well as his current rejection of the Iraq Spending Bill with its oh-so-unreasonable demands to take the troops out, has started a public relations campaign to drum up support for the war again.

According to the Associated Press, Bush spoke to a group of contractors about the war, suggesting that al-Qaida is the number one group to be concerned about in Iraq. In fact, Bush called al-Qaida "public enemy #1." Bush attempted to such language by talking about the only thing that this administration uses to make a point: 9/11:

"For America, the decision we face in Iraq is not whether we ought to take sides in a civil war, it's whether we stay in the fight against the same international terrorist network that attacked us on 9/11," Bush said. "I strongly believe it's in our national interest to stay in the fight."

First things first, this isn't really true. Al-Qaida in Iraq is only one component of a larger battle against the American forces. I am not trying to defend al-Qaida, but I am trying to suggest that they are not really public enemy #1. What about the Mahdi Army and the smaller groups that have been allowed to pop up in the country during this time of upheaval. If you don't believe me, watch this episode of Frontline, which talks to many of the different sectarian groups in Iraq along with giving their rationale.

Additionally, I don't like the line of logic used by Bush in making his argument. The war in Iraq is not related to 9/11. It isn't. Time and time again, it has been proven that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden did not consort with each other. Additionally, the reasons that we went to Iraq have been proven false as we haven't found a single weapon of mass destruction. To continually connect these two things is intentionally misleading and patently false.

I don't expect a lot out of Bush, but I expect him to at least play it straight. While I don't listen to the president on face value, I know that other people do. He owes it to them to tell the truth and not make false connections where they don't exist. But aside from this, the other problem that I have with Bush's appeal is the following:

"And the definition of success as I described is sectarian violence down. Success is not no violence. ... But success is a level of violence where the people feel comfortable about living their daily lives."

Grammar aside, people cannot feel comfortable about living their regular lives when they don't have basic needs like running water and electricity. If this is the benchmark, Iraq will never get there. I think Bush needs to come down off the hill and join us in the reality-based community with regards to this war.

Posing on the Hill

John Winthrop, when starting the Massachusetts Bay Colony back in the 17th Century, proclaimed that Plymouth would be a model city, one upon which all other cities would attempt to follow after hearing about its great success. In exact language, Winthrop said:

For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken ... we shall be made a story and a by-word throughout the world. We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God ... We shall shame the faces of many of God's worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us til we be consumed out of the good land whither we are going.

Unfortunately, the tales of morality and Christian extravagance preached by Winthrop are being undertaken by our current batch of political leaders. I commented on this standoff a while ago. Everyone was in their home districts talking to people and kissing ethnic babies, so they couldn't get any actual work done. Now, they have. The House and Senate have passed the new Iraq Funding Bill with the dreaded time lines. As we all well know, Bush is unwilling to actually accept the idea that this conflict in Iraq, which did not commit terror against us, must end at some point in the future as it devolves into a sandier Viet Nam.

So, now we are left at a new impasse. Bush got everything that he wanted, but it apparently wasn't what he wanted so he's going to veto it. The Congress gets it back, and they kick the bill around for another month or two until a vacation comes around (either Bush or Congress, doesn't matter). Then the troops will be stuck in an actual bad position because they have no funding. This should not be the situation at all.

And, I am holding both sides to account, but more Bush for him not recognizing the need to stop this occupation. Additionally, with stories like this coming out everyday, we need to do something to get our troops out of harm's way in a war they should not have been fighting in the first place. I hate to sound like one of those overzealous anti-war people, but reasonable is reasonable. No progress is being made in Iraq. We need to get our troops out of danger and working to actually protect America instead of making a liability. But, at the same time, the lives of young Americans are not pawns in a political chess match.

I thought this country was raised on the ideas of civility, discourse, and compromise? Why are none of these things being used? Everyday that passes where this problem does not get solved, Capitol Hill begins to look more like Tombstone while Reid, Pelosi, Bush, and Cheney prepare for the Bell to ring at High Noon.

Seriously, You Need to Pay Attention

If you have been civilly disengaged recently because you obviously know that Bush is an idiot (it doesn't take an observer more than twenty seconds of a press conference Q & A to know this), Tuesday will now open as a new day for you to understand what politics is all about and why our system is in sure dire straits.

The Albuquerque Journal has an article about the ongoing US Attorney scandal involving the state's former attorney David Iglesias and current Republican Senator for the state of New Mexico Pete Domenici. The article makes the implication that Domenici went straight to the top after applying direct pressure to Iglesias but receiving no satisfaction. If this is the case, this has huge implications on the actual case because this puts the Bush White House directly in the crossfire of this whole scandal and leaves them with many questions to answer on the issue, one of which is did President Bush have a hand in the firing of these attorneys? Before, the White House might have been able to get out, but, with this bombshell, it is now in the sights of the Senate Judicial Committee.

Tuesday will be an important day because this will be the first day upon which the Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will be questioned about the scandal. His former chief of staff Kyle Sampson (I wanna talk to sampson!) has already contradicted him, and the Committee is guaranteed to not let Gonzales off easy. This Tuesday will be the beginning of the unraveling of the White House. Unless there is a major swell of support, we very well may be seeing the end of the Bush Administration as credible in any meaningful way, forcing resignation. This is shaping up to be this century's Watergate for sure. This is a good time to get into politics if you are not already salty and jaded about the American government. These hearings will make you jaded and still have hope.

Dead in Motion?

An article from the Telegraph (UK) suggests that Bush has been deserted by the conservatives that bolstered the first six years of his administration. The article is slanderous in a couple of ways, taking cheap shots at the Madame Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her much ballyhooed trip to Israel and Syria. The exact terms were that she is "trespassing on territory usually reserved for the president." Seeing as Bush has done little with regards to actual, meaningful diplomacy as he sends Condi Rice to do all of it for him, I don't really have a problem with someone actually going to talk to the Israelis and Syrians, especially the Syrians as suggested to both the Madame Speaker and the President by the Iraq Study Group (you know, that bipartisan group with the ideas about how to end this whole fiasco. Yea, they never talk about it anymore, as if it's not important or anything).

While this is one major complaint, the larger complaint is the reason that they gave for why Bush is now a lame duck. Former Bush Speechwriter David Frum said:

The root cause of his weakness is the Democrats' seizure of both the Senate and House of Representatives in November's mid-term elections. Without sufficient support to push legislation through Congress, the president was finished, said Mr Frum. "There's no domestic agenda," he said. "There's no possibility at all of the president advancing anything that is acceptable to both the Republicans and Democrats."

There is only one correct comment in this statement: that Bush has no domestic policy. What, besides tax cuts, No Child Left Behind, and the USA PATRIOT (that's how you're supposed to write it as the whole thing is an acronym. Pet Peeve, sorry.) Act, can you say is Bush's Domestic policy? As I type this now, I struggle to think of what else there is aside from Iraq. Bush's downfall isn't his idiocy, over-reliance on others, pandering to special interests, or any of the other corrupt practices of his administration. His failure is that he didn't think big.

That sounds weird doesn't it? He launched a pre-emptive war against an "innocent" country (iraq had saddam, but they were innocent of the charges leveled against it to justify this war), but he didn't think big? Yes, that's exactly right. Bush put all of his eggs in one basket: the war against terrorism. I have larger problems with this "war," as it is like the war on drugs but I won't get into that right now. Bush, after 9/11 (an event that is degraded every time someone uses it for political effect), became the war president, unable to focus on developing the home front and dealing with the many major issues that were directly in front of him as president. Instead, he decided to work on justifying and launching a war that has yet to justify itself and launched Iraq into prolonged civil war while having Afghanistan on the brink of falling back into Taliban rule. Presidents have had bad wars on their hands.

Truman had the fiercely unpopular Korean War during his second term. LBJ fought in Vietnam. Both were able to redeem themselves in the face of history because they did actually useful things during their administration. Truman helped rebuild post-war Europe with the Marshall Plan and was one of the first presidents to acknowledge the need for civil rights in the South, much to the displeasure of the Dixiecrats. LBJ created Medicare and Medicaid, two systems on the brink of destruction by Bush currently, and the Great Society, giving voting rights to Blacks in the South who used to be subjected to poll exams and physical intimidation for wanting to use the rights granted to them by the Constitution.

Unlike Truman and Johnson, Bush does not have this bailout. He has passed tax cuts which are saddling the next generation of Americans (my generation and younger) with higher debts to be paid off and less money coming into the government. No Child Left Behind is a sham, one that schools can't meet and is putting money into his own brother's pocket. All this while the USA PATRIOT Act gives the government the right to look through your personal records if they believe that you are a terrorist, whatever that word may mean since the "terrorists" in Guantanamo Bay have not been named as such or tried as such. He wanted to reform old standards of American government such as Medicare and Social Security. So far, he has been unable to touch Social Security and Medicare saddles Seniors with exorbitantly high prescription drug costs due to the "doughnut hole" in Medicare Plan D.

Bush abandoned his domestic policy with the intent of making himself the war president. Negotiating a plan that actually helps America's children, moves the tax burden off the middle class, and getting Seniors the prescriptions they need to be happy and successful are all things that can be agreed with and need to be done. Bush did not bother to set out an actual policy on these issues, but, instead, pandered to special interests and bad fiscal policy (I guess I shouldn't expect anything less from a man who ran oil companies into the ground), that is when he wasn't going for the photo op. Such an agenda requires Bush to ram things through Congress and complain when someone stops, asks reasonable questions, and then says no because the plan and its components do not make sense. His inability to negotiate and work within the system of democracy has made him an alienating figure in Washington and a figure who draws much ire from both sides of the aisle as his staggeringly low approval ratings show.

Bush is not a lame duck because of Congress, as Frum would suggest. Bush is a lame duck because of Bush. And like most lame ducks, he will have to be put down. Luckily, he won't get a bullet to the head. Unfortunately, he will go to his grave being known as one of the worst presidents of all-time, worse that James Buchanan, Millard Fillmore, and Richard Nixon.