I still shake my head in disbelief

George Bush was first elected almost eight years ago — a long time to hold a grudge. But it never hurts to remember mistakes, and it’s usually worthwhile to remember who made them.

Bush’s résumé was no deep dark secret. For most of his adult life he was pretty much a failure at whatever he tried to do. He wasn’t even a blank slate. As a human being, he had a history of performing poorly, and I can’t recall any serious public examination of his qualifications to be president. Sure, there were small voices here and there who wondered WTF was going on, that such a man could be taken seriously as a candidate for president. But strangely, the press — the “Mainstream Media” — was pretty silent. From the so-called liberal press, George Bush got a free pass.

The press is the only private institution that has by name its freedom protected by the Constitution — for good reason. The authors of the Bill of Rights recognized the importance of an unfettered press as the watchdog over government, a sacred role on behalf of the people. Bush’s career record was not only news worth reporting, but worthy of analysis and frequent comment.

So we can blame George Bush all we want for the mess of the last eight years, but we owe it all to the news organizations that paid more attention to the “guy you wouldn’t mind having a beer with” than to the frat brat that got a gift appointment to the National Guard in time of war, then couldn’t even show up for duty — a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, by the way.

I will never forgive the press. And if people were to quit buying papers, to quit turning on the six-o’clock news, I would say, “Serves you right. Take a look at yourself, and see what you’ve become.”

The results of some hard thinking

It still amazes me that there are those out there who think the last eight years have been pretty good and we should have more of the same. But there are, and among those who don’t there are a lot of short memories to go around. Me, well… I hold a grudge — and while the Constitution prevents George Bush from running again, he’s been aided and abetted by the other Republicans in government.

A lot of us are concerned about the Democrats self-destructing come convention time, somehow turning off the independents and sending them McCain’s way. Those would be the ones with short memories. We have a mess to clean up right now, and another Republican administration isn’t going to go far in the fixing department.

Neither Obama nor Clinton were my top choices, and to be honest I favor neither over the other. I’m of the mind that either would be better than any Republican. What I want is a ticket that will bring in a few more senators and representatives with it, enough in both houses prove a real mandate for change.

With that in mind, I suggest that Clinton and Obama make a deal… end the primaries and declare a ticket, real soon. It would show unity and in my mind put the interests of the country above politics. In other words, a Clinton/Obama ticket — almost a shoo-in (barring more closet bigots than we realize). They would then campaign against Republicans all the way to election day, and they should succeed.

With a successful administration, Obama would be positioned to be the natural Democratic presidential candidate in 2016. He’d be older, wiser, and more experienced.

This is what we’re stuck with, but as they say… when someone hands you lemons, make lemonade.

Those astonishing conservatives

I guess I’m a little stunned when I hear conservative Republicans being interviewed as their state ramps up for a primary, how they talk about the most important characteristics a candidate might have, their positions on crucial issues like abortion, things like that. I guess what stuns me most is how some of them insist how the party must stick to these core principles if they hope to win, because it worked for them in the past, George Bush’s election and reelection cited as evidence.

Well wait a minute here. In eight years George Bush has run the country into the ground. You’re proud of this guy? Why aren’t you embarrassed, too ashamed to come out of the house, too chagrined to face a microphone?

The values voters in this country are overlooking the most important value of all — a strong democracy. This is a value that should matter to everyone, conservative and liberal alike. We can only ensure this with a chief executive who’s committed to the preservation of our democracy, one who understands all the factors involved in keeping it strong. Abortion, or freedom of choice, is not one of these factors. Neither is gay marriage or guns for everyone. I’m talking more about honoring the Constitution. I’m talking about a quality education for all. I’m talking about a health care system that is blind to everything but a person’s needs. I’m talking about pursuing policies that benefit not only Americans but all people of the world, and the world itself. I’m talking about setting an example that gives our claim as leader of the free world some credibility.

Too little too late

In an effort to salvage his legacy, George Bush is finally engaged in the Middle East peace process. With any luck, he’ll have the two sides back to where they were when he took office by the time his term expires.

It will be more difficult for him to achieve anything meaningful, considering how he’s squandered American credibility in the last seven years. Already word from the Middle East is that both sides are thinking about who will next lead the United States come January 2009. They’ve learned the hard way — the US cannot be counted on to carry over foreign policy from one administration to the next.

Remember: when Bush took office, US Middle East policy changed course. The US ceased to be a broker of peace in the region. Bush essentially told Israeli PM Sharon to do what he wanted, which caused renewed inflammation between the two sides. The policy remained through the next presidential cycle, and has only now been revisited.

Which brings us to the reason. Bush isn’t running for office. Therefore, he has no votes to court. Considering his dismal record, and the way history will view him, this is his last best hope to be remembered as something other than a total failure. Won’t work here though… I will continue to believe that his change of policy was motivated by domestic politics, and that it may have been a contributing factor to the terrorists’ decision to attack us on 9/11.

Bush’s major accomplishment?

It’s still early to be able to say for sure, but based on the trends so far in the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary, George Bush may have accomplished something positive after all: he may have energized American voters.

The turnout in Iowa was huge, and with eight hours left in the New Hampshire primary, precincts were reporting they were running out of ballots. Good news, eh? Well, maybe it’s a sign that people are starting to take the process seriously.

People are turning out because they’re angry, plain and simple. Many have woken up to the fact that you can’t leave such an important decision to so few people. We have to believe that when everyone participates, ultimately the best person will be elected because the majority of eligible voters cannot be stupid enough to elect someone who’s incompetent. Setting aside for a moment the fact that Bush actually lost the popular vote in 2000, it’s still important to remember that despite a personal lifelong record of failure he received a fair number of votes at all. Would he have been in the race had more people voted? I tend to think not. I think he energized a hard-core conservative constituency, one that does not reflect the beliefs of most Americans in general. I believe that many of the Americans who didn’t vote in that election regret not having done so, and are perhaps determined now to make up for it.

That lack of participation cost us dearly, and perhaps the chaos that ensued woke people up. Let’s hope so.

Are we losing the war?

The war on terrorism, which George Bush claims to be fighting fiercely, is being lost. The terrorists, who George Bush claims to hate our democracy, have almost achieved their goal. With Bush’s blessing, we have been turned into savages. With his blessing, we have become indifferent to the principles of liberty that our forefathers fought and died for. Today, thanks to George Bush, America is less than it should be — and Americans need to wake up to that.

It will not take nearly as much courage to resist the trend toward totalitarianism and barbarism as it took our forefathers to face a line of British muskets. They gave their bodies, their lives. All we are risking is our minds. All we have to do is take back control of our thoughts, our reasoning processes, to first save America and then combat terrorism.

During the Bush years, the numbers of terrorists have grown as their cause has intensified. He has given them reason to exist, to perservere. His successor must reverse this trend. Rather than combat terrorists by trying to kill them, our next president must strive to eliminate their motives. Otherwise, they will only grow more and bring their war here. If we stay on our current course, they will bring us to our knees.

Where the buck stops

When you strive to become president of the United States, you should do so only with the understanding that when something goes wrong in the world, you will take the heat. Therefore, you’d better be equipped for the job.

Today, Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto was assassinated by an apparent terrorist who shot her twice before detonating the bomb he was wearing. One more tragic event in a long series of tragic events that have marred what should have been a relatively peaceful, productive eight years for the world, considering that they arrived on the heels of a period when the US was flush with wealth and good standing around the globe.

One might ask, why now? Why pick on poor George? Why not still during the Clinton administration, which saw years of relative calm following the first attempt to bring down the twin towers in Manhattan? Was it because the terrorist leadership (correctly) assessed that Bush would be a bungler who would play into their hands? That the terrorist leadership understood better than his own fellow citizens that George Bush was not equipped to lead the most powerful nation on earth?

Perhaps the core of the terrorist leadership does indeed hate America and all that it stands for, the democracy we hold so dear, as Bush has claimed. But not all terrorists do, or did. Most of the army of terrorists, like any army, enrolls in a cause for reasons that emerge as situations evolve. Most of the men and women who have blown themselves up over the last years might otherwise have been selling goods in shops somewhere, or attending school, or farming, or doing something with no remote connection to terrorism. And what began as a small core of fanatics, isolated in the mountains of Afghanistan years ago, has now grown to become a real threat to world peace. And all on George Bush’s watch.

Of course we will never know if 9/11 would have even happened were Al Gore president instead of Bush. We have no way of knowing that. My feeling is that it wouldn’t have happened. My feeling is that a Gore administration would have taken more seriously that August 2001 daily intelligence rief that warned of terrorist activity involving hijacked airliners. If indeed such activity would have been evolving to even inspire such a brief. Would the terrorist leadership have tested Gore, who was clearly more competent than Bush? Would they have even been motivated to attack the US at that time, considering that the Clinton administration, of which Gore was a part, was actively pushing the Israelis and Palestinians toward peace and a Palestinian state? Or that Gore’s agenda included energy independence for the US, which would mean reduced interest in Middle Eastern oil? After all, the Bush family fortune was built on oil, and while oil has meant prosperity for much of the Middle East, to the radicals it was not only the reason for exploitation but the incursion of Western ideas and habits into the Muslim lands.

President Bush is confident that history will record his presidency as a successful one, that what he began will eventually end well. He’s delusional. If things end well, it will be only because someone else fixed it. What we will have is eight years that shouldn’t have happened the way it did. But with Bush, what else could we have expected?

Beware of NC?

It dawned on me today that there are a number of nuclear power plants in North Carolina, and I’m worried because we’re almost certainly on Bush’s radar (even though he hasn’t actually mentioned us yet). These power plants have been online for a good many years now, which means that in terms of nuclear technology we’re well ahead of Iran.

In all likelihood, Bush doesn’t have to worry too much about North Carolina though, since it supported him solidly in the last two presidential elections and is pretty Red as states go. But it might be wise for him to keep an eye on several other states with nuclear technology — among them Vermont, Massachusetts, New York and Michigan, each also well ahead of Iran in that department, each a more plausible threat than that Middle Eastern country.

So here’s my point. While Iran no doubt mistrusts us, probably even sees us as a threat (heaven knows it has good reason too), it’s entirely possible that it wants nuclear technology so it can construct nuclear power plants. I’m sure they’re aware that the world will run out of oil eventually, even if Bush doesn’t think so. Of course, I’d rather they pursue solar and wind technology, just as I want the rest of the world to do.

But I wouldn’t beat the war drums just because Iran wants what North Carolina has. And I really don’t think George Bush will add the Blue states to his Axis of Evil… probably because it hasn’t occurred to him.

The new patriotism?

Ethanol is the “in” thing — so much so that the United Nations is worried that worldwide food production might suffer in the rush to produce fuel crops. But in the US at least, it’s become unwise to debunk the ethanol myth, and those who do risk being branded as anti-enviroment — or, worse, unpatriotic.

While biofuels may indeed have a role in the current crisis that can be characterized as both environmental and geopolitical, they are not the answer to the looming oil shortage. They will not provide us with the independence from foreign oil we seek. They will not guarantee our national security, something that’s already being trotted out in defense of agricultural fuels.

Yes, they are renewable, but there’s not enough arable land in the US to plant enough corn — or any other crop, for that matter — to replace all the petroleum we use. In addition, the process of converting corn to energy requires… energy, from fertilizers to transportation to the conversion process itself. In short, it winds up to be not very efficient.

What’s happening, though, with the encouragement of this administration — and, yes, this Congress — is that farmers are all excited about corn. They see it as the new oil. Without restriction, many farmers are switching to corn in hopes of the riches they will reap.

Okay, not all farmers are excited. Corn is being diverted from feed to ethanol production and ranchers, for example, are complaining that as the supply of feed crops diminishes, costs rise. And their costs, of course, are passed along to consumers.

In fact, in the end, all rising costs and other hardships created by this rush to ethanol will be passed along to consumers, who might even begin to see shortages of many foods in the not too distant future.

Yes we need energy, but we can’t eat it. Nor can those starving in third-world nations, many of whom find their only hope for survival in the surplus food produced by the United States. As we divert grains to fuel, there simply won’t be any surplus.

Once again, the solutions to the parallel problems of energy shortages, global warming and national security involve a comprehensive energy plan, one that leans heavily on solar, wind and other natural phenomena that can be tapped. Add public transit and sustainable communities to that mix, and come up with a way to sequester carbon emissions and perhaps even remove CO2 from the atmosphere, and we’re talking about a plan — with biofuels only a footnote.

Meanwhile, let’s not call someone unpatriotic just because they see the flaws in ethanol.

America the illogical

Logic says that the United States will not only elect a Democratic president in 2008, it will expand the Democratic majority in the House and send a clear Democratic majority to the Senate. Logic says this because not only have the Republicans, lead by George Bush, made such a mess of things, they’ve shown that they do not have the real interests of Americans at heart.

But Americans don’t seem to vote logically. They choose candidates the way an amateur handicapper might choose a horse — because it has a cute name, or because they like the colors of its stable. I remind everyone of the 2000 election, in which George Bush received “won” enough electoral votes to win the election. Granted, he didn’t win the popular vote, and granted the Florida electoral votes might have been stolen, but it was still close, and an awful lot of votes for a boob.

However, he did get a majority in 2004, this after four years of evidence of just how big a boob he was. It was almost as if voters thought being a boob was cute.