Bush Out of Washington
After a week of incompetence that sets a new low for the Bush administration, I’ve come to the conclusion that we must throw these guys out on the street, and we must do it now.
I don’t mean in 2008. I don’t mean in 2006. I don’t mean in November of this year. I mean now. Today, tomorrow, Labor Day. We need to march on Washington and demand wholesale resignations. These guys said they wanted to run the country like a corporation and they’ve done exactly that. That corporation is Enron.
They raided the piggy bank for their pet looting project in Iraq, and fiddled while people’s houses were destroyed by the predictable calamity that resulted from their shenanigans. Now that a rainy day has come, there's no money left to save the people who got caught by unfortunate events.
In New Orleans, people are dead because the Bush administration stole money from the infrastructure that might have saved their lives: the National Guard, the armed forces, the FEMA budget, and the projects to shore up the levees. There’s blood on this administration's hands and it’s time for a reckoning.
We can’t wait for 2008, when Bush and his Carlyle cronies (who are all getting rich off higher oil and gas prices, thank you very much) are term-limited from running again.
We can’t wait until 2006, when the Administration will have had more than a year to spin their story, when gas prices are back to normal and people will have forgotten about poor black folks in New Orleans. Midterm elections aren’t much of a referendum on the president’s leadership anyway. They’re more about individual races. And since everybody loves his or her Congressman, it’s unlikely to produce the kind of wholesale turnover that’s necessary.
We can’t wait another minute to get these guys out of office. The longer we wait, the longer they have to raid the treasury and turn Social Security, Head Start, Medicare, and veteran’s benefits into $100 bills they can use to light their cigars.
We need to throw the bums out on their ears, every last one of them who smiled for the cameras and said they were doing all they could when they were doing nothing. Who lied and said there was no way to predict that the levees could break. Who told people to go to the Superdome, then left them for dead.
Unfortunately, none of this will happen. And it’s not because Americans are fat lazy heartless bastards who are more worried about terrorists hijacking planes than they are about aristocrats hijacking the government. It’s not because we respect the rule of law so much. It’s not because anybody thinks these guys are doing a good job.
It’s because the Democrats have been so cowed by these bullies that they have nobody to stand up to them any more. Even if a miracle were to occur and mobs started surrounding the White House, demanding resignations en masse, then what?
I know, legally, there is a chain of command that starts with House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who is talking about letting New Orleans go the way of Atlantis, and ends with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who should be dumped into Lake Pontchartrain. But I’m talking in a grander sense here.
Who is it that could take over this government? Is there a single Democrat that speaks for a national audience? Can the Democrats even be considered an opposition party when all they do is go along with whatever the Administration tells them to do? Does anybody think John Kerry could step into the breach and provide leadership? Hillary? Harry Reid? Puh-leeze.
What is happening in New Orleans this week, and what is certain to happen to the rest of the country the next time something serious goes wrong is one of the greatest scandals in the history of this country. This is an opportunity for the Democrats to get a spine and start persuading people that they have an alternative.
I’m not talking about playing politics with a tragedy. I’m talking about stepping into the breach and showing some real leadership here.
Realistically, there’s no way we’re going to get rid of Bush and his cronies any time soon. But if the Democrats don’t start standing up to these bullies now, they’re never going to beat them (or the clones that replace them) in any future election.
I don’t mean in 2008. I don’t mean in 2006. I don’t mean in November of this year. I mean now. Today, tomorrow, Labor Day. We need to march on Washington and demand wholesale resignations. These guys said they wanted to run the country like a corporation and they’ve done exactly that. That corporation is Enron.
They raided the piggy bank for their pet looting project in Iraq, and fiddled while people’s houses were destroyed by the predictable calamity that resulted from their shenanigans. Now that a rainy day has come, there's no money left to save the people who got caught by unfortunate events.
In New Orleans, people are dead because the Bush administration stole money from the infrastructure that might have saved their lives: the National Guard, the armed forces, the FEMA budget, and the projects to shore up the levees. There’s blood on this administration's hands and it’s time for a reckoning.
We can’t wait for 2008, when Bush and his Carlyle cronies (who are all getting rich off higher oil and gas prices, thank you very much) are term-limited from running again.
We can’t wait until 2006, when the Administration will have had more than a year to spin their story, when gas prices are back to normal and people will have forgotten about poor black folks in New Orleans. Midterm elections aren’t much of a referendum on the president’s leadership anyway. They’re more about individual races. And since everybody loves his or her Congressman, it’s unlikely to produce the kind of wholesale turnover that’s necessary.
We can’t wait another minute to get these guys out of office. The longer we wait, the longer they have to raid the treasury and turn Social Security, Head Start, Medicare, and veteran’s benefits into $100 bills they can use to light their cigars.
We need to throw the bums out on their ears, every last one of them who smiled for the cameras and said they were doing all they could when they were doing nothing. Who lied and said there was no way to predict that the levees could break. Who told people to go to the Superdome, then left them for dead.
Unfortunately, none of this will happen. And it’s not because Americans are fat lazy heartless bastards who are more worried about terrorists hijacking planes than they are about aristocrats hijacking the government. It’s not because we respect the rule of law so much. It’s not because anybody thinks these guys are doing a good job.
It’s because the Democrats have been so cowed by these bullies that they have nobody to stand up to them any more. Even if a miracle were to occur and mobs started surrounding the White House, demanding resignations en masse, then what?
I know, legally, there is a chain of command that starts with House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who is talking about letting New Orleans go the way of Atlantis, and ends with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who should be dumped into Lake Pontchartrain. But I’m talking in a grander sense here.
Who is it that could take over this government? Is there a single Democrat that speaks for a national audience? Can the Democrats even be considered an opposition party when all they do is go along with whatever the Administration tells them to do? Does anybody think John Kerry could step into the breach and provide leadership? Hillary? Harry Reid? Puh-leeze.
What is happening in New Orleans this week, and what is certain to happen to the rest of the country the next time something serious goes wrong is one of the greatest scandals in the history of this country. This is an opportunity for the Democrats to get a spine and start persuading people that they have an alternative.
I’m not talking about playing politics with a tragedy. I’m talking about stepping into the breach and showing some real leadership here.
Realistically, there’s no way we’re going to get rid of Bush and his cronies any time soon. But if the Democrats don’t start standing up to these bullies now, they’re never going to beat them (or the clones that replace them) in any future election.
posted by John Rosenthal @ 11:29 AM
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