There are many things about the presidency of George W. Bush that annoy me. Hell, most of them positively nauseate me. However, when we add them all together, the basic point that ties it all into a neat little package is the fact that our fearless leader is, perhaps, the biggest hypocrite to ever sit in the oval office.
Consider, if you will, the basis of his original campaign theme, compassionate conservatism. As it turns out, George W. Bush may be the least compassionate President in our history. Pick a problem that could have been resolved or at least lessened with a bit more support from the federal government, and you can be certain that The Bush Administration came down on the wrong side of the issue. Whether it was an environmental issue like global warming, an economic issue like Social Security or an issue dealing with the future success of our children’s children like public education, George got it wrong.
Had the raising of the mean temperature of the earth been even slightly lessened by a sane environmental policy on the part of La Cosa Nostra Bush, then Hurricane Katrina might have not gained the strength to destroy much of The Gulf Coast of our country. And by not spending the relatively small amount of money to shore up the levees in New Orleans, he cost the country billions more in rescuing the displaced people of that city and then trying to bring The Big Easy back to its original glory, hardly a conservative way of dealing with a big problem.
If The President had gotten his way on Social Security reform, there is a strong chance that the record deficits already accrued during the Bush years would have been so large as to bankrupt our country. Of course, given the changes in the bankruptcy laws put through by this president, the whole country might not have even qualified for debt relief, which would have made us indentured servants to China, which is already our largest creditor.
That too takes away Bush’s credentials as a conservative, since a true conservative believes in fiscal policies that may include lower taxes, but also require lower spending. George W. Bush has spent our country into oblivion through cronyism and waste, far exceeding the excesses of Ronald Reagan. His economic policies insure that the future of the generations yet to come will be mortgaged for the foreseeable future.
And then there’s the Bush education plan known as No Child Left Behind, or as many educators like to call it, Every Child Left Behind. It is absolutely ludicrous that the former governor of a state with one of the lowest levels of public education in our country should believe that he has even the remotest clue as to how to teach children anything. Add to that the fact that George W. Bush is also believed to be the dumbest man to ever hold The White House, then stir in the graft and corruption that must have gone into the requirement that approved text books, the ones needed to assure receipt of government funding in the No Child Left Behind program, must be purchased through a Bush crony publishing company in Texas, and you have one of the most, if not the most, unsuccessful government programs in history. To top it off, the Bush Administration never bothered to fully fund its education initiative, leaving many states to fend for themselves in meeting mandated federal requirements.
The biggest joke of all is the Bush plan to bring democracy to the Middle East. The only problem is that it isn’t a very funny joke. Certainly, the civil war that is erupting in Iraq as a result of our illegal incursion there is not creating a real democratic form of government. At best, we can expect an Islamic Republic to be formed, which will mean that women and religious minorities, among others, will lose whatever freedom they had gained under the rule of Sadaam Hussein. And what about the outbreak of terrorism in a country where terrorism never had existed? As I have said in the past, while I may have thought that Sadaam was a bad guy, I also knew that he was a strong secular leader, one who would stop Islamic fundamentalism at his borders and not permit it to function in his country. He was a foul-mouthed bully who had neither the means nor the capacity to attack our country. In short, he was never a threat to the United States. George W. Bush, by his actions in Iraq, has created more of a threat to our population than could ever have been posed by Sadaam.
Given the Bushlip that The President keeps spreading about his love of democracy, it is quite interesting how he continues to find new and exciting ways to limit our freedoms and to violate our laws. The Patriot Act may be the most restrictive law ever to pass Congress and be signed by a president since the Alien and Sedition Act. Yet, George W. Bush keeps telling us that he loves freedom, and his hardcore followers continue to applaud the theft of that freedom by his administration. What a guy!
And, now, we are being treated to the greatest hypocrisy of all. When the results of the recent Palestinian elections became known, George W. Bush was dismayed to find that Hamas had won the largest share of the seats in the Palestinian Parliament. You know Hamas, the terrorist organization that recruits teenagers to blow themselves up in support of a pack of lies? So, after Dubya urged the Palestinians to have free elections, and he wasn’t happy with the results of those elections, what do you think he did? President Bush urged Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to remain in office, despite the election loss of his Fattah Party.
I guess this shouldn’t surprise us. After all, Bush lost both of his runs for The White House but somehow managed to seize the office through lying, cheating, and an obviously corrupted Supreme Court. Why would he expect any less from a leader that he supports in another country? I can just picture the e-mail from President Bush to President Abbas following the election. “Go ahead Mahmoud, keep the presidency, even though you lost. Declare Hamas to be an illegal party. Seize their weapons and hold on to the government. That’s what I plan to do when the Democrats win control of Congress this November.”
The fact of the matter is that Hamas is one of the most despicable organizations in the world, worse even than The American Republican Party under the leadership of George W. Bush. They are terrorists, and The President is right to say that he does not deal with terrorists. Yet, in his typical style, he has dealt with President Abbas, a man closely associated with many past terrorist attacks on Israel, and before that with Yasser Arafat, a man who made Abbas look like an angel. And, certainly, Bush’s pals in Saudi Arabia, the ones who provide the funding for al Qaeda, are financial terrorists even if they don’t get their own hands dirty. Yet, Bush deals with all of them and even calls some of them his brothers..
Bush is a classic example of the parent who tells his children, “Do as I say, not as I do.” In other words, hypocrisy, they name is Dubya.
HENRY A. HONIG – THE PUNDIT IN RESIDENCE
