Monday, November 03, 2008

 

Farewell Then Dubya....

I often think of the American businessman I met four years ago at a party close to where I live. He was four-square behind his man, Bush: defender of family values and vital business interests; Iraq was 'coming along nicely' and he opined that it was merely being 'responsible' for the US government to seize oil reserves when US citizens might have to face shortages in the near future. I remember changing the subject quickly to the fact that cricket was played quite extensively in the 13 states before independence. We'll read much about George junior's reign I suspect, in the next year or so.

Reviewing a book on George Bush Rafael Behr yesterday wrote:

George Jnr was born without the intellect of a great leader and raised on the assumption that he should be one. The disparity between his aspirations and capabilities would have remained a private, personal trauma were not he afforded every nepotistic opportunity to elevate it into a national catastrophe.

Today's Guardian also contains another well written opportunity to write Dubya's political obituary before he is officially replaced tomorrow. Simon Schama flags up the creditable attention given to Aids relief in Africa by the US president and attempted far sighted reform of immigration laws, frustrated by his own party. But on the debit side... of dear! We have Iraq's hundreds of thousands dead and injured; 4000 young American servicemen dead; Guantanamo Bay and its torturous record. And that is before we get on to his criminally myopic response to Hurricane Katrina, his erosion of civil liberties at home and his denial that global warming was related to human economic activity. We could go on.

The fact that Al Gore won most votes in 2000 and that it took a Republican loaded Supreme Court to deliver a false victory to George jnr, now seems like history's cruellest joke upon the world. In exchange for a virtual electoral felony we received the most incompetent, narrow minded religiously bigoted mediocrity whose chief political asset seemed to be his ability to tell uninformed US voters the things Karl Rove (rightly as it turned out) judged they wanted to hear. Goodbye George and good riddance.

Comments:
Imagine Bush as leader Blair as the poodle and Brown as the leader who had removed boom and bust just as the world went bang. what a film it would be, thought to be fiction but in fact real
 
Here's an interesting counterfactual Bill - if Gore had been adjudged the winner in 2000 and the Iraq War had never happened, would your beloved Mr Tony still be PM today? Quite possibly yes IMHO.
 
Paul
Well, this is the speculation game of course, but maybe. Do you thinkj, though that your beloved Gordon Brown would have allowed Blair to continue this long without taking out a contract on him with a professional hitman?
 
And yet the people voted him back in, same as Blair, we seem to have hope in people, Iraq has killed a lot of people cost a lot of money and cured nothing, once the troops come home democracy will go and the leaders will say we must stay in power we cannot be voted out yet because we have not finished, lets go kill the people who would vote us out.
 
Dear oh dear, have we still not got over losing in 2000?

Bush won 2000 fair and square, and four million more backed him four years later. Iraq is free, taxes are lower, some curbs have been made on Roe v Wade(albeit not enough). America's enemies/freedoms enemies have been confronted and largely routed. I suspect Al Qaeda will rejoice in his exit, and will no doubt use Obama's Presidency to rebuild(as they did under Clinton).

Sorry you seem to have swallowed such a one dimensional and one sided assessment of a very complicated character. Most Americans were very happy with George Bush's first four years, and I suspect a great many are very happy with the last four(don't let the bitter media fool you). I am sincerely grateful to President Bush for what he has done for the world. Hopefully Americans will have more courage in four years, because I suspect they are about to choke in the face of terror today. I'm sad for them, but have hope for the future.

PS Laughing myself silly at the Kerry remark(poor man's McGovern).
 
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