warrior ant press: top 10 bush administration failures

Here's Warrior Ant Press's list of the top 10 failures of the Bush Administration. We had to do some lumping to keep it to ten. Sincerely, we don't care if El Presidento Bush has the approval rating of an unruly teenager and sometimes acts like one. We do care that he's presided over the wreckage of our country that looks like a combination of the Great Dust Bowl, the Great Depression, and the War to End All Wars. Four more years of McSame? Think about it.

1. It's the economy, stupid. Here's a typical quote of the Bush Administration (from yesterday's radio address) that tries to gloss over the bad news.

Nonfarm payroll employment decreased by 84,000 jobs in August, and the unemployment rate rose to 6.1 percent. While these numbers are disappointing, what is most important is the overall direction the economy is headed.

I guess we need more an economic policy than suggesting to the American people that they shop in response to the attacks of 9-11.

2. The housing crisis. Dream a little dream for me. Over 1 million homes in foreclosure and climbing. Homes values dropping 10, 20, 30, even 40 percent in some areas. The government underwriting the losses of Fanny Mac and Fanny Mae while protecting the profit of the banks and creditors who wrote bad loans underwritten with thin credit.

3. Torture, warrant-less wiretaps, and The US Patriot Act.

4. The Department of Homeland Security, it's idiotic color-coded terror scheme ("make it simple, so the President can understand it"), it's stategic planning in the wake of real, and imagined threats, and TSA rules on liquids, shoes, and laptops. You may not feel safer, but at least some one's getting frisky with you.

5. Where in the world is Osa bin Laden? We've started a war that we can't stop, when the real problem was about as easy as the Invasion of Grenada. Reagan foot-soldier my ass.

6. Corruption, malfeasance, and criminals: Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Brown, John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzalez, Harriet Miers, Karl Rove, and Josh Bolten. "Rule of Law?" Fine for fledgling democracies and the middle class, but only if it suits us. And these are just a few of the knuckleheads you've heard of it.

Here's an exert from a 2007 report on Bush criminals by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Government.

The misconduct covered here tends to fall into four general categories: using power to benefit friends and family members, engaging in private activities that conflict with government positions and a lack of supervision over high-level personnel. For example, Margaret Burnette, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, J. Steven Griles, David Safavian and William Myers used their positions to financially benefit friends, family members and political cronies. Lester Crawford, Darleen Drunyan, Angela Grimsley and Kevin Marlowe were indicted for conflict of interest crimes. Eric Andell, Brian Doyle and Donald Keyser could have been caught much sooner, had they been subject to greater oversight. Perhaps the most disturbing conduct from a good government perspective, however, falls outside of these categories: it is overseers, such as Lurita Doan and Janet Rehnquist, using their positions to undermine oversight.

7. Loss of sanity, sometimes referred to as organic brain disease. "I looked in Vladmir Putin's eyes and saw that he was a good man." "Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction." "No one in my administration was responsible for the leaks." "We would never torture anyone."

8. Loss of transparency in our government. The Project on Government Secrecy by the American Federation of Scientists details more than 25 official Presidential Orders on White House secrecy, lists over 25 press briefings on why material should be kept secret from the people, and offers countless other orders, decisions, and memos from the Department of Justice, Office of the Vice President, and Pentagon on why the government's shit doesn't stink. Want to challenge any of the legal rulings? First you have to find out what's in them; sorry that's classified!

9. The loss of science in policy decisions. I think it's great that Jesus helped George cease being a spoiled-brat drunk looking for his next snort of coke. Jesus was cool, but most folks cause more problems when drunk, not sober. This President seems to be the exception. Global climate disruption is real. Understanding science can help policy makers make informed decisions about how to end our dependence on foreign oil. The alternative is number 10.

10. The invasion of Iraq. Over 1.2 million dead and over 3 million wounded in the region. The cost? Over 500 trillion, yes trillion, and climbing. All to settle a grudge and show his daddy he's finally a man. Maybe he's a man or maybe he's the worst President in U.S. history.

Enough. America. Enough.