It is the elite’s concern for the present plight of the republic and the devastation that Hurricane Bush hath wrought that drove them into each other’s arms. While the forum, like Mr. Bush’s traipsing all over the Middle East, seemingly sought a progressive agenda and approach this obfuscates the irreconcilable socio-economic contradictions that allowed an extremely limited man to lead American down a path of reckless military misadventure and encouraged the spending behavior of a 10-year old who just broke the piggy bank. In Mr. Bush’s topsy-turvy world of wrong is right and right is wrong his photo opportunity in Israel and his foolish gaffes in the West Bank are enough to set his legacy right.
And were things not so bleak then his antics could be dismissed as the adolescent behavior of a pubescent teenager pumped up with some Colt 45 malt beer. Indeed, to understand Mr. Bush is to embrace the illogical for it is only he in the face of overwhelming public criticism about his daddy-revenge war in Iraq and the loud and angry calls to bring the troops home would be contemplating a repeat of the same reckless actions this time in Iran.
With a certitude born of his religious, born-again conviction that he is called to wage war against “evil doers” Mr. Bush cares not for the grim statistics of nearly 4,000 US servicemen and women killed and more than 22,834 wounded in Iraq angling to give America the same by his belligerent stance against Iran in the face of his own intelligence services pointing out that he is totally wrong about that country’s nuclear program.
And in true quixotic fashion only this president could from one side of his mouth extol the “thoughtful recommendations of the Iraq Study Group,” while simultaneously out of the other side take its most far-sighted recommendation — “engage Syria and Iran” — and transform it into “threaten Syria and Iran.” Against this backdrop Mr. Bush’s posturing as a man of peace in Israel while more than 150,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the start of the war he sponsored by American bombs and guns, mercenaries running amok, Iraqi thugs, and murderous clan warfare was the epitome of hypocrisy.
This hypocrisy also reverberated in the Oklahoma forum where a privileged set of wealthy white men all members of the Old Guard called for bipartisanship at a time when America is at its most polarized and divided by the policies that these same set of people implemented and continue to implement. This group of politicians and former politicians are all tied to the ruling elite and financial oligarchy whose principal modus operandi is to divide and rule. That is why calls for bipartisanship and national unity ring hollow.
A version of the bipartisanship ideal is the presidential campaign rhetoric of change first embraced and pushed by Barack Obama and now adopted by everyone else. So look out for more calls for bipartisanship on the campaign trail from both Democrats and Republicans wanting to cash in on something that is skillfully spun to a gullible populace and packaged in a way that transforms a sinister hidden agenda into progressive politics.
All of the presidential campaigns are dependent on the big money of the wealthy. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain et al are in the pockets of rich corporations and their super-rich patrons. None of them have raised a dime from the at-risk communities of Los Angeles, New York or Miami. None of them came to prominence by distinguishing themselves by working through the ranks of ordinary American society since the poor, immigrants, the working poor and the Middle class who make up the vast majority of the American population cannot afford the $100 million entry fee to purchase the American presidency.
So in a blunt conclusion campaign charisma, great speechifying, partisan sniping, kissing a few babies, and crying on national television have all to do with political showmanship that translates into little by way of substance. But this political legerdemain appears to be working as evidenced by the frenzied elation of the masses for Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and to a lesser extent John Edwards and Mitt Romney.
Will this smoke and mirrors approach to politics help bring America out of the cesspool that it presently wallows in? An Obama or Clinton win will not change a thing. Sure, maybe the tactics will be different but the reality of the matter is that just as George Bush Junior said that he was a “Uniter not a divider” and that he was “a compassionate conservative” all that changed today with him being the greatest divider of the American people in modern times and he’s long forgotten what it means to be compassionate.
King George today conducts American domestic policy by complaining that “its hard work” and foreign policy by making it up as he goes along. The result is America is a much reviled nation by the international community where the annoying conclusion is reached that America behaves like “bull in a China shop” or a drunken bar-fly who takes on anyone willing to fight him and ends up with a bloody nose in the process.
So that what he did before and what he’s doing today will have a direct bearing of the new occupant of the White House in 2009. Yes, everyone is promising miracles some based on a nebulous incantation of change and others a mixture of change and experience. To listen to these folks voting for them is like engaging with the Almighty and calling down manna from heaven.
Indeed, one of the best ways to judge a president is to ask: Did he solve more problems than he created? This test is more severe than it may seem, because presidents are routinely prone to mischief and grandiosity. Remember Bill Clinton’s shenanigans? However, with Presidents Reagan, Bush Senior, and Clinton, the country had a good socio-economic run. Reagan curtailed inflation and rebuilt U.S. strength; Bush broke the back of the deficit and closed out the Cold War peacefully; Clinton finished the fiscal cleanup and managed to assert U.S. supremacy while enhancing U.S. popularity. All made mistakes, but they got more right than wrong.
By contrast, history will not be kind to George Bush Junior and it’s not because he made so many mistakes or lied to the American people and took the country into an unnecessary war but because of the series of major messes that he leaves behind for his successor to clean up. In fact, it is going to take more than two terms of any new president - Republican or Democrat - to start to make a dent in cleaning up King George’s mountain of doo-doo.
King George leaves a fiscal and financial mess of sheer mind-boggling proportions. His runaway spending and tax cuts for his rich buddies and influencing peddling cronies turned a $236 billion federal surplus the Clinton Administration left him into an over $400 billion deficit in just under four years. And on what did he blow this surplus? Largely on non-productive things like nasty little wars that continue to drain the treasury, weaken the dollar resulting in US financial strength on the international market weak and floppy.
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