Reckless Debt Spending, Terrible War Planning, and Osama Bin Laden Running Around Free Top Our List Of Why Republicans Don't Deserve the Presidency

Is there anyone left in America that really still thinks George W. Bush has been a good president?

That the last eight years were better than the eight years under Clinton?

In case people have forgotten – Clinton handed Bush a balanced federal budget and a surplus of $559 billion. After eight years of reckless spending and tax cuts, Bush is ready to leave office with the federal deficit at $9.7 trillion dollars. This doesn’t even include the cost for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or the money we’re about to shell out to Wall Street and the financial markets.

The reality is that Bush’s tax cuts are an illusion. He increased spending with borrowed money. But eventually – like all loans – you have to pay it back.

This irresponsibility alone should put to the rest the notion that Republicans are fiscally responsible. It just isn’t true. Over the course of the last 50 years, the country has done better economically under Democrats than under Republicans. You don’t have to the do the number crunching – the L.A. Times has done it for you.

Isn’t this reason enough not to vote Republican in November?

Well, if you’re one of the stubborn ones, here are four more reasons why Republicans simply don’t deserve the White House for the next four years.

The Iraq War

Lest we forget: here’s why we went to war in Iraq:

“(The Iraqi regime) possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. It has given shelter and support to terrorism, and practices terror against its own people,” said George W. Bush in 2002. You can read the full text of his speech outlining why we needed to invade Iraq here. Be warned: it is scarily misguided.

Of course, after the invasion which has killed more than 4,000 U.S. troops, wounded more than 30,000 U.S. troops, and killed upwards of 90,000 Iraqi civilians, we have discovered that Iraq had never supported Al Qaeda, wasn’t even close to producing nuclear weapons, and didn’t have a single chemical or biological weapon.

Oops!

We’d better make another fabricated connection to 9/11! Vice President Dick Cheney did so repeatedly and continued to say Iraq had strong ties to Al Qaeda even after the 9/11 Commission found “no collaborative relationship” between Iraq and al Qaeda.

So why exactly did we invade Iraq? I’m not sure if we’ve ever gotten a real answer. But it has cost us more than $580 billion so far.

The Financial Meltdown

Not only was the first bailout package for Wall Street killed by the Republicans revolting against the policies of their own party, but it was the Republicans who lead the charge for the massive deregulation of the financial sector that is at the root of the problem.

Bush appointed Henry Paulson as U.S. Treasurer. Paulson is the former CEO of Goldman Sachs and has surrounded himself with other Wall Street insiders from his days at Goldman. They were slow to react to the mounting evidence that investment banks and other financial institutions were on the brink of collapse (Bush, in fact, was expressing confidence in the strength and stability of the markets as late as September 15).

Bush’s tepid response (it took him days to finally address the American people once the collapse became evident) is only slightly less ridiculous than McCain, who called the fundamentals of the economy sound on the day when the stock markets plummeted and banks went out of business. Then McCain overreacted by suspending his campaign and his debate with Obama – and then, of course, he did neither. Then he called for firing SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, even though he doesn’t have that authority (even as president).

Talk about a man in the throes of indecision and panic.

Perhaps this is why most people think the Republicans are to blame for the crisis. A new CNN poll has Americans 2-1 pointing the finger at Republicans rather than Democrats.

New Orleans

The city of New Orleans remains pocked with devastation from Hurricane Katrina three years later. In fact, the city hasn’t fully recovered and may never as the neglect from the federal government continues unabated.

You may recall that Bush didn’t think the hurricane merited ending his vacation early and that he didn’t tour the destruction until three days later – and then he went to Biloxi, Mississippi and talked about rebuilding Trent Lott’s porch and how he used to get drunk in New Orleans.

The federal government ignored New Orleans pleas to strengthen the levees as the storm was bearing down on it. Then the government bungled the recovery efforts – from providing shelter to getting food and water to victims. McCain called Bush’s handling of the disaster “disgraceful” back in April, yet he voted against a $21 million recovery package for the city and other areas hit by Katrina.

Bin Laden

Remember him? He’s allegedly the terrorist mastermind that murdered about 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001 by orchestrating a deadly plot to fly airplanes into our institutions (a plot that Bush was warned about several months before it happened – yet he did nothing).

Bin Laden is the man who supposedly destroyed the World Trade Center Towers. The man who we are told planned the attack that had a commercial aircraft takeout a section of the Pentagon.

Yet, he’s a free man – and apparently an avid videographer.

How is it possible that Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress voted to divert soldiers, money, and resources away from finding Bin Laden in Afghanistan in order to invade Iraq – which had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11?

It’s remarkable that Bush said in September of 2006 that capturing Bin Laden was “not a top priority” for the United States. Huh?

Why?

We really don’t have answers, but there are questions about Bush’s personal and family connections to Osama Bin Laden’s family. This may be the best reason why Republicans don’t deserve another term in office. They have betrayed those killed in 9/11, but not making the capture of their alleged murdered the number one priority of the administration.

Read More of Our Essays:

Blame the X$#% Media!

Addicted to Convenience

The Danger of Bottled Water

Labels: Bush, Essay, Politics, President

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"But all in all, it's been a fabulous year for Laura and me." —summing up his first year in office, three months after the 9/11 attacks, Washington, D.C., Dec. 20, 2001

History, of course, will be the final judge. And history will likely bitch slap George W. Bush down to the level of Millard Fillmore and Warren G. Harding. There’s seems to be little doubt any more that the 43^rd president of the United States will be remembered as one of the worst in history.

Polls show Bush’s approval ratings sinking to historical low levels (hovering around 35 percent). Let’s forget for a moment Bush’s inability to articulate coherent thoughts, his questionable reading skills, his election year corruption in Florida, or his pandering to corporate interests.

One could argue that those blunders and beliefs are part of Bush’s flawed character – the result of being a pampered, rich boy with little interest in education. How else to explain how a wealthy 50-something managed never to travel overseas until he was elected president?

What will really topple the Bush presidency into the dustbin of history are his crimes – four of them all told (and any of them could technically be reason enough to pursue impeachment). There’s no excuse for any of them – they were outright, deliberate prevarications against all of us and together they have eroded the nation’s ethical standing and weakened our global reputation.

Here are Bush’s four primary crimes:

The War in Iraq

“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." —Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004

The crime: Lying and inducing the United States into war (in violation of Title 18 U.S. Code, Section 371)

Bush and his chief enabler, Vice President Cheney, lied to the American people and the U.S. Congress about the threat Iraq posed to the country. They did this to justify an illegal invasion of Iraq. The lies include, but are not limited to:

• Iraq had a thriving nuclear weapons program and was close to building a nuclear missile

• Iraq had 100 to 500 tons of chemical weapons stockpiled throughout the country

• Iraq had close ties to the al-Qaeda terrorist organization and even trained al-Qaeda agents in bomb making

• Iraq tried to buy uranium for its nuclear weapons program from Africa

Reckless Endangerment of U.S. troops

"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." —Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2000

Bush and his military commanders endangered the lives of U.S. soldiers in two ways: poor planning (especially in the aftermath of battlefield operations in Iraq) and failure to properly equip soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The poor planning has been acknowledged by Bush himself. The evidence can be found in the mounting causalities in Iraq among U.S. military personnel (now more than 3,000 killed and 21,000 wounded) and Iraqi civilians (which could arguably be more than 100,000 killed). The operation has cost taxpayers more than $1 trillion.

But the real crime was sending U.S. troops into harms way without bulletproof vests or properly armored vehicles. More than two years into the war in Iraq and U.S. troops were still being forced to search for scrap metal in order to reinforce their vehicles against roadside bombs. According to USA Today, soldiers were digging through landfills in 2004 to find pieces of metal and scrap iron.

Torture

"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority." —Washington, D.C., March 13, 2002

The most disturbing images coming out of the Bush presidency will be the torture photographs from Abu Ghraib. The image of the Iraqi man standing on a box with a black sheet and pointed black hood on his head and wires snaking out from his hands has a good chance of becoming the lasting symbol of the Bush administration.

Bush and his cronies have also sought to water-down the definition of torture held by the United Nations and has whisked terrorist suspects to places like Pakistan so that they may be “questioned” in nations without laws against torture.

As a result, Bush is guilty of violating the Federal Torture Act (Title 18 of U.S. Code, Section 113C) and U.N. Torture Convention and the Geneva Convention.

One could also argue that Bush is guilty of “torture” by ordering hundreds of terrorist suspects held in military prisons without being charged with crimes, without access to due process and without credible legal representation.

Spying on Americans

"I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn't do my job." — to a group of Amish he met with privately, July 9, 2004

This may be Bush’s biggest offense and the one Americans seem least concerned about. Yet our president violated the law by ordering the National Security Agency to conduct electronic surveillance on innocent citizens without a warrant. It is required – by law (and its practically a rubber stamp process) to get a court order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review.

Without the warrants, Bush is guilty of violating Title 50 U.S. Code, Section 1805.

Labels: Bush, Crimes, Essay, Impeachment, Iraq, Politics, President, Spying, Torture, Troops

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