Lemming-n-Chief

Stay the course. Follow me...over the cliff! W, at his press conference this week repeats the mantra. Rove does "anger survey," remember W doesn't look at polls. He has his "brain" do it for him. Why not? W isn't a curious man. He is not a detail man. He is not a reader. He insists he is a leader who leads...The head Lemming, leading this nation over the cliff, but with resolve. And that he insists is his most endearing quality. When he sets his gut to something there is no fact that will dissuade him.

Whether his believe that Putin is a man he can deal with or his belief that Iraq and the "war on terrorism" are one in the same, W sees things as they are not and doesn't ask a thing...A very perverse twist to the famous view of Robert Kennedy burned in our collective memory by his brother Ted at his eulogy. How we allow W to get away with this conflation of Iraq and the "war on terrorism" is a puzzlement.

Again this administration of denial was exemplified by the top dog on Katrina relief to the gulf. On a Sunday morning talk show the Katrina pubah insists that everything is hunky dory. Yet looking at reality on the scene one sees anything but. I say turn Katrina relief over to Hezbollah. It is obvious seeing how they came in after the shooting stopped that they know how to address disaster relief. Man, what a stark difference seeing them on the ground handling direct concerns of their constituency compared to the way America handled Katrina and its aftermath.

It has long been established that W was a "C" student, much more interested in the party scene than in the academic one. If fact he denigrates those intellectuals and egg heads that like to think about things. He acts proudly when pronouncing his "gut" responses to events and ideas as opposed to well thought out reasoned responses which he dismisses and discounts. Perhaps this is why he cannot learn from the mistakes he never makes. He has no interest in lessons learned and why should he? It didn't do to much to help his popularity at Yale or Harvard. Why would he think learning lessons would do him well now?

Steadfastness is his strong suit. Being unequivocal is his thing. He is resolute. No thinking one thing at one point then revisiting the issue when facts change, no flip flopper he. Stay the course and follow me said the Lemming-N-Chief, right over the cliff.

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W's Enemies List

I can't think of a time when the United States had less influence and less standing in the world since Lawrence of Arabia. In six short years we went from an honest broker to an enemy. Being perceived as a friend of America is folly in the Middle East. South America is turning against us.

Countries across the mid-section of that continent are looking to themselves and the East. This turn alone may influence Cuba after Castro more than his demise alone.

Europe doesn't trust us and we have no friends in the East, only adversaries and competitors. W and his administration aren't content to only have half of the world on the enemies list, no, we also have internal enemies. All those who are against the war in Iraq are not for the soldiers which lowers their morale and diminishes their effectiveness.

In other words, if you are not for the war in Iraq you are aiding in the deaths of our brave boys and girls. You are an enemy.

If you think tax cuts may not be the best way to go when running hundreds of billions of dollars in the red, you could be an enemy.

If you are against some aspects of the Patriot Act, you may be an enemy. My God! I've figured it out. We have a domestic and foreign policy based on Jeff Foxworthy's comedy act!

Google "failure"

What comes up when one searches in Google using the one word "failure" is George W. Bush. Wow! If a software search crawl can determine the president, his policies and his administration is a failure, one would think the living, breathing people of this country could see this as well.

It's not only W's foreign policy that is an abysmal failure it is most of his policies. Whether it is his inability to have the militias in Iraq disarm or his inability to have and administer a cogent plan to rebuild the Gulf coast to the unprecedented denial and strong arming of government scientists to speak and put forth sound science that may disagree with his politics W seems incapable of successful leadership. Isn't that what he touted when funning for president. Wasn't he the guy who said, " I'm a leader who leads"?

Of course that kind of statement was made fun of. It's a circular augment. But we had had enough of a guy who was aware of everything, wanted to know everything, had a hand in everything. We wanted an executive who would not stamp his personal imprimatur on everything and let the people decide for themselves. Boy did we misjudge. What we got was an impressionable near-do-well who chose his staff poorly and listened and instituted all the misguided things they could never have gotten an informed strong leader to do.

So, here we are. With a leader who even a software program has no equivocation about what he is and where he has taken us. A light weight good-'ol-boy party animal who everyone liked but was deep and thoughtful as a puddle. But "stay the course," is a bumper sticker. It is not a plan and it is a failure. Don't believe me? Google it.

Blind spots and duplicity

Once again this administration and its minions are incapable of approaching problems honestly. I have written on this blog about Karen Hughes. I once thought that this administration's hypocrisy was a conscious choice. I have come to believe that they are incapable of seeing things as they really are: Iran, Iraq, the war on "terrorism" all have been exposed as examples of their incapability to approach problems in an honest forthright way, Lebanon is a case in point.

W accuses the Iranians of supplying rockets and arms to the militias of Hezbollah. He says they must be disarmed and bullies and demands that the Lebanese government and military do this job. And yet he is incapable of seeing the reality that the Lebanese people view the United States as doing the same thing with Israel. Israelis see Iranian rockets rain down on towns in Israel and say this is intolerable. Lebanese and Iranians see American bombs falling on their towns and killing their people and the United States says this is Israel defending its territory and people. W ignores or is incapable of seeing this as an honest view, worthy of an explanation and dialogue. If he disagrees he dismisses the others concerns.

Taking this as a back drop, where is the parallel outrage with Iraq? Where is the call to disarm the militias in Iraq by this administration? No where to be found. If the overall philosophy is non governmental paramilitary organizations have no quarter to exist why aren't the US armed forces and their Iraqi brethren disarming militias in Iraq? Where is the urgency? What are the priorities? Stay the course is a nice bumper sticker, Rovian political babble but, it is not something that works off the bumper in the real world.

Everything is not a political campaign. Sometimes political leaders have to govern and not approach every problem as partisan politics. You can always throw political bombs as if everyone with differing views of a failed policy is a political opponent but that is not what the real world needs and the rest of the world is getting tired of this administration not leading in a constructive way. Hey, but they hate us for our freedom, right?

Where in the world is Karen Hughes?

Forget about Waldo, where the heck is Karen Hughes? Touted as the best thing ever, to come to the State Department. Remember when she came back to work for W, after the election? Remember what a big deal her return was made out to be? She came back as assistant secretary, or some such construct, given the title of Ambassador. Her role was guru for communications. Apparently, it wasn't that we tortured people or bullied them or humiliated them, it was that our "message of freedom," wasn't getting through.

Where has she been and what has she been doing for all this time? Was she in on the disastrous discussion to bomb the heck out of Lebanon? Is she the one that told W, great idea, they hate Hezbollah and bombing the bejeezus out the innocents will surely keep these moderates on our side? Or was her message machine kept out of the loop and only left to pick up the pieces. Why can't these guys learn from their mistakes? I think most folks understand and are understanding of the mistakes our leadership has made. What some of us can't tolerate is that the leadership seems incapable of learning from these mistakes and then taking corrective action to correct them and find a different path.

For having an MBA, W seems to have skipped the classes that concentrated on lessons learned and best practices. I wrote on this blog about the bombing and said, "enough already," they get the message. Imagine a situation where unprecedented, all the non-Shiite Moslem world was on the side where we wanted them to be. They were speaking out publicly. Now, what would a rational person do? Say hurray! Or say, "now what can we do to turn these folks against us, hmmm?"

Did W and Cheney (the evil one), go to Hughes and ask what she thought? I mean, aren't they the ones that put her in this very important position, giving her perceived importance and weighty responsibilities? Where the heck is Karen Hughes?

If she was consulted and advised the course taken then she should retire and get a Medal of Freedom. If she advised against the course taken then why hasn't she quit? Where in the world is Karen Hughes?

Orwell would be proud

George Orwell must be smiling. Sure, he was off by about 20 years but, what's 20 years among friends. Islamo Fascism, the president and Karl Rove would have us believe that these are the Jihadist of lo those many days ago. These "Fascist," W says are the bane of our existence. Words matter, and if there are Islamo Fascist they are our allies: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman and the U.R.E., to name a few.

These are autocratic or dictatorial regimes that are Islamic nations. These countries rule by force and are economically controlled by these same rulers. If this isn't the definition of Islamo Fascism than what is? Not only is W corrupting our global image and good will but he and Rove are corrupting our language to suit their ends. Are they so desperate as to consciously miss-use the bedrock of a free society: Free speech and language, apparently so.

This administration loves to conflate issues and problems. Think of it as bundling. Like the way they turn small campaign contributions into large gifts to campaigns and party accounts. This most recent noteworthy example. The taking down of the conspiracy to blow up several airline flights from Britain to the U.S. How does W and Rove get away with taking any credit for that? It was Great Britain and Pakistan that worked that problem. The U.S. was kept informed at the highest levels but even they didn't tell too many people for fear of a leak.

And yet the president and Rove turn this into another victory by our administration against the (evil doers, oops I mean the Islamo Fascist) ones that hate us for our freedom. The solution in Sy Hearsch's recent New Yorker article is to bomb Iran. Because Iran and Osama and Hezbollah are all part of the bigger war on Terror, or is it Islamo Fascism? I'm getting confused.

Talk is Cheap?

I disagree. The president and his administration talk a lot, deliver little and the costs are enormous. Look at all they say then match that against what those words cost in blood and treasury and lost opportunities. I think Republicans in general like to be thought of as good guys and wince when others call them mean or mean spirited or only interested in the interests of the big money special interests. As a result, with "big government is bad," as a back drop, they speak of good things, under fund them, blame big government for that failure.

This is not skepticism. This is cynicism. A much more corrosive view. An example is this most recent dust up in Alaska and the BP pipeline. No federal regulation allowed. They were to be "self policing." Of course BPs self interest in free market capitalistic environment would compel them to inspect and care for a valuable asset. No regulation, no oversight, no accountability, profit motivator, no unfunded mandates, and now 400 thousand less barrels of oil flow each day to west coast refineries. Alaska doesn't receive their royalties. Alaska, the home of the independent go-it-alone in the wild iconoclast. I'm sorry those are just words. Reality sets in and one finds Alaska sucks more federal money than any "blue" state by far. Dependent more on big oil and screw the environment in their favor, Alaska. You know those folks who want to drill "responsibly" in ANWAR? Ya those guys. Talk is not cheap. Then BP gets on the tube and says their inspection process was up to standards and their QC was swell. If that were true would they be taking off-line all the petroleum from the north slope?

W and his boys never fail to speak about "honoring our vets." yet Veteran's Affairs is woefully under funded. Big government failure, remember. So the vets resent the government and loose confidence in the leadership for their unmatched rhetoric and get dissolution's and drop out of the process and, how good is that for the well being and health of our republic?

States rights and Terry Shivo. A lot of talk. Officials diagnosing, pontificating, profiling, and styling, belly up to the bar and take a shot for the good folks back home. Do it on the national stage. Be intrusive in an intimate family tragedy. Trample on privacy for your own gain. Disregard everything your states rights founders revered. Don't deal or talk about things that really matter and effect millions of citizen. Opportunity costs, poof gone forever. For what? Talk is not cheap.

Health care, guaranteed pensions, education, war, contracts, Katrina. One needn't even explain or repeat the words that go with these concerns and topics to conjure up the falsity of talk and the failure of delivery. 12 billion dollars of subsidies to big oil in something they have the nerve to call an energy plan.

Fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here. If I were a predator would I walk one mile for a meal when I can walk 2 steps and have a feast? You're with us or against us. They hate us for our Freedom. Talk is not cheap.

Ironically, this administration won't talk to our... Their perceived enemies. Haven't done much with Palestine and Israel until crisis. They taked about the bad guy in Venezuela, antagonized him and forgot about him. He however did not forget about us or fail to remember how much oil he controls. Bush said during his 2000 campaign that we did not need any more laws about immigration. All we needed to do was enforce the ones that were already on the books. Talk is not cheap.

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Unmitigated failure, Condi Rice

Condi Rice was on the morning talk shows today. She persists in discounting the clear failures of her reign and that of the Bush administration. Please I beg of you, tell me one thing she has done that has been successful or of benefit to American success and prosperity.

In 2000 she was the foreign expert relied upon by the fledgling Bush campaign. With pride she was proclaimed as the one who would tutor Bush to make him a foreign policy dynamo. We were assured that her even keeled approach and experience during Bush I would bode well for what we had to look forward to in Bush II. She was a Russian expert and about as sharp as a tac could be. And what did we get?

She sided with the Neo cons and against the Powell sensibilities. She was blindsided by 9/11 and very defensive, even obstructive. All that said and after all her misjudgments and poor advice and short sightedness and inability to grasp the complex in favor of the bumper sticker Bush mentality, today she persists.

Apparently, it won't be civil war in Iraq until part of the established government there breaks away and then, only then will she admit to a civil war. Mass murders, beheading, kaos, disorder, securlar violence. No! This is only little dust ups. Rearranging these deck chairs will keep the boat afloat. What is she taking and where can I get some?

It is amassing how much the generals and military want to tell and how the politicos want to intercept any communications to slant this horror show into a rosy scenario. Thing is that rosy tint comes from the deluded blood of our fallen hero's. Shame on Bush and Condi for poor conception, poor planning, poor execution, poor vision, horribly simplistic understanding, cowardly forthrightness, unfathomable self dilution and destructive propaganda. Where is Karen Hughs? The wunderkind who was supposed to make, "all better," simply by putting some lipstick on this pig.