Turn Left @ hypocrisy.com

I hate to disappoint Pit Bull Palin, but I’m taking one day off the campaign trail today to take a look back. (You will remember, of course, that she reprimanded Joe Biden for looking back instead of looking forward.) At the time of this posting, there are 98 days, 16 hours, 45 minutes, and 11.5 seconds left in George Bush’s disastrous turn. That’s plenty of time to do more harm to this country. Nevertheless, it’s not too soon to outline the events that make George Bush the worst president in American history. While there are many, many reasons to label Bush the worst, there are four watershed moments in his administration that cement his place in infamy: The 9-11 terrorist attacks, the ill-advised wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the government’s handling of Hurricane Katrina, and the economic meltdown presently taking place in America (and spreading around the world).

September 11, 2001

First, the 9-11 attacks. No matter how Bush tries to blame the Clinton administration, this attack happened on his watch. George Bush assumed the presidency on January 20, 2000 and the terrorist attacks happened on September 11, 2001. The Clinton administration had left the Bush administration a comprehensive report on the subject of al Qaeda, including a plan to thwart its efforts. George Bush ignored it. It’s now common knowledge that he also ignored repeated warnings between April and September of 2001. Not only was he warned of potential terrorist attacks taking place on our soil, but he was warned that the terrorists might use airplanes as weapons. The administration was warned by Israel’s Mossad, as well as by Jordan and Moroccan intelligence. How did he spin his administration’s failure to act? Bush and Cheney stated that, had the domestic wiretapping authorization been given in 2001 instead of 2002, it would have prevented the terrorist attacks. As usual, this is a bald-faced lie. The memo he received a month before the attacks warned that Bin Laden was determined to hit targets inside the United States. He didn’t need wiretapping. If the memo could not move him to action, there is no way that wiretapping would have prevented the attacks. You simply have to question why he ignored it. In fact, you simply have to question the official version of 9-11 being fed us by the Bush administration.

You have to wonder why the US military was on “stand down” that day. Why were 140 Saudis safely flown out of the United States during the week after 9-11, when even Bill Clinton and Al Gore, both out of the country at the time of the attack, were not even allowed to fly back home? Many were members of the royal House of Saud, and at least 24 were direct members of bin Ladens family. Why weren’t they detained for questioning instead? This would have been a logical step, given the fact that 14 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis and it was Saudi money backing al Qaeda? In fact, Osama bin Laden is a Saudi national.

The Iraq and Afghanistan Wars

Then, we have two ill-advised, ill-planned wars, one in Afghanistan and one in Iraq. The justification for these two wars, of course, was to fight terror. In fact, the 9-11 terrorist attacks became the excuse for just about every crime the Bush administration has committed. According to our truth-challenged leader, we were going to take the war to the terrorists by invading Afghanistan and capturing Osama bin Laden. In fact, George Bush vowed we would get him “dead or alive” during one of his post 9-11 speeches. New information from former US officials, however, shows that George W. Bush never had any intention of bringing Osama bin Laden to justice. The only question that remains is why? Is this because of the close business ties between the Bush and bin Laden families? Or is it because bin Laden had nothing to do with the attacks at all? According to sources, George Bush was more interested in attacking Iraq than finding Osama bin Laden. Of course, President Bush justified the invasion of Iraq by lying to Congress and the American people about Saddam Hussein being involved in the 9-11 terrorist attacks. We now know that was a lie and that George Bush invaded a sovereign nation under false pretenses.

The president landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003 and announced that the Iraq war was over. There was a huge ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner behind him. It is now 2008 and there’s no end to the war in sight. In fact, our Republican presidential wannabe (John McCain) says he’ll stay in Iraq for 100 years if that’s what it takes to win the war (whatever ‘win’ means). At the five-year mark, we have lost 4,180 US troops. More than 1.2 million innocent Iraqis have died. At a cost of $12 billion per month, the mission is anything but accomplished. As far as Afghanistan is concerned, it remains a black hole for the mainstream media. Nobody even talks about it. Estimates from one web site provide these numbers: 8,587 Afghan troops killed; 3,485 Afghan civilians killed; 513 US troops killed; and 433 other coalition troops killed. Either way, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff predict a gloomy future for the Afghanistan war: Next year will even be worse than this year.

Hurricane Katrina, August 29, 2005

The third watershed event was Hurricane Katrina and our government’s disgustingly feeble efforts both before and after the storm. Katrina first made landfall at 7 a.m. on August 29 as a category 4 hurricane. At 7:30 a.m., the White House was warned that the levees were failing. In fact, before the storm was over, nearly all of the levees would be breached. Documents show that the White House had ample warning about the severity of Katrina, even though George Bush went on Good Morning America on September 1, 2005, to state, “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.” There’s yet another outright lie. While still on a month-long vacation in Crawford, Texas, George Bush was told about the levees and then some. He had a report that predicted that the levees would be breached and that Katrina could potentially destroy 90% of the city structures. It also described the depth and breadth of the search and rescue effort that would be required, and predicted the displacement of more than 1 million residents. The president asked no questions. Instead, he told New Orleans officials, “We are fully prepared.” That, too, was a lie.

Washington was anything but prepared. Why is that? Because, our government officials were all on vacation when Katrina hit. George Bush, in spite of the warnings, stayed on vacation in Crawford, Texas. Meanwhile, Dick Cheney stayed on vacation in Jackson, Wyoming. Condoleeza Rice went to New York during the storm to see a Broadway play and buy herself some expensive new shoes. In spite of the devastation overwhelming the Gulf states on August 29, President Bush did not rush back to Washington. Instead, he spent his Tuesday playing golf. After that, he played guitar with some country and western singers. Think Progress has put together an incredible time line documenting Katrina’s devastation and our president’s response. It’s clear that Bush had other business on his mind.

Unfortunately, President George W. Bush showed no greater leadership after the disaster than he did before and during the disaster. Two weeks after the storm, Bush pledged a homesteading plan to help residents of New Orleans. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a complete plan and left many homeless people without assistance. The Baker Plan (named for its Republican sponsor Representative Richard Baker) was a much more complete plan, and it received the backing of Senator Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat.. It would provide compensation to victims right away and give them a choice of how to rebuild their homes. It even allowed people to walk away with compensation without rebuilding if they wished. The White House, of course, opposed the plan, mostly because it made George Bush’s plan look as anemic as it actually was. The most decisive action President Bush took was to make sure he helped businesses profit from the Katrina disaster. First, he suspended federal rules and authorized FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers to extend no-bid contracts to corporations participating in the rebuilding. He also suspended the federal Davis-Bacon Act which requires contractors utilizing federal funds to play local prevailing wages on construction projects. You’ve just got to love those compassionate conservatives.

The Economic Meltdown of 2008

George Bush isn’t the only Republican proponent of deregulation. Our ‘deregulation nation’ was actually launched during the Reagan Administration. However, it was carried to new heights under the Bush administration. Over the last eight years, corporations of all types have been given unprecedented powers to police themselves. Take a look at Wall Street. It’s much more than a ‘free market’ playground. It is synonymous with corruption, deception and greed. How does the Bush administration respond? By giving the perpetrators a $700 billion infusion of new monopoly money to play with, ignoring Americans facing foreclosure and fleecing the American taxpayer. The White House employed its usual fear-mongering and strong-arm tactics to get the bail-out package passed, telling members of Congress that the stock market would suffer a devastating drop. When that didn’t work, several Senators were threatened with martial law, the final step of our descent into fascism.

The package has finally passed, and Wall Street continued its free fall. Credit is pretty much frozen. People are losing their homes and their jobs at an alarming rate. According to Robert Reich, former secretary of labor under Bill Clinton, and now at UC Berkeley, the US has lost 1 million jobs since last year. In the meantime, some of the bail-out money has been used for, of all things, pleasure junkets. The AIG sales force, for example, took a trip to a resort in California where they spent $120,000 alone on spa treatments. Another $150,000 was spent on food. This is what happens when there is no oversight, a little detail left out of the plan. In the meantime, state governments are trying to get financial help from the federal treasury just to meet payroll. What’s wrong with this picture?

It Doesn’t Stop Here

I’m mystified by those who consider George W. Bush a good president. I’m wondering what channel they’ve been watching for the past eight years. The four events featured in this article are huge, but there are so many more that have been left out. For example, the Bush administration has turned the United States into a torture state. Condoleeza Rice recently revealed that ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ (a polite term for ‘torture’), including waterboarding, were discussed at the White House among the highest officials of the Bush administration. Bush has approved the imprisonment of scores of ‘enemy combatants’ for years without bringing specific charges or allowing prisoners access to lawyers. He has sent others to countries where torture is routinely practiced under his ‘extraordinary rendition’ program. In short, he has violated articles of the Geneva Convention and he has broken both US and international laws.

George Bush has run roughshod over the US Constitution. Many view the illegal wiretapping of American citizens as his most egregious Constitutional violation. However, he also took advantage of a nation in shock from the 9-11 terrorist attacks to rush through passage of the USA Patriot Act, specifically designed to diminish our rights and expand the powers of the executive branch.

I could go on and on, but this article would become a tome. I’ll save the fine points for my online George Bush Library. In closing, do not to get comfortable just because his reign is coming to an end. With just slightly more than three months left to go in this regime, there’s plenty of time to do more damage. George Bush isn’t just any lame duck president. He wants his name to go down in history, even if it is as the worst president this nation has ever seen.

“She’s feisty. She’s adorable.”

“If she can run the PTA, she can be president.”

“People can identify with her. She has five kids. I have six.”

What is this? The American Idol of politics? Well, surprise, it isn’t. This is one of the most critical elections in our nation’s history, but the McCainiacs have fallen hook, line and sinker for the distraction effect that his campaign brain trust promised. Back at the beginning, McCain’s staff openly stated that they didn’t want this campaign to be about issues, but rather personalities. How pathetic. Do you really think he’s putting Country First? John McCain is doing a great disservice to the American people. I think he should drop that slogan just about as quickly as he should drop Sarah Palin. John McCain is putting John McCain first. That speaks volumes for the man and why he should never be president of the United States.

Okay, for the sake of argument, let’s remove the issues (like social security, health care, the energy crisis, the housing crunch, the Wall Street pig-fest, and the two wars) and take everything else that has gone on in the McCain campaign for the White House. I’m up for it because I find many, many disturbing things. If we’re talking personalities, so be it. However, character doesn’t get a bye here.

-John McCain doesn’t think. He simply reacts, and he’s a man of high drama. First, he postponed the opening of the Republican Convention because of Hurricane Gustav, which was headed towards New Orleans. What John McCain wanted you to believe is that he cares so much about the poor people of Louisiana. Yet the fact remains that Senator McCain has voted against a lot of the Katrina assistance. I can’t imagine he has any feelings for the people of New Orleans. For those who know his voting record, this doesn’t ring true. What does ring true is that he wants to get elected because, at 72, this is his last presidential hurrah. Will anyone even consider him at 76 years old? I doubt it.

-Round two of high drama was the selection of Sarah Palin as vice president. He loves big impact moves that keep the American public on an uneven keel. That way he can distract them from the issues. More on Palin and why she doesn’t belong on the ticket is to come, but suffice it to say that he didn’t even screen her himself. He left that to the secretive, ultraconservative right wing group, the Council on National Policy. Back in 2000 he referred to Christian conservatives as the ruination of the Republican party (he was right); today he’s in bed with them because he needs them to win. McCain met Palin only one time before offering her the VP slot. Let’s just say that his decision-making capabilities come into question here. He preferred Joseph Lieberman, but a quasi-liberal Jew won’t fly with the Christian conservatives who are damned intent on forcing their religious beliefs on the rest of us. Don’t get me wrong. I’m absolutely no fan of Joseph Lieberman. I wasn’t even when he ran with Al Gore. Do I think he’s qualified? Yes, I do. Sarah Palin is a national joke. If she isn’t. She should be.

-Sarah Palin has been described as “feisty.” That’s not the word I’d use. I’d use snide and insulting, but not feisty. Notice I’m not calling her what the mainstream media called Hillary Clinton. She stood up at the Republican Convention and literally insulted and belittled community organizing. Does she have any idea how much a part of the American fabric of life community organizing is? Does she have a grasp on how important it is? When we were homeless the government was content to let my family hang on a limb, mostly because we were a “gay” family and - in its eyes - not legitimate. Let’s make one thing clear: Had it not been for community organizers we would not have gotten any help at all or gotten ourselves out of that situation.

-The notion that running the PTA makes you ready for the vice presidency and, potentially, the presidency is a joke. Sarah Palin has absolutely no foreign policy experience whatsoever. We are in the midst of two ill-advised wars that are both unwinnable. We’ve made enemies of the majority of our former allies and have a lot of rebuilding to do. Palin has defended herself by saying that she’s got foreign policy experience because she can see Russia from Alaska. Okay, maybe the first time this came out of her mouth one could chalk it up to nerves. However, Sarah Palin continues to use this childish example to defend her supposed foreign policy experience. She even managed to expand upon this defense and make it sound even more foolish when she spoke with Katie Couric:

“We have trade missions back and forth,” said Palin. “We, we do, it’s very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where, where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to, to our state.”

Listening to Sarah Palin on the issues is like listening to a drunk person trying to regain some semblance of coherence. It would be funny if she wasn’t a heartbeat away from the presidency. When I worked for a Fortune 500 company, I built two departments from the ground up; I hired, promoted, demoted and fired employees; I ran $7 million dollars worth of budgets; and was responsible for my division’s marketing communications and technical communications functions. I even managed European personnel and traveled back and forth a great deal. I am not so presumptuous as to think that I’m remotely qualified for the vice presidency. I am not, and I would not expect the American people to accept my credentials. Again, this is John McCain putting his country second to his victory.

-Sarah Palin knows nothing about the economy. She barely has command of the English language. Here’s another excerpt from her interview with Kathie Couric, this time on the bail-out.

Katie Couric: Why isn’t it better, Gov. Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries; allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

Gov. Sarah Palin: That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, we’re ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the — it’s got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.

Someone should tell Governor Palin that the bail-out is, in fact, about none of that. It’s all about helping the party boys on Wall Street continue to feast on the taxpayers’ dollar. That’s what it’s about. Some insist she needs to be briefed better. That’s not the issue. The issue is that Governor Palin cannot think on her feet. She has no command or understanding of the issues. It requires more than briefing.

-Fire the SEC Chairman! That was John McCain’s instant solution/reaction to the Wall Street meltdown. Again, more drama. That’s because he really doesn’t have an understanding of the issue. For the record, John McCain has no grasp of economics either and he has admitted this publicly. So then, why did he have to “suspend” his campaign to run back to Washington (another thing he didn’t really do since he was in New York standing up David Letterman to go on with Katie Couric instead). Better idea, John, let’s get rid of the no regulation, free market Republicans whose 28 years of deregulation created this Wall Street mess just like it created the S & L scandal. For the record, he’s one of those Republicans. Do the words “The Keating Five” ring a bell? John McCain was one of the politicians who fought against regulating the Savings & Loan industry. When his friend Charles Keating, of Lincoln Savings & Loan, came under investigation, John McCain was one of five politicians who sought to throw that investigation off the track. After getting caught with his hands in the till, he reinvented himself as this maverick politician fighting against special interests.

-Of course, this maverick image is a lie too. Suddenly, Senator McCain is a populist! He may talk in forceful tones about the Wall Street lobbyists, but that doesn’t stop him from having 83 of them working on his 2008 campaign. He speaks against “golden parachutes” for under-performing executives, but his campaign’s chief economic advisor, Carly Fiorina, destroyed HP and walked away with a $42 million dollar golden parachute ($21.4 million in severance). On the other side of the coin, Fiorina’s poor performance and bad business decisions caused 20,000 people to lose their jobs. So, why the hell, then, is she his chief economic advisor? He had harsh words for the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae bail out, but we now know that the man credited with reviving the McCain campaign, Rick Davis, took $15,000 a month payments from Freddie Mac right up until last month. Why? For access to John McCain to keep regulators off their tails. Lies. Lies. Lies. Do we want yet another liar for president? Been there. Done that. We’ve seen the results.

-John McCain refuses to release his medical records, and his wife refuses to release her tax records (and that’s where all the action is). John McCain has had multiple bouts with melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer. One was just a few weeks ago when a lesion was removed from his cheek. He also shows signs of confusion. He has difficulty identifying foreign leaders (witness the confusion over the leader of Spain). When questioned, McCain could not remember how many homes he owned. He cannot tell the difference between Sunni and Shia. He keeps referring to Czechoslovakia, a nation that has not existed since 1993. I believe that the American people are entitled to know his medical condition, considering the fact that we could end up with Sarah Palin running the country. I also believe that the American people have a right to know about his family’s financial condition. Everyone else has had to comply. If he cannot comply, then I believe that he should not be allowed to run.

-Perhaps John McCain has problems multitasking. That will be a problem for anyone inheriting the job he’s running for. Or perhaps his need to “suspend” his campaign over the current economic crisis was just to gain some attention for a faltering effort. Either way, it doesn’t say much good about the man’s character. First of all, the notion that he “suspended” the campaign is a lie. He told David Letterman he had to fly back to DC immediately to assist with the bail-out. Instead he went down the street and was interviewed by Katie Couric in an effort to minimize the damage done to his campaign by the horrible Sarah Palin interview. That’s really why he canceled Letterman, because the next morning he was still in New York speaking at Bill Clinton’s Global Initiative. He never flew back to DC “immediately.

And he never “suspended” his campaign either. To suspend something means to stop it. The bash Obama ads continued to run, and members of his staff spent the day on the air telling everyone that would listen that’s just how selfless McCain is. He suspended his own campaign to help the country…to put Country First. In reality, he wasn’t needed or wanted in DC. He would have nothing to do there had George Bush not covered for him and invited him to the White House. It was at those White House talks that the deal began to fall apart. He left the next day to go back on the campaign trail and attend the debate with Barack Obama. He then told the news media he was flying immediately back to DC after the debate to continue work on the bail-out. He never did that. More untruths. More lies. Work on the bail-out package continued Friday and over the weekend without John McCain. He insisted it could be handled by phone (by the way, the same reason he’s been criticizing Obama). Yesterday, before the vote on the new bail-out package, he took the credit for pulling it together. After it lost in the House, he blamed Barack Obama. Someone should tell Senator McCain that more Republicans voted “nay” than Democrats. Someone should also remind him that he never returned to Washington as he promised. The reality is that his “suspending” his campaign to become involved in the bail-out gave him a giant photo op. In other words, it was a fraud, just like so many things he’s laid at the doorstep of the American people. How’s that for leadership?

Issues aside, these are all the reasons I’d not touch the McCain-Palin ticket. We need to do more as a nation than elect someone who is “likable.” We need to elect someone who is forthright and capable. We’ve had the liars and ill-prepared for eight years. I believe that character and truth are essential. Add the issues in to the mix, and prospects for the American people are even worse under a McCain presidency.