Tide turns on Dubya's wreck-- This is a trash presidency....... (Austrailia)

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Sun, 23 Apr 2006 10:09:01 -0700 (PDT)

Tide turns on Dubya's wreck-- " This is a trash presidency....... "

 

 

 

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/tide-turns-on-dubyas-wreck/2006/04/21/1145344\

276318.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

 

 

Tide turns on Dubya's wreck

By Mike Carlton

April 22, 2006

 

 

Sydney, Austrailia, is a long way from Washington DC but, even at

this distance, it is clear that the Bush Administration is falling to

pieces.

In recent weeks, scanning the political coverage in the mainstream US

media and sampling the blogs has been to watch a flood tide ebbing to

reveal a rotting, skeletal hulk. It is the George W. Bush ship of

fools, stuck in the mud for the world to see in all its mendacity, its

incompetence, its faith-based stupidity.

 

It is possible, at this late stage, that even Bush himself has

begun to realise something is wrong. That oddly simian face is ashen,

the eyes leaden. The voice is shrill and its tone defensive.

 

" I'm the decider and I decide what's best, " he squawked to

reporters in the White House rose garden the other day, as the screws

turned tighter on his disastrous Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.

Can you imagine Roosevelt, Eisenhower or Kennedy blurting something

like that?

 

Rummy is looking knackered too, with six retired generals going

public to agree that he is " incompetent strategically, operationally

and tactically " , to quote one of them.

 

These men would have been junior officers in Vietnam, veterans of

the all-American nightmare they now see replicated in Iraq. They don't

want the mad old warmonger doing it over again in Iran. As former

Marine Corps Lieutenant-General Gregory Newbold wrote in Time

magazine: " … we must never again stand by quietly while those ignorant

of and casual about war lead us into another one and then mismanage

the conduct of it " .

 

But the Middle East quicksands are not all that is killing Bush's

presidency. Domestically, the rot is wide and deep. It is a budget

deficit blowing out towards $US700 billion this financial year as

Dubya juggles to fund his war while stealing from the American and

immigrant poor to bestow tax cuts on the rich.

It is criminal sleaze in Washington, with the Republicans' favourite

influence peddler, Jack Abramoff, headed for jail, and one of Bush's

closest Texan buddies, the disgraced House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay,

not far behind him.

 

It is arrogant, Nixonian trampling of the law to order the

wiretapping of American citizens and the leaking of national security

secrets. It is the rape of the environment to enrich big business,

especially big oil. And resonating with ordinary Americans most of

all, it is the loss of the city of New Orleans - not by Hurricane

Katrina but by the bottomless incompetence of the feds'

post-apocalypse response.

 

This is a trash presidency, founded on lies and knavery, fraud and

ignorant ideological crackpottery.

 

KARL ROVE is another faux-Texan wheeler-dealer sometimes described

as Bush's brain, a courtier most often seen superglued to the

presidential right ear. Pink and pudgy, he looks like one of Disney's

three little pigs, although infinitely more smug.

Rove was shunted sideways this week in a shuffle of the White House

deck chairs which also saw Dubya's press secretary lose his job. His

new assignment will be to divert the Republican Party from the coming

train wreck of the Congressional mid-term elections this November.

 

That will be crucial to the survival of this gang. If the

Democrats regain control of Congress, there would be a good chance of

them moving to impeach Bush for high crimes and misdemeanours.

 

The famous Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein raised just that

possibility in a recent article in Vanity Fair magazine. " We have

never had a presidency in which the single unifying thread that flows

through its major decision-making was incompetence stitched together

with hubris and mendacity on a Nixonian scale, " he wrote.

 

Exactly. Compared to this lot, Bill Clinton was John the Baptist.

THE next question is this: what will the Howard Government do when

Bush and co decide to bomb Iran?

 

On past performance, Australia will be the kiddie on the sideline,

panting to join the team: " Pick me, pick me. " That, of course, is how

we wangled our way into Iraq.

To quote the admirable US Marine Lieutenant-General Newbold again: " My

sincere view is that the commitment of our forces to this fight was

done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of

those who have never had to execute these missions - or bury the results. "

 

As we have seen, John Howard and Lord Downer are terrific at

casual swagger, although neither has ever heard a bullet go pffwt-pzzz

through the rubber trees. Luckily, they have not had results to bury.

But next time we might not be so easily conned. After the never-ever

GST, children overboard, Iraq, WorkChoices, AWB and now Papua, Howard

has lost public trust. The moment we hear him blather that no decision

has been made for war, that everyone is working for a peaceful

solution to the Iran crisis - that's when we know the SAS is already

there.

 

When the shoulders go back, the chin goes up and the lower lip

juts out, you know the Prime Minister is lying.

 

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/tide-turns-on-dubyas-wreck/2006/04/21/1145344\

276318.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1