AN APOLOGY FROM A BUSH VOTER by DOUG McINTYRE

[Guest guest]

Doug's apology

 

AN APOLOGY FROM A BUSH VOTER

 

By Doug McIntyre

Host, McIntyre in the Morning

Talk Radio 790 KABC

 

There’s nothing harder in public life than admitting you’re wrong. By the way,

admitting you’re wrong can be even tougher in private life. If you don’t believe

me, just ask Bill Clinton or Charlie Sheen. But when you go out on the limb in

public, it’s out there where everyone can see it, or in my case, hear it.

 

So, I’m saying today, I was wrong to have voted for George W. Bush. In

historic terms, I believe George W. Bush is the worst two-term President in the

history of the country. Worse than Grant. I also believe a case can be made that

he’s the worst President, period.

 

In 2000, I was a McCain guy. I wasn’t sure about the Texas Governor. He had

name recognition and a lot of money behind him, but other than that? What?

Still, I was sick of all the Clinton shenanigans and the thought of President

Gore was… unthinkable. So, GWB became my guy.

 

For the first few months he was just flubbing along like most new Presidents,

no great shakes, but no disasters either. He cut taxes and I like tax cuts.

 

Then September 11th happened. September 11th changed everything for me, like

it did for so many of you. After September 11th, all the intramural idiocy of

American politics stopped being funny. We had been attacked by a vicious and

determined enemy and it was time for all of us to row in the same direction.

 

And we did for the blink of an eye. I believed the President when he said we

were going to hunt down Bin Laden and all those responsible for the 9-11

murders. I believed President Bush when he said we would go after the terrorists

and the nations that harbored them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I supported the President when he sent our troops into Afghanistan, after all,

that’s where the Taliban was, that’s where al-Qaida trained the killers, that’s

where Bin Laden was.

 

And I cheered when we quickly toppled the Taliban government, but winced when

we let Bin Laden escape from Tora-Bora.

 

Then, the talk turned to Iraq and I winced again.

 

I thought the connection to 9-11 was sketchy at best. But Colin Powell

impressed me at the UN, and Tony Blair was in, and after all, he was a Clinton

guy, not a Bush guy, so I thought the case had to be strong. I was worried

though, because I had read the Wolfowitz paper, “The Project for the New

American Century.” It’s been around since ‘92, and it raised alarm bells because

it was based on a theory, “Democratizing the Middle East” and I prefer

pragmatism over theory. I was worried because Iraq was being justified on a

radical new basis, “pre-emptive war.” Any time we do something without

historical precedent I get nervous.

 

But the President shifted the argument to WMDs and the urgent threat of Iraq

getting atomic weapons. The debate turned to Saddam passing nukes on to terror

groups. After 9-11, the risk was too great. As the President said, “The next

smoking gun might be a mushroom cloud.” At least that’s what I thought at the

time.

 

I grew up in New York and watched them build the World Trade Center. I worked

with a guy, Frank O’Brien, who put the elevators in both towers. I lost a very

close friend on September 11th. 103 floor, tower one, Cantor Fitzgerald. Tim

Coughlin was his name. If we had to take out Iraq to make sure something like

that, or worse, never happened again, so be it. I knew the consequences. We have

a soldier in our house. None of this was theoretical in my house.

 

But in the months and years since shock and awe I have been shocked repeatedly

by a consistent litany of excuses, alibis, double-talk, inaccuracies, bogus

predictions, and flat out lies. I have watched as the President and his

administration changed the goals, redefined the reasons for going into Iraq, and

fumbled the good will of the world and the focus necessary to catch the real

killers of September 11th.

 

I have watched the President say the commanders on the ground will make the

battlefield decisions, and the war won’t be run from Washington. Yet, politics

has consistently determined what the troops can and can’t do on the ground and

any commander who did not go along with the administration was sacked, and in

some cases, maligned.

 

I watched and tried to justify the looting in Iraq after the fall of Saddam. I

watched and tried to justify the dismantling of the entire Iraqi army. I tired

to explain the complexities of building a functional new Iraqi army. I urged

patience when no WMDs were found. Then the Vice President told us we were in the

“waning days of the insurgency.” And I started wincing again. The President says

we have to stay the course but what if it’s the wrong course?

 

It was the wrong course. All of it was wrong. We are not on the road to

victory. We’re about to slink home with our tail between our legs, leaving civil

war in Iraq and a nuclear armed Iran in our wake. Bali was bombed. Madrid was

bombed. London was bombed. And Bin Laden is still making tapes. It’s

unspeakable. The liberal media didn’t create this reality, bad policy did.

 

Most historians believe it takes 30-50 years before we get a reasonably

accurate take on a President’s place in history. So, maybe 50 years from now

Iraq will be a peaceful member of the brotherhood of nations and George W. Bush

will be celebrated as a visionary genius.

 

But we don’t live fifty years in the future. We live now. We have to make

public policy decisions now. We have to live with the consequences of the votes

we cast and the leaders we chose now.

 

After five years of carefully watching George W. Bush I’ve reached the

conclusion he’s either grossly incompetent, or a hand puppet for a gaggle of

detached theorists with their own private view of how the world works. Or both.

 

Presidential failures. James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, Jimmy Carter, Warren

Harding-— the competition is fierce for the worst of the worst. Still, the

damage this President has done is enormous. It will take decades to undo, and

that’s assuming we do everything right from now on. His mistakes have global

implications, while the other failed Presidents mostly authored domestic

embarrassments.

 

And speaking of domestic embarrassments, let’s talk for a minute about

President Bush’s domestic record. Yes, he cut taxes. But tax cuts combined with

reckless spending and borrowing is criminal mismanagement of the public’s

money. We’re drunk at the mall with our great grandchildren’s credit cards.

Whatever happened to the party of fiscal responsibility?

 

Bush created a giant new entitlement, the prescription drug plan. He lied to

his own party to get it passed. He lied to the country about its true cost. It

was written by and for the pharmaceutical industry. It helps nobody except the

multinationals that lobbied for it. So much for smaller government. In fact,

virtually every tentacle of government has grown exponentially under Bush.

Unless, of course, it was an agency to look after the public interest, or

environmental protection, and/or worker’s rights.

 

I’ve talked so often about the border issue, I won’t bore you with a rehash.

It’s enough to say this President has been a catastrophe for the wages of

working people; he’s debased the work ethic itself. “Jobs Americans won’t do!”

He doesn’t believe in the sovereign borders of the country he’s sworn to protect

and defend. And his devotion to cheap labor for his corporate benefactors, along

with his worship of multinational trade deals, makes an utter mockery of

homeland security in a post 9-11 world. The President’s January 7th, 2004 speech

on immigration, his first trial balloon on his guest worker scheme, was a deal

breaker for me. I couldn’t and didn’t vote for him in 2004. And I’m glad I

didn’t.

 

Katrina, Harriet Myers, The Dubai Port Deal, skyrocketing gas prices,

shrinking wages for working people, staggering debt, astronomical foreign debt,

outsourcing, open borders, contempt for the opinion of the American people, the

war on science, media manipulation, faith based initives, a cavalier attitude

toward fundamental freedoms-- this President has run the most arrogant and

out-of-touch administration in my lifetime, perhaps, in any American’s lifetime.

 

You can make a case that Abraham Lincoln did what he had to do, the public be

damned. If you roll the dice on your gut and you’re right, history remembers you

well. But, when your gut led you from one business failure to another, when your

gut told you to trade Sammy Sosa to the White Sox, and you use the same gut to

send our sons and daughters to fight and die in a distraction from the real war

on terror, then history will and should be unapologetic in its condemnation.

 

None of this, by the way, should be interpreted as an endorsement of the

opposition party. The Democrats are equally bankrupt. This is the second crime

of our age. Again, historically speaking, its times like these when America

needs a vibrant opposition to check the power of a run-amuck majority party. It

requires it. It doesn’t work without one. Like the high and low tides keep the

oceans alive, a healthy, positive opposition offers a path back to the center

where all healthy societies live.

 

Tragically, the Democrats have allowed crackpots, leftists and demagogic

cowards to snipe from the sidelines while taking no responsibility for anything.

In fairness, I don’t believe a Democrat president would have gone into Iraq.

Unfortunately, I don’t know if President Gore would have gone into Afghanistan.

And that’s one of the many problems with the Democrats.

 

The two party system has always been clumsy and imperfect, but it has only

collapsed once, in the 1850s, and the result was civil war.

 

I believe, as I have said countless times, the two party system is on the

brink of a second collapse. It’s currently running on spin, anger, revenge, and

pots and pots and pots of money.

 

We’re being governed by paper-mache patriots; brightly painted red, white and

blue, but hollow to the core. Both parties have mastered the cynical arts of

media manipulation and fund raising. They’ve learned the lessons of Watergate

and burn the tapes. They have learned to divide the nation for their own gain.

They have demonstrated the willingness to exploit any tragedy for personal

advantage. The contempt they have for the American people is without parallel.

 

This is painful to say, and I’m sure for many of you, painful to read. But

it’s impossible to heal the country until we’re willing to acknowledge the truth

no matter how painful. We have to wean ourselves off sugar coated partisan lies.

 

With a belated tip of the cap to Ralph Nader, the system is broken, so broken,

it’s almost inevitable it pukes up the Al Gores and George W. Bushes. Where are

the Trumans and the Eisenhowers? Where are the men and women of vision and

accomplishment? Why do we have to settle for recycled hacks and malleable

ciphers? Greatness is always rare, but is basic competence and simple honesty

too much to ask?

 

It may be decades before we have the full picture of how paranoid and

contemptuous this administration has been. And I am open to the possibility that

I’m all wet about everything I’ve just said. But I’m putting it out there,

because I have to call it as I see it, and this is how I see it today. I don’t

say any of this lightly. I’ve thought about this for months and months. But

eventually, the weight of evidence takes on a gravitational force of its own.

 

I believe that George W. Bush has taken us down a terrible road. I don’t

believe the Democrats are offering an alternative. That means we’re on our own

to save this magnificent country. The United States of America is a gift to the

world, but it has been badly abused and it’s rightful owners, We the People, had

better step up to the plate and reclaim it before the damage becomes

irreparable.

 

So, accept my apology for allowing partisanship to blind me to an obvious

truth; our President is incapable of the tasks he is charged with. I almost feel

sorry for him. He is clearly in over his head. Yet, he doesn’t generate the

sympathy Warren Harding earned. Harding, a spectacular mediocrity, had the

self-knowledge to tell any and all he shouldn’t be President. George W. Bush

continues to act the part, but at this point whose buying the act?

 

Does this make me a waffler? A flip-flopper? Maybe, although I prefer to call

it realism. And, for those of you who never supported Bush, its also fair to

accuse me of kicking Bush while he’s down. After all, you were kicking him while

he was up.

 

You were right, I was wrong.

 

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" The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after

all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to

foster its renewal is our only hope. " Wendell Berry

 

 

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