The coming change in the White House means more for the country than just an end to an inept and criminal administration’s eight-year hold on policy.
It’s the end of Reaganomics.
It’s the end of the Unitary Executive Theory.
It’s the end of American Exceptionalism.
It’s the end of certain kinds of Fascism and trendy 9/11 nationalism…
It’s the end of Reaganomics.
It’s the end of the Unitary Executive Theory.
It’s the end of American Exceptionalism.
It’s the end of certain kinds of Fascism and trendy 9/11 nationalism…
...for now.
The Bush administration itself ended its own era by applying their spurious doctrines with unprecedented arrogance, greed and reckless disregard for the present and for the future. As they aimed at their enemies, (real, imagined and calculatingly assigned), they also seemed to blindly shoot out the ground from under their own feet. That the rest of us were standing too close to these fools as they made rubble of our Constitution, our economy, our laws -didn’t slow them in the least. They did what they wanted and figured they’d blow town before the bill came…
Yet another thing they got wrong.
The Bush administration’s legacy is one of garbage politics, historic incompetence and unilaterally applied foreign policy driven by self-interest. The final days of the Bush presidency are a fascinating study in the obvious; an impeachment now seems as meaningful as a mock beheading in colonial costumes.
It will be years before the country allows itself to accept the fact that the Bush Administration was responsible for the biggest and deadliest security failure in American history. They were in charge of our safety in 2001. We may not want to directly blame one man for something as terrible and possibly unavoidable as the 9/11 attacks… but a President who was on vacation for nearly a month just before the attacks deserves no congratulations.The era of presidential imperialism as elaborated by John Yoo, personified by George W. Bush and engineered by Dick Cheney is over. How figures like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney found their way back to the highest seats of power after their associations with the Nixon presidency three decades ago will be a question for many historians to ponder and examine. The answers will embarrass everyone.
The America that overlooked every shortcoming, every breach, and every abuse that George W. Bush and his administration committed and demonstrated is emerging from its self-imposed twilight. What we can clearly see now is ugly and astounding in its cheap shortsightedness. Not one member of this administration will emerge with a shred of dignity. These eight years have even destroyed the careers of Republicans who had opposed George W. Bush, like Lincoln Chaffee and to some extent John McCain.
None of their political opponents, no Democrat alive or dead, could have wrecked the Bush legacy so completely. But these greedy fools have also managed to do something that even David Duke, Jesse Helms and Fox News could never have done: they’ve branded the GOP as a party of dangerous backward incompetents.
The opportunists who used the 9/11 attacks as a justification for circumventing the bill of rights are being shown the door. I hope it hits them on the ass as they walk out.
If Barack Obama simply discontinues the assault on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, we will be back on track toward forming that “more perfect union.” The bar couldn’t be set any lower; expectations couldn’t be any bleaker after George W. Bush. Strangely, I feel as though this is where we left off before Robert F. Kennedy was eliminated from history by an assassin’s bullet. This was where we were headed before President Lyndon Johnson stupidly dug in his heels, escalating theVietnam War. “The Great Society” never arrived.
The coming change in the White House means more for the country than just an end to an inept and criminal administration’s eight-year hold on policy.
Our beloved but of late vulnerable Constitution, despite all of the night surgery attempted by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and their scurrying henchmen, is truer today than it was on November 3rd. The Constitution is truer today than it was eight, twenty, fifty, one hundred years ago… truer today that it was when it was drafted.
The words “All Men are Created Equal” possibly intended to convey that all are deserving of the same rights and opportunities under the law, are truer today.
But we must remember that it needs protecting. If Barack Obama’s administration simply stops all the criminality that Cheney, Ashcroft, Gonzalez and Yoo orchestrated with their disregard for the Geneva Conventions among other crimes, we will be on the way back to the America we used to hear about in grade school.
Land of the free, home of the brave.
-SJ
The Bush administration itself ended its own era by applying their spurious doctrines with unprecedented arrogance, greed and reckless disregard for the present and for the future. As they aimed at their enemies, (real, imagined and calculatingly assigned), they also seemed to blindly shoot out the ground from under their own feet. That the rest of us were standing too close to these fools as they made rubble of our Constitution, our economy, our laws -didn’t slow them in the least. They did what they wanted and figured they’d blow town before the bill came…
Yet another thing they got wrong.
The Bush administration’s legacy is one of garbage politics, historic incompetence and unilaterally applied foreign policy driven by self-interest. The final days of the Bush presidency are a fascinating study in the obvious; an impeachment now seems as meaningful as a mock beheading in colonial costumes.
It will be years before the country allows itself to accept the fact that the Bush Administration was responsible for the biggest and deadliest security failure in American history. They were in charge of our safety in 2001. We may not want to directly blame one man for something as terrible and possibly unavoidable as the 9/11 attacks… but a President who was on vacation for nearly a month just before the attacks deserves no congratulations.The era of presidential imperialism as elaborated by John Yoo, personified by George W. Bush and engineered by Dick Cheney is over. How figures like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney found their way back to the highest seats of power after their associations with the Nixon presidency three decades ago will be a question for many historians to ponder and examine. The answers will embarrass everyone.
The America that overlooked every shortcoming, every breach, and every abuse that George W. Bush and his administration committed and demonstrated is emerging from its self-imposed twilight. What we can clearly see now is ugly and astounding in its cheap shortsightedness. Not one member of this administration will emerge with a shred of dignity. These eight years have even destroyed the careers of Republicans who had opposed George W. Bush, like Lincoln Chaffee and to some extent John McCain.
None of their political opponents, no Democrat alive or dead, could have wrecked the Bush legacy so completely. But these greedy fools have also managed to do something that even David Duke, Jesse Helms and Fox News could never have done: they’ve branded the GOP as a party of dangerous backward incompetents.
The opportunists who used the 9/11 attacks as a justification for circumventing the bill of rights are being shown the door. I hope it hits them on the ass as they walk out.
If Barack Obama simply discontinues the assault on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, we will be back on track toward forming that “more perfect union.” The bar couldn’t be set any lower; expectations couldn’t be any bleaker after George W. Bush. Strangely, I feel as though this is where we left off before Robert F. Kennedy was eliminated from history by an assassin’s bullet. This was where we were headed before President Lyndon Johnson stupidly dug in his heels, escalating theVietnam War. “The Great Society” never arrived.
The coming change in the White House means more for the country than just an end to an inept and criminal administration’s eight-year hold on policy.
Our beloved but of late vulnerable Constitution, despite all of the night surgery attempted by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and their scurrying henchmen, is truer today than it was on November 3rd. The Constitution is truer today than it was eight, twenty, fifty, one hundred years ago… truer today that it was when it was drafted.
The words “All Men are Created Equal” possibly intended to convey that all are deserving of the same rights and opportunities under the law, are truer today.
But we must remember that it needs protecting. If Barack Obama’s administration simply stops all the criminality that Cheney, Ashcroft, Gonzalez and Yoo orchestrated with their disregard for the Geneva Conventions among other crimes, we will be on the way back to the America we used to hear about in grade school.
Land of the free, home of the brave.
-SJ
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