Bush, Pro|Con

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Norm's Soapbox- My corner of Hyde Park

Pro	Con
Economy: President Bush will not be satisfied until every American who wants a job can find one; until every business has a chance to grow; and until we turn our economic recovery into lasting prosperity that reaches every corner of America.	He aided shifting jobs off shore, presided over more job losses than any other president (we are still more than a million below when he started), and shifted job growth to lower income jobs. Most people re- emplied after loosing their job under Bush are working at less pay. "Bush Econ Advisor: Outsourcing OK" Taxes for the rich have gone down more than for the rest, resulting in the middle class paying for agri-business subsidies. Despite President Bush's assurance in 2001 that his $350 billion tax cuts "could happen without fear of budget deficit, even if the economy softens," budget deficit was the highest in U. S. history, over $450 billion. New Economics: Fast-Food Factories? We are now dependent on foreign investment, with a growing national debt.
Homeland Security: The President’s most important job is to protect and defend the American people. Last year, President Bush proposed and Congress approved a single, unified Department of Homeland Security to improve protection against today’s threats and be flexible enough to help meet the unknown threats of the future.	He originally tried to prevent the 9/11 commission which bluntly says Bush was wrong about al-Qaida links. If Juan can sneak in to work picking fruit at or below minimum wage, what is stopping Ossama?
National Security: Defending our nation against its enemies is the first and fundamental commitment of the federal government. On September the 11th, 2001, America learned that oceans will no longer protect us from the threats of a new era.	Chalabi was a Special Guests of Mrs. Bush at the State of the Union when George Tenet (CIA, resigned), and most Democrats, did not trust him, and they now claim Chalabi is Iranian agent. CIA questioned State of the Union address Etheridge: Budget Cuts Veterans The attack on Iraq was originally promoted as an urgent pre-emptive move to stop terrorism, destroy Weapons of Mass Destruction, and make America safe. The terrorism link has been disproved, there were no WMD, and more Americans have died and are threatened than before, with cooperation with allies to stop terrorism is compromised.
Education: President Bush promised to make educating every child his top domestic priority and reform a system that has failed the most needy students in our nation's classrooms. The President’s No Child Left Behind Act	Only the funding is $8 billion less than promised.
Social Security: Voluntary personal retirement accounts would enable individuals to build financial wealth and security.	Social Security was established to guarantee there was something for retirement, as a response to the failure of many private retirement accounts. Bush seeks to remove the guarantee. His tax cut for the rich was triple the expected shortfall.
Health Care: President Bush’s comprehensive health care agenda improves health security for all Americans by building on the best features of American health care.	With his plan, Medicare is prohibited from negotiating with pharmacies, so Canadians can pay less for the same drug from the same drug company, produced in the U.S., very suprising from someone that touts competition. Even so, he threatened administration members from admitting their own numbers were more than 3 times what he told congress they would be before the vote, and even those figures proved low. Los Angeles is suffering from the cascading loss of emergency rooms, no hope in sight.
Environment: Clear Skies will clean our skies, bring greater health to our citizens, and encourage environmentally responsible development in America and around the world.	Regulation of smoke stack pollution like sulfur and mercury is reduced. Hatchery salmon are redefined as wild to remove salmon from the endangered species list. Clear cutting is proposed as the way to protect forests. 'Clear Skies' Revision Would Allow More Mercury Pollution
Energy: President Calls on Congress to Act on Energy Plan.	A plan written by and for the oil industry, where this administration made its money. Oil for 6 months is valued more than a pristine wilderness ANWR. Clean energy research is cut, pollution controls cut, and EPA funds cut. His claim that Iraqi oil would pay for the war has not proven true.
World Leader	Americans are less welcome abroad. Most nations objected to being told to join an attack on Bush's timing. He ridiculed France and Germany for refusing to back up the US in its attack on Iraq, saying keep looking for the WMD he claimed he knew were there. They were right, and now do not believe us. Ossama has more propaganda for recruiting suicide bombers. He has abrogated more international treaties than any other president. Isolating the US from allies we depend on is not leadership.
Strong Commander in Chief	He failed to get and use accurate intelligence, and listened to lies, advancing Chalabi in spite of CIA warnings about this felon. He sanctioned ignoring the Geneva Conventions standards for prisoners, leading to abuse, and failed to maintain accountability. US 'not bound by torture laws' The claimed reason for war proved false, allies were insulted and abandoned, and the real enemy was gifted with propaganda instead of being stopped. The people "liberated" say they are occupied and are mad. Bush hit the Iraqi ant hill with the sledge hammer of the U.S. military, and we are still getting bit. He avoided Vietnam combat. Some courage with only other people's lives.
Leading the fight against Terror	He gave terrorists the greatest gift yet: proof of his crusade against Islam by attacking a nation under false pretenses, providing the greatest suicide bomber recruitment propaganda yet. Bush planned Iraq war from the start, former treasury chief says
Defending Liberty	George W. Bush's Patriot Act allowed the government to imprison an innocent citizen for a year incommunicado without representation or trial, interrogate using techniques we have characterized, when used by others, as torture , getting a "confession" later proven false as the MIT student was proven innocent. You are paying for your phone company to install equipment to let police wiretap all your calls without a warrant, and never tell you. You now must allow the airline to loose your luggage with your nail clippers and self defense items (provided you may have them at all). We even lost track of a "ghost prisoner" for months, the sort of prisoner we have condemned Saddam and China for. Secret US jails hold 10,000 Rumsfeld ordered Iraq prisoner hidden

My read: I find Bush a wealthy born-again conservative with more emotional zeal than judgment. He chose to believe Chalabi rather than the CIA because that gave him a rational to do something that would fulfill several desires. He found an excuse for Richard Perle's plan to redesign the middle east, remove a despot, and attack anti Christians, remove a smudge on his father's record and revenge the attempt on his father's life, and shift funding from social programs to military, and get more oil.
Hubris allowed him to decide that he was right, and the rest of the world would have to follow, like or not. He chose action without enough planning, and as a result of his choosing to believe the amoral Chalabi who is now called an Iranian spy over a more skeptical and cautious CIA, America is seen as disdaining its old allies, attacking Islam, and an international bully. Iran is the winner, for they will bide their time and control Iraq and Afghanistan by being allied with the religious leaders they promote there, just as we installed Saddam-CIA decades ago. I fear he really believes his quip "Elected? God chose me."
See Political Information Links for much information both good and bad, pro and con.
My personal read:
The above arguments are rather general, supported, and comparatively objective. While I never approved of Nixon, he was never the kind of threat to the U.S. and the world that I find George W. Bush to be. While I can live with a "C" student, a militaristic religious zealot playing bully with my world and resources is another thing.

He pushes Christianity, and claims to follow the founding fathers (mostly Deists) when they specifically opposed many of his notions. He does not live by the Golden Rule, and would object to being treated as he has treated most Americans, leave lone the rest of the world. His command of the English language extends to a lack of understanding of it. He opposes "gay marriage" to "preserve the sanctity of marriage" even when the marriage was done by a church, the ONLY way a union can be officially sanctified, and does not object to a weekend-long "Little White Chapel" marriage, or one done by the Justice of the Peace. He promotes killing our foes before they can attack us, exceeding the Old Testament's "an eye for an eye", and quite unlike Jesus' turning the other cheek.
He originally claimed the war against Iraq was to protect the U.S. from terrorism. Terrorism has escalated. He claimed the Weapons of Mass Destruction were the reason for the urgency. There were none, and the CIA would not sign off for his lie in the State of the Union speech, the only speech required by the Constitution, until he attributed it to the British. He claimed we were liberating them, but now the oppressed group has joined in shooting US, suggesting they don't feel liberated. He claimed it was to protect Americans and stabilize the middle east. Over another thousand Americans have been killed, and several times that injured, and a very stable part of the middle east (it survived U.S. opposition) is now increasingly unstable and dangerous to everybody. He claimed Iraq would pay for the war with oil. Since when is a people happy to pay for their liberation? And when is this going to happen? It wouldn't be theft?
To "Make the world Safer", he has abrogated more international treaties th an any other president, discarding the work of many diplomats to reduce danger in the world. He insulted the French and German governments for advocating continued UN searching for Weapons of Mass Destruction (like those given to Saddam by George Herbert Walker Bush and Ronald Regan) instead of going to war, when it proved they were right and he was dead wrong. We lost allies for his hubris. Leading is not going it alone.
He claims he is building a thriving economy. In truth, he has assisted in moving jobs off shore, claimed the months of losses were nothing and claimed success when they went up. The painful truth is there are more than two million fewer jobs than when he started, and the majority of the re-employed are at a fraction of their previous income, with teachers painting houses, and IT support staff working at MacD's. He has given tax breaks that predominantly go to the rich, shifting the expense of the government from those that benefit most from it to the middle class, and future generations. Enormous overtime expenditures by police departments have been mandated in the name of Federal "Homeland Security", but the funding has been by shifting local resources from normal law enforcement.
He seeks to privatize Social Security, claiming great benefit. His good friend Kenneth Lay, and largest contributor for 2000, had a company, Enron, whose retirement plan's crash is the sort of event SS was intended to mitigate. He claims to support competition and negotiation, but prohibits Social Security from negotiating lower drug costs, and insists that Pfizer drugs shipped back from Canada are not as safe (is it poisoning Canadians?).
His position that we did not have to follow the Geneva Conventions showed his religion is more like the Romans than Christ, and failed to understand that we follow them to protect our OWN soldiers. While one Iraqi prisoner was captured wounded, he was healed and returned to his captors from his first escape, finding them safer than the desert, while we beat a prisoner to death instead of treating his wounds . He did not fire his Secretary of Defense who did not bother to look at the pictures of abuse for eight days after the rest of the world exclaimed the terrorists had been gifted with the greatest recruiting poster for suicide bombers in history.
Lacking understanding of systems, including natural environment, he advocates massive destruction of the environment for very short term benefits. He listens to loggers that wish to clear cut our forests "to protect them", not understanding that a century of fire suppression has multiplied the problem, and loggers leave slash that increases the risk of fire.
I do not find honesty in him, for this "outsider" was a beltway brat, claims military machismo, but dodged real military action, claims integrity, but suppresses information, depends on weasel words, and the buck stops somewhere else.