For a guy who basically ducked military duty, George W. Bush sure is quick to call out the military. (Compensation, maybe?)
His recent ploy to call out the National Guard to secure our southern borders may appeal to nativists, but isn’t going to relieve the pressure of people whose economic prospects have taken a sharp downturn in recent years, probably because of NAFTA. Nature abhors a vacuum, folks, and economic pressure is simply lower here than in Mexico.
(By the way, the immigrants are doing the “jobs Americans won’t do” because employers want to pay substandard wages for those jobs.)
All this is economics 101. And Bush isn’t really doing anything about it.
But we have his next “Mission Accomplished” photo op to look forward to.
Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen’s column about Stephen Colbert’s performance is the complaint of someone who’s a little uncomfortable with the heat.
Was Colbert unfunny and rude? Well that’s satire, not comedy. I’ll grant that satire is widely regarded as rude, must obviously by those being satirized ? Cohen included, in this case.
As to the risk of speaking truth to power, Cohen might ask Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson about the consequences of crossing this administration. He might also ask whether it was fear or something baser that has made the news media this administration?s lap dog as Bush lied us into war.
Besides, saying the emperor has no clothes is a form of speaking truth to power. As polls show, most Americans are seeing what Colbert said: This emperor has no clothes, and the truth — on the failure in Iraq, on fiscal responsibility, on health care, on the environment, etc. — is finally being laid bare. What should upset Cohen is that we’ve been reduced to hearing it in satire, rather than in news reports, over the past six years.
But in the end, Cohen’s right. What Colbert said isn’t funny. It’s sad but true.
It’s been a long time, and revisionism has been running at full speed, so I’m not sure how people react to the Viet Nam era phrase, “We had to destroy the village to save it.”
I bring this up because our President seems bound to destroy the Constitution to save it, and I wonder what people are thinking about that.
As amply documented by Charlie Savage (summary and link to Boston Globe’s registration site here), George W. Bush is attempted to subsume both the legislative and judicial branches of government under the presidency.
While I find this infuriating, my fury isn’t so much directed at George W. Bush, whom I basically regard as a stupid fool. Rather, I am bitterly disappointed and angry with the people who elected him and our various watchdog institutions — notably the news media — who are failing to pillory him at every opportunity.
Perhaps one of my readers can point to some success of this presidency, but in both foreign and domestic affairs, he is destined for the utter contempt of history.
But again, the larger question is, can we trust democracy? We have democratically elected someone who is acting with utter contempt for both our laws and the interests of the vast majority of the citizens of this country and the world. When will the electorate begin again to act it its own interests? When will demand responsible government from its leaders?
Enough!