Let’s suppose that, contrary to American political philosophy and tradition, Plato was right, and we need a philosopher king to achieve an excellent society.

The question then arises, is George W. Bush that philosopher?

If so, then the power grabs he’s been undertaking — suspension of habeas corpus, warrantless domestic spying, lying us into war, recess appointments to avoid advice and consent from the Senate — should not trouble us in the slightest.

If, on the other hand, you believe that
– an enormous deficit
– thousands of dead Americans
– tens of thousands of horribly wounded Americans
– absent health care policies
– failed energy policy
– dubious environmental policy
– cronyism — Harriet Miers, for the love of God
– to say nothing of a personal history of failure

are indications that Bush isn’t the king Plato had in mind, then, America, you had better wake up. For starters, contact your representatives before Alito is confirmed to the Supreme Court, where his philosophy of presidential power could tip our country further toward banana republicanism.

And to those who reflexively approve of anything Bush does: Remember, you won’t always have a Republican President. Would you want Hillary Clinton to have the sort of power Bush is demanding for himself?

Leaving aside the fact that I reflexively distrust anything George W. Bush says, refusing to assume either his perspicacity or veracity, let’s stipulate that the President ought to have extraordinary powers to spy during wartime. But let’s also stipulate that Congress gets to say when we’re at war. This, of course, is what the Constitution says.

In other words, short of a declaration of war, the wartime powers Bush is claiming aren’t his.

Unless, of course, we want to completely ignore the Constitution and let the president unilaterally declare war. This is something I don’t want; I don’t know who does. [Maybe Sam Alito — comment added 9 Jan 06.]

I think it’s time we take pains to point out that when the President says we’re at war, that expression has no legal standing.

Kevin Drum at the Washington Monthly has put this better than I have.

Bush really doesn’t know what he’s doing. At best, he’s a dupe for people who believe that we can create Middle Eastern allies by force. At worst, he believes that himself.

The Iraq war was originally advertised as a way to protect our nation from imminent threats from Saddam Hussein. Now we’re being told that it’s a good idea because there will be constitutional democracy in the Middle East.

Let’s take a deep breath and recognize that a) such a thing may not actually develop in a meaningful sense, and that b) an Iraqi constitutional democracy may not behave in ways that Bush, or Americans generally, approve of.

Furthermore, it’s probably the case that a lot of Iraqis voted in large part out of the hope that it would get U.S. troops out of their country.

It remains astonishing and worrisome to me that people believe any utterance issuing from George W. Bush’s mouth.

So, let’s suppose A breaks B’s arm. Let’s further suppose that A doesn’t let B see your doctor, but A does send A’s son, who has no medical training, to see to B’s medical needs. In desperation, B splints his own arm, and when it proves to be healing reasonably — or at all, for that matter — A takes all the credit.

Substitute, Bush for A, Iraqis for B, and Iraq itself for the arm, and you’ll have a neat summary of how the Administration is going to play the elections in the coming days.

Let’s see.

Donald Rumsfeld: “Well, the Office of Management and Budget [run by Bush appointees] , has come up come up with a number that’s something under $50 billion for the cost [of the war in Iraq].” Congress has already approved four spending bills for Iraq with funds totaling $204.4 billion. Some total cost estimates top $1 trillion.

Dick Cheney: “The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but what they want to the get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that. ” More than 2,000 American military personnel have been killed since President Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech.

George Bush 2000: “I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders.” George Bush 2005:”Rebuilding Iraq will require a sustained commitment from many nations, including our own: we will remain in Iraq as long as necessary, and not a day more.”

George Bush 2000: “Morale in today’s military is too low. We’re having trouble meeting recruiting goals.” In the 2005 fiscal year that ended in September, the army fell 8 per cent shy of its recruiting mission for 80,000 active-duty enlistments, a shortfall of 6,627 bodies. Recruiting for the army reserve was 12.5 per cent, or 2,775 enlistees, below target. (More)

I know there are people who will never, repeat never, admit any failings in George Bush, but this is a form of delusion happily confined to a dwindling few.

The rest of us are coming to see Iraq as an indication of the utter fecklessness and foolishness of George W. Bush and his political allies. The carelessness and wishful thinking of the Iraq misadventure can be found in fiscal policy, health policy, educational policy, environmental policy, trade policy, and foreign affairs.

History will harshly judge this Administration.

Here in Wisconsin, some folks are proposing to amend the constitution to prevent the marriage of same sex couples. I don’t get it.

This was originally couched in “Defense of Marriage” language. How in the world this defends my marriage is beyond me.

How is marriage under attack in this country? How about the failure of the economy to provide family supporting jobs, or decent health care to millions of families?

(And by the way, it seems to me that the people who have accused gays and lesbians of being promiscuous or otherwise sexually irresponsible would want to encourage, not deny, stable relationships among gays and lesbians.)

There are so many issues that affect so many lives in important ways — war, pollution, crime, poverty, runaway healthcare costs — that even if gay marriage were a problem, it’d be the last problem to solve before utopia were achieved, as far as I can tell. It’s a shame to have our legislators waste their time — or ours — with a discussion about something that is simply not that important to the common good.

Although in truth, I welcome the discussion, because if it really gets serious consideration from the public, perhaps we can finally put it to rest as a ploy by bigoted, fear-mongering politicians to distract us from the real injustices and follies being perpetrated by “hope based” politicians — i.e, politicians who hope Americans won’t see the bankruptcy of their policies, and the evidence of their corruption and incompetence.

If you think your marriage is threatened by someone else’s marriage, you’re having problems no amendment will solve.

Here’s how I see Bush recapitulating Nixon’s demise:

The Niger Yellowcake document. Where did it come from? My guess is Dick Cheney’s office.
So someone there (maybe multiple someones) is going to burn for it.

But the key question is what did the President know, and when did he know it? I don’t think Bush had to know about the provenance of the Niger memo — would he even know its real significance? Doubtful, since he’s a notoriously incurious person.

But when Wilson blew the cover on that planted evidence, Cheney et al., including probably Rove, went into hyper damage control I think out of fear that its provenance might be revealed. While Bush presumably didn’t fully grasp the why of the damage control, he knew about the illegalities involved — specifically the outing of Valerie Plame to discredit and punish Wilson. He’s keeping Rove on, despite knowing that Rove was involved in this sordid episode. And that’s where he’s going to get it.

Now, we have a Republican Congress, which can’t be expected to investigate and impeach Bush. But after the 2006 elections…?

Or to put it another way, what’s more important:

1. Perjury involving a President’s personal sexual behavior
2. Perjury involving the compromising of national security

In 1998, the right wing thought item #1 was a grave problem for the republic; today they think item #2 is no big deal.

Wanna guess what I think?

So, the polls are telling us that the scales are finally falling from the eyes of a fraction of people who voted for George W. Bush. Perhaps even some of those who voted for him twice.

To those of us who saw nothing wrong with eight years of peace and prosperity in 2000, and who saw everything wrong with Bush’s social and fiscal policies and an immoral war predicated on lies in 2004, there is no great epiphany in the quagmire of Iraq, the ethical and moral outrage of RoVakgate (the Valerie Plame affair), the dismal cronyism revealed by Katrina, the unravelling of DeLay’s corrupt empire, etc., etc.

But the question now is, what do we do with the mess Bush will leave us with? I think the answer is: Rub our noses in it. People, if you vote like fools for fools, there’s going to be a hell of a cleanup afterwards.

The prime example is Iraq. We have a moral obligation to fix that benighted country, now that we’ve dismantled it. As Colin Powell famously said, “You break it, you own it.” We have as a nation to own up to our responsibility to fix what Bush broke, because WE LET HIM BREAK IT!

Similarly, we’re going to have to raise taxes to arrest Bush’s slide toward feudalism. Yes, tax the rich. And the rest of us, too. It’s either that or leave our children a grossly unbalanced economy and social structure.

That’s one of the downsides of democracy: We are responsible for what our government does. Never has the lesson been clearer or more immediate than what Bush has delivered.

Thus, we have a great opportunity for a good old-fashioned civics lesson. This isn’t make believe. You can’t believe something simply because it makes you feel good right now. You can’t pretend that the country’s biggest problems are gay marriage and abortion. You can’t pretend that invading Iraq will make us safer. (Why the hell did we invade Iraq again? Oh, yeah, it was a neocon experiment gone very, very wrong.) If you scratch the poison ivy, you’ll get an infection!

In 2000,and again in 2004, many Americans accepted a childish, fairy tale view of the world and the role of government in our lives. Sadly many still do. But, finally some people are pulling their thumbs out of their mouths and asking, “What the hell just happened?”

It’s time to remind them that the right question is: “What the hell did we do?”

It’s been a while since I’ve shared my thoughts here. In the meantime, it’s been hard to keep up with the downward spiral of the administration. So here are some quick thoughts.

First, the good news seems to be that the timing was right (that is, somewhat left of far right) for the Supreme Court nominations. I won’t argue that Roberts or Miers should the first choices for progressives, but surely our worst fears have not materialized.

Second, a question: Will Karl Rove swing for his outing of Valerie Plame? Maybe he’s finally overreached, and will get burned. Ditto, Tom Delay. Maybe years of success have finally made them vulnerable to thinking they were untouchable, and they lost control. I think that’ll be true politically; I certainly hope it’s true legally as well.

But the real question is — at last — can we advance a progressive agenda among the (roughly) centrist voters who were hoodwinked by Bush, and are finally smelling the stench of arrogance, incompetence and sheer foolishness emanating from that wing of the Republican party that has so distorted American political life? Say it with me: “It’s the Gulfs, (Persian, of Mexico), stupid.”

To put it another way: Our challenge isn’t Bush, who’s apparently self-destructing (maybe in hindsight we’ll see that as inevitable). Rather, our challenge is capitalize on his implosion to recapture the American “center,” and bring it leftward back to the center.

As America watched the Gulf Coast descend into third world chaos, how many of us reflected on the choices they made during the past two Presidential elections.

This is the America of those who hate government, of those who wish to ?Starve the beast,? who lower the taxes of the rich to reduce the federal government?s ability to affect our lives.

These are people whose presumption is that government is bad and who therefore are not psychologically prepared to employ government assets when they are desperately required. These are people whose first instinct when a disaster is looming is to squeeze the last bit out of their planned vacation time.

And, let?s not forget, these are the people who brought you looting in Iraq, and that poor country’s descent into man-made hell.

Heading this government is a person who has never really trained himself to solve problems; who?s had problems solved for him; who?s run businesses into the ground, and is now running our military and the homeland into the ground.

George Bush is a feckless, smirking incompetent who has given us thousands of dead and maimed American soldiers, tens of thousands of dead and maimed Iraqi (by the way turning that country into a terrorism factory), and now has created a government whose leaden response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster will ultimately be held responsible for the unnecessary deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of people in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region.

I understand this is obvious to many, but since a large number of people voted for George Bush, it?s worth saying explicitly.

If you want to see the future as envisioned by George Bush and his ilk, look to New Orleans.

As you contemplate the Administration’s response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster, remember that these are the people who brought you looting in Baghdad.

This is an administration that thinks government is a bad thing. This is a President who never solved a problem in his sheltered life of privilege.

Guess what, folks: They don’t know how to use government, just abuse it, just “starve the beast.”

I guess we can just let market forces fix the Gulf Coast.

It _is_ refreshing to hear the mainstream media finally point out some of the Administration’s incompetence. Too bad for all our dead and maimed troops, the tens of thousands of dead, maimed and chaos-ridden Iraqis, and the dead and suffering of the Gulf Coast, that it’s taken the news media six-plus years to do it.

First off: http://www.redcross.org/

Regarding gasoline, I don’t want to hear bitching about gas prices if:

• You’re not driving the speed limit
• You’re not managing your energy, e.g., if you’re flying off the line when the light turns green, and rushing up to the next red light.
• Your personal automotive vehicle gets less than 20 mpg. Dumb,dumb, dumb!

And where has our “Oil President” been the last six years? Presumably working on an energy bill that’ll increase fleet fuel economy standard by 3 mpg over the next 5 years. Relevant link.

He’s also been cutting funds for New Orleans flood control. Relevant link.

Lousiana Nationa Guard? Decimated by deployment to Iraq. Relevant Link.

So, don’t look to George for any sensible government response. Go light on the gas pedal, and contribute the Red Cross’s hurricane relief.

Seems everyone’s talking about plans for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Let me submit three:

1) Best Plan: Have George W. Bush withdraw from the White House.

2) Too Late Plan: It would have been useful for George Sr. to have withdrawn from Barbara before W was conceived.

3) Guess What Plan: The U.S. is building a large permanent military infrastructure in Iraq. No one in this administration is serious about withdrawal.

Which takes us back to Plan #1.

Greg

Pity the poor students at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Or at least that subset who take classes form Victor Davis Hanson, whose column “Remember the Whole Lesson of Past Tragedy” appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on July 1.

In that column Hanson, by way of cautioning against glib comparisons between the Iraq quagmire and the Vietnam quagmire, suggests that the primary lesson to be learned is that when the U.S. withdraws from ill-advised wars, the local population suffers.

Of course, the real lesson is that when the U.S. government begins protracted military involvement under false pretexts (The Gulf of Tonkin incident for Vietnam, WMD and terrorism for Iraq), the public eventually catches on and demands that we withdraw.

This is the fundamental problem with Bush’s Iraq policy: We still really haven’t been told why he did it. And we know that the reasons and cost estimates we given were a combination of deliberate falsehoods and incompetence.

The American people want to do the right thing, and are willing to pay a high price to do it. But it’s becoming clear to a growing number of Americans that we have been led into a bad situation by deceitful incompetents.

Tonight George W. Bush spoke to the nation about the course of the war in Iraq. I frankly cannot see why anyone would believe any utterance that issued from his mouth, but let me address a few of his points.

First, Bush calls Iraq the latest battlefield in the war on terror. One might think that it’s the only battlefield, but sadly, we attacked Iraq before finishing our business in Afghanistan — what had been the nexus of terrorism before Bush’s Iraq adventure. And of course, the Taliban is not finished there, yet. Indeed, Osama Bin Laden is probably still lurking thereabouts.

Second, Bush claims, “We will prevent al-Qaeda and other foreign terrorists from turning Iraq into what Afghanistan was under the Taliban.” Far from preventing it, we have CAUSED it. Bush and his minions have turned Iraq into a terrorists’ playground, where Americans and Iraqis are being violently killed and maimed every day.

What Bush was not forthright enough to say — but what all Americans are coming to see — is that we are indeed hip deep in a quagmire of his devising. Americans want an honest discussion about a

Let’s be clear: To want to extricate our nation from Bush’s failing adventurism in Iraq is not defeatism. It’s a natural reaction to paying a high price for a foolish and deceit-riddled policy.

Much of the American public supported the U.S. attack on Iraq because the Administration led them to believe that Iraq posed a threat to us by a) aiding and abetting Al Qaeda and b) developing Weapons of Mass Destruction that could be reasonably expected to be deployed against us.

In other words, we were threatened by Iraq and needed to pre-emptively attack to eliminate that threat.

More and more poeple are coming to see that that neither (a) nor (b) were true, and, as the Downing Street Memo shows, these were poorly established and largely irrelevant to the U.S. Administration’s urge to attack Iraq. Furthermore, our attack upon and occupation of Iraq has created a nexus of terrorism where one didn’t exist before.

Now we are being asked to support the war to support democracy in Iraq and so that we don’t “lose” in Iraq. No doubt many people are also concerned about pulling out and having 2,000 Americans die in vain.

Given the recent revelation of the identity of Watergate source Deep Throat, it’s interesting to contemplate the trajectory of the American press since those heady days.

Briefly, rather than exposing Republican dirty tricksters, it appears that the press is being played like violins.

A case in point was a June 18 item headlined “Dean Condemns ‘Anti-Semitic Literature’.” The lead in the article was that Dean was responding to the distribution of material that, among other things, suggested that Israel plotted 9/11 to increase American involvement in the Middle East.

The material was distributed at a June 16 Democratic forum examining the so-called Downing Street Memo, which suggests that President Bush was hell-bent to attack Iraq without adequate legal or intelligence grounds.

So a story about an inquiry into possible misdeeds by Bush becomes a story about the supposed anit-Semitism among Democrats. (I saw nothing in the paper about the forum the day after it was held; the first mention was in the article about anti-Semitic literature, two days later.)

Gee, I wonder who was distributing the material.

Deep Throat, pick up the phone!

I picked up a quarter yesterday and noticed the legends on it:
“In God we Trust”
“E Pluribus Unum”

I don’t think most Americans think of these as contradictory, but apparently Tom Frist does.

When he defends the “nuclear option” as a counter to the enemies of people of faith, he’s talking about a relatively small group of “people of faith” who agree with him. Where does that leave me?

I sing in a Roman Catholic parish choir and am surrounded by people who I’m pretty sure don’t share my political views. Do I think they are enemies of people of faith? No more than I think they are.

The government is being run now by people who believe they have such a sure grasp of truth that they can dispense with the rules of government put in place by people who didn’t have their certainty. The Founders prudently created a system in which competing views had a chance for a respectful hearing, and ordinarily some accomodation by way of compromise. The idea, of course, is that no mere mortal

President Bush said yesterday that there s no Social SecurityTrust Fund — it’s just IOUs.

So, suppose I set up a trust fund for my daughter, and put the money into government bonds. According to George Bush, this is a very, very bad idea, since the money wouldn’t exist somehow.

Maybe corporate bonds are safer? Like, say, Enron bonds?

I wonder how much of Junior’s wealth from daddy was in bonds…

Funny how the word “trust” can mean so many things.