Busy Day in Washington
Donkey Path is just a week old but I've been watching Bush closely since the 2000 election and started writing about him with a few letters to the editors and on various message boards. Bush never received his 100 day grace period for the simple reason he didn't deserve it. In the first week of his administration it was obvious that he was going to sit on his hands while California was being ripped off by various energy companies, including Enron. He then proceeded to derail Kyoto, he abrogated the anti-ballistic missile treaty, nearly botched the incident with China and began his cowboy diplomacy. Much of this was spun and explained away in an overly compliant press.
Then 9/11 happened and despite a brief glimpse of potential leadership after a clumsy first response, the arrogance of the Bush Administration became increasingly evident and the press was even more compliant, bending over a number of times when it should have been holding Bush accountable. In June 2002, when Bush gave his famous speech at West Point trying to sell the notions of unilateralism, preemptive strikes and bunker buster tactical nuclear weapons, he finally got my attention in a way no other president has.
In the last three years, I've lost track of just how many tens of thousands of words I've written. Tonight I find myself slightly at a loss of words. We've learned a lot about the Bush Administration and Republican supporters in Congress in the last six months. Finally, scandal after scandal is coming to light: Libby, Karl Rove, Ralph Reed, Frist, DeLay, Abramoff, Cunningham, the phone-jamming scandal in New England, the CIA leak case and a host of other lesser known names and scandals. But in the last week, the list seems to be multiplying. For the first time, I'm not able to keep up with it all and I notice many of the blogs that are linked over on the right side of this page are having trouble keeping up.
The Bush presidency is unraveling and we are entering a dangerous period that's going to take hard work to negotiate and resolve if our republic is going to survive reasonably intact. Donkey Path doesn't have many readers yet, partly because there hasn't been time to do the advertising and partly because this is still the shakedown period that a new blog has to go through.
Here are the Bush scandals that I can think of at this moment:
1. Despite warnings from several officials in the previous administration, there was an unwillingness to take Osama bin Laden seriously as a threat before 9/11.
2. Deceiving the American people into war against Iraq based on lies about WMDs and an al Qaida connection.
3. Repeated propaganda manipulations involving people like Jessica Lynch and Pat Tills.
4. Failure to have a plan to deal with Iraq after the taking of Baghdad.
4. Abu Ghraib.
5. Fallujah.
6. Hundreds of millions and possibly billions of dollars unaccounted for in Iraq.
7. Sweetheart no-bid contracts with favored Bush corporations.
8. Inadequate armor, resources, medical care and attention to the needs of our soldiers.
9. An empire of special rendition for any number of people around the world without any accoutability nor any certainty of the numbers and guilt of the people involved.
10. A policy of torture and lies about that policy that endangers our soldiers, ruins our national credibility, violates the Geneva conventions which are law and not options, and violates any number of American values.
11. A watch list that grows larger every day and that includes Quakers and grandmothers against war and a number of other groups that are wholly American and nonviolent.
12. The harassment of innocent people that are swept up by federal agents for reasons that are not entirely clear or properly processed through the courts.
13. A system of spying on Americans, the extent of which is not clear or fully explained. The more that is learned, the bigger this operation appears to be and the less certain it is that it only relates to al Qaida-type operations and terrorists. Depending on what aspect one is talking about when it comes to spying, we could be talking about a very large number. I expect to revise this point in the next few days or weeks.
14. An illegal and knowingly reckless outing of a CIA covert agent by the administration allegedly in revenge against a critic. The CIA leak case can be traced to the White House and seems to implicate high officials despite a deliberate attempt to block the investigation. At one point, Bush promised to fire anyone involved but this is has not happened.
There's more. Lots more I haven't listed. I may be updating this list in the coming weeks. I would appreciate comments that would add to this list.
Then 9/11 happened and despite a brief glimpse of potential leadership after a clumsy first response, the arrogance of the Bush Administration became increasingly evident and the press was even more compliant, bending over a number of times when it should have been holding Bush accountable. In June 2002, when Bush gave his famous speech at West Point trying to sell the notions of unilateralism, preemptive strikes and bunker buster tactical nuclear weapons, he finally got my attention in a way no other president has.
In the last three years, I've lost track of just how many tens of thousands of words I've written. Tonight I find myself slightly at a loss of words. We've learned a lot about the Bush Administration and Republican supporters in Congress in the last six months. Finally, scandal after scandal is coming to light: Libby, Karl Rove, Ralph Reed, Frist, DeLay, Abramoff, Cunningham, the phone-jamming scandal in New England, the CIA leak case and a host of other lesser known names and scandals. But in the last week, the list seems to be multiplying. For the first time, I'm not able to keep up with it all and I notice many of the blogs that are linked over on the right side of this page are having trouble keeping up.
The Bush presidency is unraveling and we are entering a dangerous period that's going to take hard work to negotiate and resolve if our republic is going to survive reasonably intact. Donkey Path doesn't have many readers yet, partly because there hasn't been time to do the advertising and partly because this is still the shakedown period that a new blog has to go through.
Here are the Bush scandals that I can think of at this moment:
1. Despite warnings from several officials in the previous administration, there was an unwillingness to take Osama bin Laden seriously as a threat before 9/11.
2. Deceiving the American people into war against Iraq based on lies about WMDs and an al Qaida connection.
3. Repeated propaganda manipulations involving people like Jessica Lynch and Pat Tills.
4. Failure to have a plan to deal with Iraq after the taking of Baghdad.
4. Abu Ghraib.
5. Fallujah.
6. Hundreds of millions and possibly billions of dollars unaccounted for in Iraq.
7. Sweetheart no-bid contracts with favored Bush corporations.
8. Inadequate armor, resources, medical care and attention to the needs of our soldiers.
9. An empire of special rendition for any number of people around the world without any accoutability nor any certainty of the numbers and guilt of the people involved.
10. A policy of torture and lies about that policy that endangers our soldiers, ruins our national credibility, violates the Geneva conventions which are law and not options, and violates any number of American values.
11. A watch list that grows larger every day and that includes Quakers and grandmothers against war and a number of other groups that are wholly American and nonviolent.
12. The harassment of innocent people that are swept up by federal agents for reasons that are not entirely clear or properly processed through the courts.
13. A system of spying on Americans, the extent of which is not clear or fully explained. The more that is learned, the bigger this operation appears to be and the less certain it is that it only relates to al Qaida-type operations and terrorists. Depending on what aspect one is talking about when it comes to spying, we could be talking about a very large number. I expect to revise this point in the next few days or weeks.
14. An illegal and knowingly reckless outing of a CIA covert agent by the administration allegedly in revenge against a critic. The CIA leak case can be traced to the White House and seems to implicate high officials despite a deliberate attempt to block the investigation. At one point, Bush promised to fire anyone involved but this is has not happened.
There's more. Lots more I haven't listed. I may be updating this list in the coming weeks. I would appreciate comments that would add to this list.
posted by Craig at 5:46 PM
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