Bush Has Set a Dangerous Precedent for the Executive….

 

In a sea of blunders, George Bush has proved one thing. You can rule through fear and politicians will not do the right thing in the name of re-election. Profiles in Courage is as dead as Julius Ceasar. Our president has proved you can be incompetent, an accomplished liar, a thief, you can abuse executive power – you can do just about anything you want, and one thing is certain – the opposition party will not stop you. This is how is begins. This is how one dangerously misguided individual can easily set a precedent that could very well make Congress irrelevent.

It really started with Richard Nixon knocking on the door of dictatorship, however Bush has opened that door wide open and in turn will afford future presidents the opportunity to abuse executive power and  consequently damage our democracy in the process – Democrats and Republicans alike. There is a reason why the Democrats have a 25% approval rating in Congress at the moment – failure to act. The power elite in this country has its hooks in our federal government on a dangerous level. When one man or woman sets an agenda to consolidate power and shred the constitution in the process, while neglecting the people, someone needs to do the right thing if only in the name of – doing the right thing…corporate determinism be damned.

Here is a short list of what our modern Ceasar has done…and this is only the stuff journalists have managed to uncover in one of the most hostile White House press corp environments ever…  

NSA Warrantless Surveillance Controversy

2003 Invasion of Iraq

Constitutionality of invasion Iraq and deceiving the American people 

Justification for invasion of Iraq

Unlawful combatant status of captured combatants and mal-treatment of those detainees 

Neglecting Veterans (VA Controversy)

Leaking of classified information

Commuting “Scooter” Libby’s sentence

Declassifying top secret information for political purposes

Improper politicization of the United States attorney offices

Irresponsible treatment of Hurricane Katrina victims 

Lying to Congress

Refusal to adhere to Congress’ subpeona powers 

Will our Democratic Congress save us? I am not optimistic. I for one will punish any member of my party that refuses to follow through on campaign promises and that includes Hillary Clinton. If the Democrats want my vote, they better learn to stand up to the Republicans and fight the way Republicans fight. Real change and the progressive agenda will only be advanced through tactics that may border on the extreme – if you call cutting war funding extreme. The entrenched power elite has a strangle hold on our democracy and in order to release that grip, thinking people better begin to re-evaluate what the Democrats are doing or more to the point – not doing. I am not anti-Democrat but I am anti-stupid. Things better change or the next election may not be as much of a done deal as most progressives think. Could Barack Obama leading in fund raising last quarter be a leading indicater?

The Under Current of Why We Must Leave…

Anyone who is paying attention on any level has all the reasons why U.S. involvement in the Iraq War must end burned into their political conscious – Bush lied, bad plan, incompetent management, impossible logistics…on and on and on. But how about we take a short stroll on the human side. When the U.S. first invaded Iraq, there were plenty of people, in particular young Iraqi college students, who were prepared to risk their lives to exit the one way road to nowhere that was Saddam’s Iraq. They wanted the West. They wore jeans and listened to Metallica. They blogged with American students and listened to non-state news from the BBC. They greeted the invading force with open arms until all of the aforementioned botching of just about everything brought them full circle that started at hope and ended in a feeling of betrayal and eventually evolved into hatred. George Bush’s failure to comprehend, trust and protect these seeds of hope are manifested in the tragedy that is Iraq today. The clock of freedom has been wound back at least twenty-five years or more. Long after American troops are gone and long after this president’s arrogance is forgotten, these pillars of potential that learned English from American movies and music and whose motivation to create a free state was derived from the crushing oppression of the Baathist regime, will now spend the rest of their lives trying to resuccitate a battered, bloody and broken country and wondering why they ever trusted us to begin with. The troops may leave next year, but the war will rumble on for decades. This is the saddest consequence of a president not fit to lead.