Tag: Worst President Ever

A Story of Iraq, Katrina, and a Dismembered Girlfriend

Trish

I can’t get the report about the guy who dismembered his girlfriend in New Orleans and then committed suicide out of my head.

I am a hundred percent in the personal responsibility camp but it seems, even to me, like this story is evidence of the very bad karma George Bush has loosed upon our country

After Hurricane Katrina, Zackery Bowen and his girlfriend Adriane Hall appeared in news stories as examples of young people who had pressed on in the battered city despite evacuation orders and a lack of power and water.

Their story came to a disturbing end this week: Bowen leapt to his death from a hotel, leaving a note that led police to a French Quarter apartment where they found a woman’s charred head on the stove, limbs in the oven and torso in the refrigerator.

Yes, if it were a movie I would be hiding my eyes during this part, but the obvious details aren’t all that’ve been bothering me. I am a hundred percent in the personal responsibility camp but it seems, even to me, like this story is evidence of the very bad karma George Bush has loosed upon our country.

[Bowen] served in Kosovo and Iraq as a military policeman, earning several medals including the NATO medal and the Presidential Unit Citation, which is awarded to military units that have performed a heroic act in the face of an armed enemy.

After his discharge, Bowen returned to New Orleans, where he was hired at several bars because of his good looks, charming manners, and long blond hair…

A fellow bartender told the New Orleans Times-Picayune that after downing rounds of Miller High Life and Jameson’s Irish Whiskey, Bowen would grow depressed when talking about his military service, indicating that there was an overseas incident involving a child that haunted him.

New Orleans is the perfect backdrop in this horror screenplay. After all, the town with one of the richest histories in America was rendered a practically Biblical backwater after the Bush administration left its residents to die and its structures to crumble.

Alligators have been dragged from abandoned swimming pools. Foxes had to be removed from the airport. Coyotes are stalking rabbits and nutria…in city streets. And armadillos are undermining air conditioning units.

In the year since Hurricane Katrina drove out many of the people of New Orleans, wild animals have been moving in. Some were blown in by the winds or redistributed by the floodwaters. Others were drawn by the piles of rotting garbage and by the shelter afforded by all the abandoned homes and tall weeds.

Responsible for killing his girlfriend and himself: Bowen
Responsible for sending Bowen to Iraq and ruining his life: Bush
Responsible for ruining the formerly great American city where the murder-suicide took place: Bush
Ruin, ruin, and more ruin: Bush

Maybe I’m looking at this the wrong way, and I’m sure Bush supporters will leave nasty comments deriding me for doing just that, but it seems to me that this story is one more indication that there are consequences for what Bush himself calls “evil doing.”

Karma is often misdefined by the My Name is Earl model of direct cause and effect. A more accurate definition is the very simple idea that whatever you create more of in the world is what you, and others, are more likely to encounter. It’s the law of mathematics.

While Katrina was still a fresh crisis, Republicans loved to say there was plenty of blame to go around, meaning none of the blame was theirs. I’m not for a second defending the acts committed by this ruined man in this ruined place. But sometimes a story is so bad that you have to really think about it. And on this one, I just keep ending up at the White House door.

Platitudes and Pralines: The Ice Cream Shop Photo Op

Jon Ponder

As we reported on Friday, President Bush celebrated “Character Counts” week by campaigning in Pennsylvania for GOP Rep. Don Sherwood. The congressman’s campaign is in a bit of trouble because he is a newly admitted adulterer and accused mistress-strangler.

After the speechifying, Karl Rove took the president and Rep. Sherwood out for a photo op. I guess the “mom and apple pie” shoppe was closed, so he opted for the wholesome goodness of an ice cream parlor:

During the quick stop, the president picked a cone filled with pralines and cream while Sherwood opted for a more conservative Styrofoam cup of vanilla ice cream.

Bush told [Paul Manning, the owner of the ice cream shop] that “hard-working people are the backbone of the country,” and to “keep up the good work,” Manning recalled.

The president and Manning exited the store ahead of Sherwood and company. A crowd of onlookers cheered and applauded as the president spoke of his dairy delight in a cake cone.

“This man knows how to make good ice cream,” the president said. A reporter asked to know what kind of ice cream the commander in chief preferred. “Pralines and cream; I strongly recommend it.”

All that stage-management, scripting and security, and yet the takeaway photo of the photo op is one of the president caught mid-bite, staring awkwardly at the floor, looking retarded.

The Blank Check

Jon Ponder
“The moral force we shined outwards to the world as an eternal beacon, and inwards at ourselves as an eternal protection [has been] snuffed out.”

Keith Olbermann:

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom, to a man who may now, if he so decides, declare not merely any non-American citizens “unlawful enemy combatants and ship them somewhere, anywhere, but may now, if he so decides, declare you an “unlawful enemy combatant” and ship you somewhere, anywhere.

And if you think this hyperbole or hysteria, ask the newspaper editors when John Adams was president or the pacifists when Woodrow Wilson was president or the Japanese at Manzanar when Franklin Roosevelt was president.

And if you somehow think habeas corpus has not been suspended for American citizens but only for everybody else, ask yourself this: If you are pulled off the street tomorrow, and they call you an alien or an undocumented immigrant or an “unlawful enemy combatant,” exactly how are you going to convince them to give you a court hearing to prove you are not? Do you think this attorney general is going to help you?

This President now has his blank check.

He lied to get it.

He lied as he received it.

Is there any reason to even hope he has not lied about how he intends to use it nor who he intends to use it against?

[…]

Tabloids: Bushes Headed for Divorce

Jon Ponder

Bush has been drinking again so Laura is leaving him

It may be a coincidence that both the Globe and the National Examiner are out with cover stories alleging that President Bush’s marriage is ending. It is more than likely that there’s nothing to this story, but, as BuzzFlash pointed out, the tabs were ahead of the mainstream media on the president’s personal problems in the Clinton era.

If it’s true, it’ll be interesting to see how George W. Bush handles becoming the first president to go through a divorce while in office.

An Unhappy President

Jon Ponder

Perhaps President Bush’s expression matched his mood yesterday as he left Washington for a campaign appearance with Rep. Don Sherwood, a Pennsylvania congressman who was recently forced to admit he was having an affair after his mistress reported him for trying to strangle her. Sherwood is one of a very few Republican candidates who would welcome a campaign appearance by the president whose approval numbers are in the mid-30s.

Kevin Tillman Speaks

Trish

This one needs to be shouted from rooftops.

Kevin Tillman is the brother of Pat Tillman, the former NFL player who died in Afghanistan in what the military first termed as “killed in action” and later admitted was friendly fire. Both brothers enlisted in 2002, shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can’t be called a civil war even though it is. Something like that.

Kevin has written an extraordinary essay that contains all the thoughts he and Pat knew they would have to keep to themselves while they served our country.

You need to read it in its entirety and then email it to everyone you know. You can do both at Truth Dig but here’s part of this incredible work.

Much has happened since we handed over our voice:

Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can’t be called a civil war even though it is. Something like that.

…Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them with anything, secretly torturing them. Somehow that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few “bad apples” in the military.

…Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.

…Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated.

Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated.

Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.

Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.

…Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.

Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.

Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.

…Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active ignorance.

Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.

Somehow this is tolerated.

WaPo: ‘During National Character Counts Week, Bush Stumps for Philanderer’

Jon Ponder

Pres. Bush campaigns with Rep. Don Sherwood, his wife Carol and daughter Linda (far left)

Did you know that the Senate has proclaimed this week as “National Character Counts” week? No? Well, President Bush was well aware that Americans were celebrating character this week and yet he went to Pennsylvania to campaign for GOP Rep. Don Sherwood anyway.

You may recall that Sherwood is the congressman whose girlfriend called 911 in Washington D.C. one night claiming that Sherwood was trying to strangle her. After being sued by the girlfriend, Sherwood admitted the adultery but denied the strangling attempt and settled with his ex for $5 million.

The president’s campaign stop with Sherwood yesterday during National Character Counts week was too much even for as stalwart a member of the mainstream press as the Washignton Post’s Dana Milbank. Under the headline,”During National Character Counts Week, Bush Stumps for Philanderer,” Milbank wrote:

So it has come to this: Nineteen days before the midterm elections, President Bush flew here to champion the reelection of a congressman who last year settled a $5.5 million lawsuit alleging that he beat his mistress during a five-year affair.

[…]

Bush Signs Law That Voids U.S. Constitution — America Yawns

Jon Ponder

Q: Does this mean that under this law, ultimately the only thing keeping you, I, or the viewer out of Gitmo is the sanity and honesty of the president of the United States?

A: It does.

When President Bush signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 on Tuesday, he gave himself unlimited power to arrest and detain anyone — American citizens like yourself — without charges or even explanation. If think this is hyperbole, check out Keith Olbermann’s interview of constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley, who was a major advocate for the impeachment of President Clinton:

“This is going to go down in history as one of our greatest self-inflicted wounds. And I think you can feel the judgment of history. It won‘t be kind to President Bush. But frankly, I don‘t think that it will be kind to the rest of us. I think that history will ask, Where were you?” What did you do when this thing was signed into law?
— Jonathan Turley, constitutional expert and Clinton impeachment supporter

OLBERMANN: I want to start by asking you about a specific part of this act that lists one of the definitions of an unlawful enemy combatant as, quote, “a person who, before, on, or after the date of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a combatant status review tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the president or the secretary of defense.”

Does that not basically mean that if Mr. Bush or Mr. Rumsfeld say so, anybody in this country, citizen or not, innocent or not, can end up being an unlawful enemy combatant?

TURLEY: It certainly does. In fact, later on, it says that if you even give material support to an organization that the president deems connected to one of these groups, you too can be an enemy combatant.

And the fact that he appoints this tribunal is meaningless. You know, standing behind him at the signing ceremony was his attorney general, who signed a memo that said that you could torture people, that you could do harm to them to the point of organ failure or death.

So if he appoints someone like that to be attorney general, you can imagine who he‘s going be putting on this board.

OLBERMANN: Does this mean that under this law, ultimately the only thing keeping you, I, or the viewer out of Gitmo is the sanity and honesty of the president of the United States?

TURLEY: It does. And it‘s a huge sea change for our democracy. The framers created a system where we did not have to rely on the good graces or good mood of the president. In fact, Madison said that he created a system essentially to be run by devils, where they could not do harm, because we didn‘t rely on their good motivations.

Now we must. And people have no idea how significant this is. What, really, a time of shame this is for the American system. What the Congress did and what the president signed today essentially revokes over 200 years of American principles and values.

It couldn‘t be more significant. And the strange thing is, we‘ve become sort of constitutional couch potatoes. I mean, the Congress just gave the president despotic powers, and you could hear the yawn across the country as people turned to, you know, “Dancing with the Stars.” I mean, it‘s otherworldly.

[…]

Bushes at War: Fighting Backstage Between Aides for Bush 41 and 43

Jon Ponder

“Personally, I think he’s dying inside.”

— Aide describing former Pres. Bush’s disappointment in his son

Schadenfreude — you’re soaking in it:

The 41s were surprised that the 43s — the folks who would later botch Katrina — couldn’t see what was obvious to everyone else

[One] of the worst-kept secrets in Bush World is the dismay, in some cases disdain, harbored by many senior aides of the former President toward the administration of his son – 41 and 43, as many call them, political shorthand that refers to their numerical places in American presidential history.

For five years, the 41s have bit their collective tongues as, they complain, the 43s ignored their counsel. But as the war in Iraq has worsened and public support for the current administration has tanked, loyalists of the elder Bush have found it impossible to suppress their disillusionment – particularly their belief that many of 43’s policies are a stick in the eye of his father.

“Forty-three has now repudiated everything 41 stands for, and still [Bush senior] won’t say a word,” a key member of the elder Bush alumni said. “Personally, I think he’s dying inside.”

To 41 loyalists, the bill of indictment is voluminous. Some alleged 43 has betrayed his father’s middle-of-the-road philosophy by governing as a divider, not the uniter he promised in the 2000 campaign. Others, like former 41 speechwriter Curt Smith, argue 43 isn’t conservative enough.

“Conservatives want limited government, a balanced Middle East approach, a foreign policy that builds, not destroys, and general, not special, interest,” Smith said. “Bush 41 endorsed all of the above. Bush 43 supports none.”

The 41s were surprised that the 43s — the folks who would later botch Katrina — couldn’t see what was obvious to everyone else:

“Everyone knew how Rumsfeld acts,” another key 41 assistant said. “Everyone knew 43 didn’t have an attention span. Everyone knew Condi [Rice] wouldn’t be able to stand up to Cheney and Rumsfeld. We told them all of this, and we were told we don’t know what we’re doing.”

Like 41 himself, his aides are cock-eyed optimists who find the silver lining in Bush Jr.’s flameout:

“By comparison, the old man looks better and better,” a senior 41 hand said, with undisguised satisfaction.

Bush Claims Not to Have a Strategy for Governing if Dems Win Congress

Jon Ponder

He has no plan for Iraq and had no plan for Katrina, so it should not be a surprise that President Bush claims not to have a plan for the rest of his term if his Republican cronies in Congress lose their majorities in the election:

Some Republican strategists are increasingly upset with what they consider the overconfidence of President Bush and his senior advisers about the midterm elections November 7–a concern aggravated by the president’s news conference this week.

“They aren’t even planning for if they lose,” says a GOP insider who informally counsels the West Wing. If Democrats win control of the House, as many analysts expect, Republicans predict that Bush’s final two years in office will be marked by multiple congressional investigations and gridlock.

“The Bush White House has had no relationship with Congress,” said a Bush ally. “Beyond the Democrats, wait till they see how the Republicans–the ones that survive–treat them if they lose next month.”

It’s okay, really. I’m sure the Democrats will keep Mr. Bush very busy, if they win either house.