They're All Ganging Up on the Worst President Ever

The word is spreading. George W. Bush is the worst fuckup in American history. Period. Jimmy Carter got lots of publicity the other day for calling the Bush Administration “the worst in history.” He said “I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history. The overt reversal of America’s basic values as expressed by previous administrations, including those of George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon and others, has been the most disturbing to me.”

He also condemned Bush’s faith-based initiatives. “The policy from the White House has been to allocate funds to religious institutions, even those that channel those funds exclusively to their own particular group of believers in a particular religion. As a traditional Baptist, I’ve always believed in separation of church and state and honored that premise when I was president, and so have all other presidents, I might say, except this one.”

Regarding Iraqmire, Carter said “We now have endorsed the concept of pre-emptive war where we go to war with another nation militarily, even though our own security is not directly threatened, if we want to change the regime there or if we fear that some time in the future our security might be endangered. But that’s been a radical departure from all previous administration policies.”

Some of our allies aren't quite as kind and gentle as Carter was. On the 4-year anniversary of Mission Accomplished Day, the Edmonton Sun slammed Bush’s ridiculous “Mission Accomplished” flightsuit stunt:

“Four years later, more than 3,000 U.S. soldiers are dead, and some 24,000 wounded. Bush administration claims that Iraq harboured weapons of mass destruction have been revealed as outright lies, swallowed unquestioningly by the media. The war costs U.S. taxpayers $200 million a day and $1 trillion so far. And terrorism, in Iraq and around the world, is fueled like never before by propaganda and the impression Americans are occupiers not liberators, bullies not saviours.”

In Argentina a newspaper editorial said:

“Bush is the only U.S. commander-in-chief to have initiated one war, only to have lost three. He never managed to catch bin Laden nor destroy al-Qaeda; he failed to defeat terrorism; he wasted the political capital awarded him by September 11th; and public opinion has come to detest him. The nation, once indulgent of his lies — lethal lies for over 3,000 of its own sons and daughters — no longer believes him. No U.S. President has ever harmed his country as much.”

And that’s not all. In Pakistan, the PakTribune said:

“Thanks to the murderous fools in the current US administration, civil life in Iraq, now at the 'point of no return,' is teetering at the edge of total anarchy. As an accompanying fallout, along with an estimated million dead Iraqis, a morally, financially and diplomatically bankrupt America, the inept charlatans have also successfully managed to thoroughly radicalize the whole region. From Sudan to Pakistan and beyond, the ranks of America haters now stand swollen like never before. The recruiters for suicide brigades now drool non-stop with glee at the long cues of raging applicants outside their murky caves.”

Ouch! And these are our allies (a category which has been steadily shrinking). God knows what the people who hate us must be thinking.

Jimmy Carter, when he was condemning Bush, also slammed Tony Blair for being one of Bush’s skankiest bitches. He said “And I think the almost undeviating support by Great Britain for the ill-advised policies of President Bush in Iraq have been a major tragedy for the world.”

Blair might have a chance to redeem his skanky reputation. There's a chance he’ll replace Wolfowitz at the World Bank. This could be a new beginning for him.

Yo, Tony: If George W. Bush approaches you again, tighten your sphincter muscles.

Iraq vs. Vietnam

This columnist is saying “A generation ago, Vietnam blew up politics as we knew it. Why isn’t that happening now?” Then he answers his own question by saying the Democrats haven’t offered any solutions yet. He says “Democrats haven’t fashioned a compelling (even to themselves) alternative to George W. Bush’s world view. Unless they do, they could lose in 2008.”

Regardless of whether that’s true, there's another reason Iraq hasn’t blown up in our faces. We don’t have a draft any more. At least technically we don’t. (Although, with the same “volunteers” being herded back to Iraq again and again and again, even after their doctors have declared them medically unfit for battle — but I digress…)

The Vietnam War had its share of chickenhawks —Cheney, Wolfowitz and all the rest of those pathetic armchair warriors at Project For A New American Century. But they had to work for it. They had to constantly make sure their draft status didn’t change to 1A. The most reliable way to keep from getting drafted was to stay in college — even if it meant getting Ph.D.s in twelve different subjects. At one time being married would keep people from being drafted, but that changed sometime during the Vietnam war. After they changed it, you could be drafted even if you were married with children. And the number of occupations that were “draft-safe” kept on shrinking.

So it was a constant struggle if you wanted to be a chickenhawk, and it made for some awkward contradictions. “We need to keep fighting over there and do whatever it takes to keep the Communists from taking over uh oh I just got a letter from my Draft Board, I have to go straighten this out right away. Oh God…”

Today’s chickenhawks, on the other hand, only have to do one thing to stay out of the military: Don’t enlist. It doesn’t get any easier than that.

A tiny percentage of America’s population — service members and their families — is gravely affected by the Iraqi war. It’s the center of their lives; it’s turning their lives upside down. Meanwhile, the other 99% (just guessing at the number) can just go on about their routines, totally unaffected by the war. They might argue about it, but they aren’t contributing anything to it and they aren’t inconvenienced by it.

And THAT is why Iraq hasn’t “blown up American politics.”