Wednesday, November 29, 2006

The Walls

The walls are coming in on little man Bush. Last month America voted "no confidence" to his Administration and did the next best thing to voting him out of office. His new year brings, for the first time in his Presidential experience, not even one House of Congress on his side.

He escapes, like many previous Presidents losing support at home, overseas for some high profile foreign visits. The kind that, if significant or showy enough to get reported, might reverse the tide back here. Masters of the foreign visit have included President Ronald Reagan and President Bill Clinton. Not the first President Bush, of course. His reputation was sealed when he threw up on the Japanese Prime Minister.

Here's how George W. Bush, the worst President since Ulysses S. Grant (think of losing the Reconstruction...the post-U.S. Civil War Reconstruction, as opposed to the pre-Iraq Civil War one) is doing, a sequence of events since Tuesday:

- Bush goes to the Baltic countries. Not real glamorous. Maybe just visiting places that let us create secret torture prisons for the past couple wars. Maybe just all he could get. The big news: he won't acknowledge the Iraqi Civil War and vows not to withdraw troops "until the mission is complete." Prick.

- The White House leaks a memo written by National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, one of the neo-con Cheney boys who got us into this foolish war, reveals distrust for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and offers him more pie-in-sky ideas for what he should do to save the disaster over there -- on the eve of his meeting with Bush.

- al-Maliki reaches a security agreement with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

- The whole Moktada al-Sadr contingent walks out of Parliament to protest al-Maliki's meeting with Bush on Wednesday.

- Prime Minister al-Maliki of Iraq and King Abdullah II of Jordan abruptly back out of a meeting with President Bush, some big dinner thing, leaving Bush press aides to try in vain to explain, uh, why this isn't a big international humiliation.

Has America, for let's say a Century, ever been more shunned in global affairs?

And just in time for the Thursday morning news, the NY Times publishes the advance word on the results coming from Bush Family consigliore James Baker's bipartisan Iraq Study Group: troop withdrawal, starting 2007.

Meanwhile, El Presidente is thinking El Legacy. Only he's incapable of crafting one; he has to get someone to buy it for him:
Facing the prospect of a lame-duck last two years in office, President Bush has decided to focus on what he hopes will form the cornerstone of his legacy: the George W Bush Presidential Library.

The cost of this memorial to a leader not renowned for his love of literature has been estimated at $500m - three times the sum spent on his predecessor Bill Clinton's presidential library.

Can't wait to see the donor's list for that puppy. Wow.

It was bad enough that his Saudi masters summoned Dick Cheney to their side like a simpering Toady the Bagman. They see what's coming, what Bush has wrought. There's going to be a big battle in Iraq, and unlike most of us, Bush wants in. The Shiite and Sunni sides are preparing for all hell about to break loose.

Think of the man responsible for it all. Think of how far he's come since his 90+% approval rating in the months following 9/11.

Think of how it's all suddenly endgame now, no matter how hard he tries to fight the notion.

As John Mellencamp says, "Some people ain't no damn good..."
Saw my picture in the paper
Read the news around my face
And now some people
Don't want to treat me the same

When the walls
Come tumblin' down
When the walls
Come crumblin', crumblin'
When the walls
Come tumblin', tumblin'
Down

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think at this point it's fair to say US Grant isn't even in the same league w/ GWB, and the holder of the title "WPE" is a no-brainer.

Most people understand that the damage, both foreign & domestic, that GWB has done will take decades to reverse. However, I think they also assume that he's a lame duck & can't make things even worse over the next two yrs.

Au contraire, mon frere.

This angry dimwit will stop at nothing to prove that he's been right all along (pick the topic or initiative) and his detractors wrong. As such, you can expect a ratcheting up of risk (and, subsequently, damage) on all fronts for the next 2 years unless someone forcibly evicts him from the White House. (Think: Stay the Course with a vengeance, be it in foreign policy, economic policy, social policy, judicial nominees, etc, etc).

He's a fool and a loser who not only can't EVER admit mistakes but worse, deep down believes that he's really a genius and a winner, despite decades of hard evidence to the contrary.

Batten down the hatches -- hard as it may be to believe, the worst is yet to come.

Mark Netter said...

I fear you're right. This will be where the new Democratic Congress proves either its worth or that it is simply the same as the ones who let the War happen in the first place.

Impeachment, or the start of the process, may be the only thing to put this menace in check.

Anonymous said...

I think it's high time Papa Bush throws Junior across his knee and belt-whips him. Slap... slap...slap...

Mark Netter said...

I'm expecting Bush to ignore the findings of Baker's commission, and wonder how the hell he'll get spanked if he does.