Tuesday, May 25

LIKE GOVERNOR, LIKE PRESIDENT

It becomes increasingly clear that in order to protect what slim chance the president has left to be elected to the office instead of selected, he's going to be advised to lay the blame for all the failures of his war policy at the doors of the Department of Defense -- maybe he won't dump Rumsfeld, but he'll surely have to jettison Wolfowitz and Feith, etc. Bush wouldn't dare try to govern without his earthly father, Dick Cheney -- he wouldn't know how to try, and besides, it might interfere with his vacation schedule.

The only question is, will his supporters swallow this or will at least a few finally see him for the spoiled, lazy oaf he is? (I won't characterize him as so many do, a frat boy and cheerleader, since my intellectually aggressive, principled husband was both, and it didn't do him any harm.) Wingers still laud his "strong leadership," but how many of them can honestly continue to do so in the light of his refusal to take any responsibility for ANYTHING? At the very least, they should stop pretending to admire John Kennedy and Harry Truman, both of whom took responsibility for EVERYTHING that happened on their watch, even if it truly wasn't their fault.

I am sick of listening to otherwise courageous and outspoken critics like Gen. Zinni ascribing Bush's actions to "bad advice" from the civilians in Defense or "bad intelligence" from the agencies. If Bush had exercised any kind of leadership he would have demanded to hear a diversity of opinions, probed and examined all reports, questioned all sources. Instead, he has performed as president pretty much the way he did when governor of Texas. In Texas the governor's is largely a ceremonial office, with the lieutenant governor running most of the machinery of government. As governor Bush picked a couple of pet projects and pushed them forward, spending the rest of his time fundraising and making personal appearances, while Democrat Bob Bullock took care of the real business of the state. As president Bush has again selected a few pet causes -- tax cuts for the wealthy, privatizing government agencies and functions, and the "war on terra." But since Cheney has pretty much chosen the same projects, there is no lieutenant president, no Bob Bullock to run the government.

When running for president, Bush often took credit for achievements in Texas that he either had nothing to do with or actively opposed. Running for reselection, he's doing the same thing again. As governor, everything that went wrong was usually Anne Richards' (his predecessor) fault. He received credit for being a "uniter" when, in actuality, it was the ailing Bullock's love of state and citizens that caused him to reach out to the inexperienced Bush and bring the Texas Democratic Party along with him. You'd think that brave example might have taught Georgie Boy the value of bipartisanship, but the arrogant creep instead has run the most partisan White House in recent memory, endeavoring to destroy the Democratic Party and establish a Republican hegemony that will endure for a thousand years. He never learned a thing -- but of course you can't teach anything to someone who despises learning or whose arrogance and sense of privilege tells him there'll always be someone to bail him out or who can be blamed instead.

Take it from this adopted Texan, Bush is as phony a leader as he is a cowboy. "All hat and no cattle," as we say down here. Now let's see if we can get some of his supporters to face the canyon of his ignorance and irresponsibility and echo it.

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