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September 2, 2003 - 9/11? Someone else's fault. The
FBI, the CIA, they didn't deal right with the intelligence. No,
wait, it's just those weird beige Muslim people. Not once has the
President stepped up and said, "We are paying the price for the policies
of my father," or, "After I was told in July, 2001 that chatter was way
up and a major terrorist incident looked likely, I should have paid
better attention and been more on top of the agencies to do so as well."
Nope, nothing like that from Mr. Responsibility.
How about the missing WMDs. The latest
line is, "We were lied to by Iraqi defectors." Not once has he
been man enough to say, "The rest of the world knew we were being lied
to, I should have known as well," or even more accurately, "I never
cared about WMDs - the war was to make a point in the Middle East - and
so I'm sorry I lied and said it was about WMDs." Nope, won't hear
that either.
And then there is the economy. First
he tried to blame Clinton. Then, the tax rate. Then, the tax
rate again.
But now that talk radio's - and so also
George Bush's - only plan for helping the economy, the Limbaugh cure-all
of tax cuts upon tax cuts, has not only not helped but made things far
worse, the President is up on stage, as he was yesterday before a union
crowd in Richfield, Ohio, with truly no one left to blame and no plan to
pretend will make things better if we are just patient.
So, what is President "I will usher in a new
era of responsibility," going to do now?
Well, as he showed on Labor Day, he will
find someone else to blame - and rally the American people to hate once
more for the sake of propping up his poll numbers.
This time the target is China.
President Bush has rallied the nation to hate China before. If you
remember, early on in his administration a US spy plane went down off
the Chinese coast. President Bush huffed and hollered and rallied
Americans against the slanty-eyed foe he probably thought he would
create the next Cold War with - 9/11 got in the way, but at that point,
China was to be enemy number one.
Well, the plane and crew were released, 9/11
happened, and the President - having alienated so much of the world
already - decided to back off on picking a fight with China as well.
In particular, we can use some solidarity with them in dealing with the
North Korean crisis.
But Take No Responsibility Georgie, backed
into an economic corner, decided, "Ah hell, anything that will save me
from having to be a man."
To make up for the fact that he and his
policies have only made things worse economically, President Bush
announced before the Ohio crowd his new revelation, a plan to fix the
economy that is based on, "increased pressure on China to change
currency policies that help Chinese firms undercut U.S. competitors."
That's it. No reversal on his tax
cuts. No rethinking GATT or NAFTA. No taking responsibility,
of course, or advice from people who know something about an economy,
like maybe Bill Clinton. Nope.
Instead, he will blame China, saying it
keeps its currency artificially low. This is what's to blame for
the 9.1 million people who are out of work. Not his stupid idea to
impose steel tarrifs which, "Some business groups say... have cost
thousands of jobs among auto manufacturers and other steel consumers in
the Midwest," as reported by the Washington Post. He didn't stand
up there and say, "My bad," to the union workers, "I messed up and I'll
fix it now." Nope, the Chinese are to blame.
This one is a toughy, though. And the
President likely doesn't care. He can't push China to change
policies now, since we need them to help with the North Korea fray.
But getting the change and fixing things is probably not his goal.
His goal is just to have someone or something beside himself and his
complete lack of beneficial economic policies to blame when giving a
speech in Ohio.
Just to pretend he is doing something else,
he decided to make a new post. That's right. After over 2
and half years in office, his big solution is to give a job and title to
someone, making them 'assistant secretary of commerce for manufacturing
and services', and make them figure out how to fix the manufacturing
economy.
Funny, I thought that's what the President
said he had a great plan to do all along, that he had implemented a plan
to do just that, that he knew the answers, had looked into things.
Now he is saying he will finally, near the end of his first term, take
the bold step of asking somebody to look into the problem.
Truly, truly bold.
So, to review, President Bush has announced
a bold new plan to fix the economy which consists of:
1) Insulting foreigners, the Chinese in
particular, every time he has to give a speech, by saying inflammatory
things - you know, say tough-sounding things, like that "he wants to
send a message overseas that Americans "expect there to be a fair
playing field when it comes to trade," which is what the Post reports he actually said on
Monday. This is the usual Bush cowardly M.O., his standard turning
to tough and macho sounding, hate-creating attacks that allow him to,
once again, in true wuss style, flee from the proper acceptance of
responsibility. He will boldly promise to, "send a message
overseas." Hey George, I think overseas has gotten the message
about you, and they are in the process of having your phone
disconnected.
2) And to follow this up, he will, also
boldly, give someone the title of, 'fixer of the things that are wrong
that make people unhappy with me.' Even he must have a tough time
keeping a straight face when issuing this idiotic, cowardly charade.
Redefining cowardice, never ever taking
responsibility for anything. He didn't take it for his dark past,
he doesn't take it for his time gone AWOL from the Texas Air National
Guard, and he won't take it for anything he does while President.
Which leaves President Bush where he has always stood - as long as
people embrace his call to hate and shift blame to others, they rally
around him. The second they get tired of the game and simply hold
the President accountable for his record and actions, he is done,
because the record is atrocious.
Just a warning, Georgie: hunger,
joblessness, and mounting body counts tend to ruin people's desire to
play along.
But for now - blame China! Those
slant-eyed bastards are the ones who have ruined our economy!
Blame, blame, blame...
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