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March 15, 2004 – President Bush
wants to wrap himself in 9/11. Well, we would like to do the same.
To the Bush campaign team, the idea of
using 9/11 as the defining moment of the Bush presidency is on the
top of their list. They have worked 9/11 into their early ads,
setup their convention in New York to coincide with the anniversary
of 9/11, and have made the theme of the President’s re-election run
“steady leadership in changing times.”
Their thinking follows the line that
9/11 defines the Bush presidency, highlighting certain traits in the
President that will appeal to voters.
In reality, they are absolutely correct,
that 9/11 is the most emblematic moment of the Bush presidency and
does define his leadership – or lack thereof – style. While the
Bush team tries to put focus on the fact that the President got –
and stayed – angry after having 3,000+ Americans killed on his
watch, the simple reality is that up until 9/11 the President was
largely ignoring the massive, known threat posed by Osama bin
Laden. He was busy trying to pass tax cuts and drill in the Arctic
Wildlife Preserve, and Osama – and several other vitally important
issues – were ignored by him. In fact, had it not been for 9/11, it
is likely the President still would not have begun to deal with
Osama.
Because the simple reality is that
President Bush’s leadership style can be defined as a “9/11” style.
Repeatedly, he refuses – in the face of all sorts of dire warnings –
to acknowledge and deal with known serious threats until they
manifest themselves in disaster.
So in prelude to the coming onslaught of
President Bush trying to win re-election by claiming 9/11 was his
defining moment, we offer these eight examples of how 9/11 does
clearly define the Bush presidency, but not at all in the positive
manner he tries to pretend.
1) Global Warming
We wrote a satirical article many months
ago about President Bush and his top advisor trying to determine who
to blame/bomb when the 9/11 of global warming hits (see:
Bush,
Rove Start Planning Who To Blame, Bomb When 9/11 Of Global Warming
Occur)
But the reality is this is no joke. The
top scientists from all over the world spent a decade studying the
situation as pat of a massive UN program and determined action had
to be taken immediately. Even our own Pentagon has sounded the
alarm.
As reported in a recent
FORTUNE Magazine article: “Global warming may be bad news for
future generations, but let's face it, most of us spend as little
time worrying about it as we did about al Qaeda before 9/11.”
They meant most Bush/Limbaughians,
obviously, which FORTUNE tends to pander to as a subscriber base.
The article continues: “Global warming,
rather than causing gradual, centuries-spanning change, may be
pushing the climate to a tipping point.” The article is talking
about the recent Pentagon report about global warming.
But despite years of warning from
environmental groups – you know, those hated liberal bastions – and
despite the UN report developed over a decade by the world’s top
scientists, and despite even a report from our own Pentagon,
President Bush has – and will – take no action. Even worse, he and
his Limbaugh-led media machine will deride anyone who says we should
actually do something about global warming as panicky, whiny.
And so President Bush is showing the
same leadership in regard to the known threat of global warming that
he did to the known threat of Osama bin Laden – that is, he is doing
nothing and pretending the situation does not exist, waiting,
simply, for disaster to befall us. Unfortunately, as our spoof
inferred, in this instance there will be no one to bomb to pretend
to be doing something – and no way to correct the problem, which
will make 9/11 seem like a non-incident (think about the more than
10,000 French who died just last summer just because of a brief
couple of week heatwave.)
2) Not Developing Alternative Energy
The oil will run out – and in the
meantime not only are we stoking global warming, but fighting war
upon war – including the very War on Terrorism that brought us the
actual 9/11 – due to our dependence on oil.
But none of this is enough to stir the
President to action. True to his 9/11 style of governing, he is
once again ignoring this known problem, waiting until disaster hits
rather than taking any action.
3) U-Turn For Russia
TV in Russia is once again state run.
Not only haven’t we dismantled their nukes but they are – for the
first time since the Cold War – building a new generation of nuclear
weapons. Human rights are being rolled back in what a prominent
Russian has labeled a return to a Soviet-like “police state.”
True to Bush’s 9/11 style, he has done
nothing – not even acknowledged the problem, never mind begun to
draw up a strategy to deal with it. Bush’s policies have both
brought this about and are doing nothing to deal with it. Read
our
article on the subject for more details.
Now, this Bush 9/11 style of governing
does not just apply to world affairs, but before we lay out how he
applies his 9/11 style leadership – the leadership his campaign
boasts about – in other areas as well, let’s not forget the most
basic examples of the President’s leadership as related to 9/11.
4) 9/11 Itself, And Working To
Create Future 9/11’s Globally Through Similar Policies
We at M/I have no idea why the clear
fact that 9/11 was brought on by bad Republican foreign policy in
the past and President Bush’s failure to deal with a known threat in
the present is not being made an issue by the Democratic Party
(other than the fact that they tend to play the wimp role and not
have the courage to say obvious truths – though Kerry may be
changing that somewhat.)
Even more, the fact that the President
has not learned the lesson of 9/11 and is repeating similar policies
in places such as Colombia and Venezuela show that he not only has a
9/11 style in that he ignores known threats until it is too late,
but that he instigates disasters, just as his father and Ronald
Reagan instigated 9/11 with their disastrous foreign policies which
made Osama a threat to begin with.
With global warming, he not only doesn’t
work to make the situation better, he instigates making it worse by
rolling back environmental regulations. In Colombia and Venezuela
he repeats the same policies his father and Reagan implemented which
directly led to 9/11 – supporting “insurgents” (as in Colombia),
warlords (as in Afghanistan), and covert militants (as in
Venezuela.) This is how we made Osama what his is in the first
place, and the younger Bush has no problem doing it once again.
(see our Articles:
The
Lesson of 9/11 and
Bush
Thanks Father For Creating Saddam, Osama for more on this.)
5) Obesity
God forbid the President show foresight
or leadership.
No, yet again the President refused to
deal with this known threat to the public health. You hear a few
news blurbs now about maybe taking some actions, but it is already a
disaster, has been a known threat for almost a decade now, and, yet
again, no action was taken. Instead, it was, again, completely
ignored.
Well, now we are not just losing 3,000
Americans but hundreds of thousands annually to this preventable,
treatable known threat.
6) Health Care Crisis
There is already a massive nursing
shortage (ask any hospital CEO and they will confirm this.) Many
areas are having capacity and funding crises already. Costs are
skyrocketing.
And, as with all of the above crises, we
know the situation is only going to become an all out disaster if we
don’t take action now, as the baby boom generation is poised to
retire, exacerbating all of these things.
The President offers no comprehensive
plan, nothing at all to deal with the nursing shortage, no systemic
plan to deal with capacity and cost issues, but instead simply gives
some incentives for people to buy insurance and some moderate help
with prescription drug costs. Already in a number of cities – such
as Los Angeles - treatable patients are dying because this problem
has not been addressed (as we have been told from people who work in
area hospitals.)
7) Personal Bankruptcies
Clinton didn’t address this, and now
neither is Bush. And still year after year a new record is being
set for the number of personal bankruptcies being declared in
America. This is an enormous threat to our economic stability. You
can not have record numbers of people in your country declaring they
are completely in financial ruin each year and somehow maintain
national economic stability.
Notice how you haven’t even heard of
this one as an issue. Just like most of us hadn’t heard of Osama
before 9/11.
8) National Debt
Record deficits – no action – nor
apparent intention – to do anything to address them. Again,
pretending a looming disaster doesn’t exist.
Time and time again we see the President
show the same leadership he did with regard to 9/11, ignoring known
threats, letting them spiral out of control into all out disasters.
The President and his team claim that
9/11 was the defining moment for President Bush, and that the
leadership he showed with respect to 9/11 is the main thing voters
should consider.
We at The Moderate Independent could not
agree more. | 
