Thursday, May 15, 2008
Even Bush-bashers can't deny that for just $200 billion, America is getting its money's worth of chaos, death and disorder!
Sep 27, 2004 | "I know we're going to win," George Bush said in St. Cloud, Minn., recently. "That's not just happy talk." He was referring to the November election, his optimism borne out by judicious feedback from pre-screened ticket-holding supporters. But he might just as well have been speaking of his Iraq War.
For while the Kerry campaign continues its manic obsession with rectifying our domestic- and foreign-policy crises, Bush has been a steady, focused Man with a Mission Accomplished. And he's done this while also blasting away at the core issues affecting virtually every man, woman and child in the U.S.
Education: While Kerry plans to establish the first ever National Education Fund to ensure that schools always get the funding they need, Bush has proven that he can be relied on in a second term to slash $200 million from Head Start, $11 billion from children with disabilities and $7.2 billion from children in poor communities.
Healthcare: While John Kerry and his ilk would extend affordable healthcare coverage to 95 percent of Americans, including every child, only the Bush administration took the bold step of designating Sept. 21 "Take a Loved One to the Doctor Day," encouraging minorities to "take charge of their health" by making a doctor appointment or attending "a healthcare event." Next up on the Bush calendar: "Treat Yourself to a Dream House Day," "Here, Have Another Job Day," and "Try to Get on the 'Oprah' Show While She's Still Handing Out the Free Pontiacs Day."
The Economy: While John Kerry wants to cut taxes for businesses that create jobs here in America instead of moving them overseas, and John Edwards takes a jobs plan to Ohio, which lost an additional 12,000 jobs last month (bringing its total job losses under George Bush to 173,000), the Bush administration is hard at work reminding us that "Four hundred thousand people make some money trading on eBay" -- which should come as a comfort to the 6 million Americans poised to lose their right to overtime pay.
Meanwhile, Bush keeps racking up one "catastrophic success" after another in Iraq.
I mean, sure, you're always going to have people who dismiss Bush's war as merely a massive fiasco built on lies and abetted by the manipulation of grief and the distortion of patriotism that plunged us headlong into deadly chaos with a resultant upsurge in terrorism that is spreading even as the White House continues to alienate our allies. But hey, what do you want for $200 billion?
The important thing is to give Bush full credit for the war, since he is, after all, the commander in chief, not just some jerk who put on a flight suit and walked away from his National Guard duty or swaggered onto a flight carrier.
I also think that people are reading too much into the fact that several new groups of people have been gathering to view screenings of "Fahrenheit 9/11." OK, so they happen to be U.S. troops in Iraq. When you really analyze it, that growing-disaffection-with-Bush thing among the troops is way overblown.
According to the Christian Science Monitor, the interviews in which enlisted soldiers made such observations as, "[For] nine out of 10 of the people I talk to, it wouldn't matter who ran against Bush -- they'd vote for them," and "Nobody I know wants Bush. This whole war was based on lies," were conducted only in central, northern and southern Iraq. For all we know, George Bush could have quite the fan base along the east-west fringes.
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