Ex-President George W. Bush is considering placing the Mission Accomplished banner in his new "Presidential Library."
The banner was the backdrop aboard the USS Lincoln during Bush's televised speech May 1, 2003, to proclaim the end of major combat in Iraq. It caused controversy in the months that followed when violence in Iraq spiraled.
The banner now sits in storage and will become part of the library's collection. A decision on how or whether to display the red-white-and-blue banner hasn't been made, said Alan Lowe, director of the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum.
Source
Mission Accomplished? You betcha. In his wildest dreams, GWB could not possibly have imagined a better mission accomplished than what his two-term Presidency wrought. He and Karl Rove and their minions were mesmerized by the idea of destroying/dismantling everything that FDR/HST/JFK/LBJ and Clinton enacted.
The immoral, unnecessary and horrifying war in Iraq: Just what he needed to do what he wanted to do. On so many fronts.
The country suffered. Thousands of brave soldiers died or were permanently wounded.
But military contractors made out like bandits. Even when they provided our soldiers (at prices that boggled the mind) tainted food and water, substandard showers . . . they were in it for money; our soldiers, not so much.
Which is what it was supposed to be.
GWB and his followers believe that the McKinley-based America (one with no social safety nets, no Social Security, no Medicare or Medicaid and basically no federal government) is the paradigm to follow. They believe that a twin-course of deregulation and privatization equals good. Good maybe for the huge corporations and hedge-funds and so forth. For the people of America and the world? Not so much.
The record of GWB ("Mission Accomplished" and/or not):
Chart Budget Deficit and Surplus
Increase debt/GDP – largest GWB
War:
IRAQ Coalition Fatalities Through 10-5-07 graphic
IRAQ Coalition Fatalaties through 11-20-10: 4746
AFGHANISTAN Coalition Fatalities Through 11-20-10 2224
Cost: More than 1 Trillion Dollars
Iraqi deaths: Documented civilian death count 107,932
Afghan deaths: 19,629
Stock Price Halliburton
New Orleans:
Deaths Hurricane Katrina 1,577
9/11:
2,996 deaths here
Unemployment Rate:
2000-2010
Minimum Wage:
Minimum Wage
Income Inequality:
Income inequality, by many measures, is now greater than it has been since the 1920s.
(snip)
In 1947, the median family -- the one making more than half of all other families and less than half of all other families -- made $23,400, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Over the next three decades, median-income more than doubled, to $47,400 in 1977. In 2005, the median family made $58,400. (All these numbers are adjusted for inflation.)
Meanwhile, the incomes of earners at the 99.99th percentile of the income distribution -- those making more than 9,999 out of every 10,000 other earners -- have soared over the last three decades, from less than $2 million in the late 1970s to about $10 million in 2009.
Source ~ NYT