The now-not-so-new mantra is that Bush kept us safe (well, after 9/11). What I find interesting about that "discussion" is that both those who agree with the statement and those who don't seem to concentrate their arguments on a very narrow definition of safety: "were we again bombed on a major scale by terrorists?" "No".
However... (see below the fold)
Being SAFE in today's world involves so much more than whether a location has been bombed. It includes being kept healthy (public safety concerns--air, water, etc.-- as well as personal--having health insurance).
Being safe in one's professional life means being employed in a job for which we have been trained and given the possibility to further our training, rather than having our jobs outsourced and being forced to work below skill and pay level.
Being personally safe involves maintaining the personal liberties that have been set out in the Constitution and its amendments that provide the sense of security (e.g., hab. corp., freedom from seizure, rights to assembly, etc.).
Having a safe natural environment involves paying attention to the balance of nature and using the best scientific knowledge to keep that balance.
However, as KO made clear in his review of the Bush years, and which should serve as a nice introductory guide for a special prosecutor, Bush did NOT keep us safe--neither at the individual nor aggregate level. Here are a few examples culled from KO's text:
LACK OF...
post-war planning
body armor
vehicular armor
and billions for Halliburton, Blackwater and other companies
while Mr. Bush denies VA healthcare to 450,000 veterans
tries to raise their healthcare fees
blocks the new G.I. Bill
and increases his own power with the USA PATRIOT Act
with the Military Commissions Act
public orders exempting himself from a thousand laws
and secretly from the Presidential Records Act
The Geneva Conventions
FISA
on U.S. soil twelve hundred immigrants rounded up
without due process
without bail
without court dates
without a single charge of terrorism
it wasn't just Mr. Bush no longer subject to the rule of law
he slashed regulations on everyone from banks to mining companies
appointed 98 lobbyists to oversee their own industries
weakening emission standards for mercury and 650 different toxic chemicals
Mr. Bush's hands off as Enron blacks out California
doubling electric bills
Mr. Bush further deregulates commodity futures
midwifing the birth of unregulated oil markets
deregulating financial services and lax enforcement of remaining rules
created a housing bubble
creating the mortgage crisis
creating then a credit crisis
devastating industries that rely on credit
from student loans to car dealers
firms that had survived the Great Depression could not survive Bush
those that did got seven hundred billion dollars
no strings, no transparency
unlike the auto bailout which cut workers' salaries.
investigators blamed management cost cutting communication
for missed warnings about Columbia
Bush administration convicts include
sex offenders at Homeland Security
convicted liars
every kind of thief in the calendar
rocket fuel in our water
the air at Ground Zero
most responders still suffering respiratory problems.
global warming
carbon emissions
a Clear Skies initiative lowering air quality standards
the Healthy Forests initiative increasing logging
faith based initiatives
the cost of medicare reform
fired US attorneys
politically synchronized terror alerts
some Katrina survivors still in trailers
New Orleans still at just two-thirds its usual population
all of it and more leaving us with
ten trillion in debt
to pay for 31% more in discretionary spending
the Iraq War
a 1.3 trillion dollar tax cut
median income down 2,000 dollars
three-quarters of all income gains under Bush
going to the richest 1 percent
unemployment up from 4.2 to 7.2 percent
the Dow, down from 10,587 to 8,277
six million now more in poverty
seven million more now without health care
buying toxic goods from China
deadly cribs
outsourcing security to Dubai
still unsecure in our ports
and at our nuclear plants
more dependent on foreign oil
out of the international criminal court
off the anti ballistic missle treaty
military readiness and standards down
with two unfinished wars
a nuclear North Korea
disengaged from the Palestinian problem
destabilizing eastern European diplomacy with
2000 miles of Appalachian streams
destroyed by rubble from mountaintop mining
consistently undermining historic American reverence
for the institutions that empower us:
education, now "academic elites"
SO, the next time someone says "he kept us safe," let's be sure to mention all the ways in which he hasn't.
(I will be away from my computer for a while, but wanted to get this off my chest!)