The New Yorker's latest issue contends that GW's presidency is akin to Jimmy Carter's handling of the Iran hostage crisis plus the gas crises also during Mr. Carter's presidency.
We cannot allow this comparison. President Carter, a decent, moral, humanistic man who has served his country honorably: while in the military, as President and since leaving office cannot in any way be compared to our current President. I do not want to comment on President Carter's presidency which admittedly operated without any support from his own party.
Instead, we have a President whose actions and those of his cronies will take one if not two generations to unwind, if we are able to unwind all of the corruption, incompetence, and destruction at all.
We can pick a topic, any topic to observe the utter lack of any moral, measured leadership by our government.
1. Massive Governmental Corruption. I have counted no less than 15 different FBI investigations currently pending in the House, Senate and Executive branches. These investigations have one focus, selling legislation to the highest bidder. And that bidder, ladies and gentlemen has never been the American voter. Add to this the House investigations, Senate investigations, etc. and the length, width and depth of the total abandonment of the American people for profit is devastating. Let's take a quick review:
a. Duke Cunningham. The story is still alive and kicking with FBI probes into House Committees and other federal offices.
b. Anthony Principi, former head of the Veterans Affairs Committee.
c. Lester Crawford, former Commissioner of the FDA
d. U.S.Army Corps of Engineers failure to monitor Parson's Corp, a billion dollar contractor who failed in its attempt to build IRaq's health facilities.
e. Halliburton. Need I say more.
f. Rep. Pete Visclosky for earmarking funds to various local contractors in exchange for campaign contributions
g. Rep. Alan Mollohan for lobbyist contribution and deals made with contributors.
h. Rep. Curt Weldon investigation for deals with an Italian firm on a helicopter contract.
i. Jack Abramoff, and a host of congressmen, lobbyists, and others.
j. Scooter Libby
k. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, Karl Rove.
l. Tom DeLay. While not under federal investigation, now, he is battling back in Texas with a host of charges to defend.
And the list keeps on growing. With the above it's hard to know what else the FBI does all day but open cases against Representative, Senators, their staff, lobbyists, and Executive branch staff members.
2. Complete failure of any meaningful legislation to in fact increase our security in a post 9/11 world.
Here again there's a long list of failures:
a. FEMA.
b. Airport security to monitor those accessing inside airports whether deliveries, employees, etc.
c. Port security. Instead, we will sell off management to some three layer hidden Halliburton subsidiary based in Dubai
d. Chemical and Nuclear plant security.
e. Border security
f. Transportation security for mass transit in large cities.
g. Power plant and other utility security
h. any meaningful public health plan in the event of a bio hazard or terrorist act.
3. The complete destruction of the middle class.
The list here is long and also lurid:
a. The attempt to dismantle the Federal Minimum Wage act;
b. The attempt to dismantle the Fair labor Standards Act;
c. The complete acceptance of corporate America's shift of good, middle class jobs overseas to lower wage paying nations. Thank you NAFTA.
d. The complete refusal to crack down on corporations employing illegal aliens at sub Federal Minimum Wage rates while allowing these people to be housed and monitored in prison like settings.
e. The Walmartization of America leaving mom and pop stores closed and/or unable to compete with the "economies of scale" brought by Walmart, Target, Home Depot, etc.
f. The acceptance of companies like United, Enron, etc to go through bankruptcy, dump their pension obligations to employees, and come out the otherside with CEO's getting billions in bonuses for their efforts.
g. The efforts made to stop or block unionization in places like Walmart, etc. where people are forced to hold down two or three part-time jobs just to earn one living wage.
h. The failure to control healthcare costs and insurance so that just about all Americans are one serious sickness away from total bankruptcy and loss. Meanwhile the health insurance company CEOs earn billions in bonuses and salaries.
i. The wholesale abandonment of the "public utilities" to privateers, speculators and corporate owners so that the average person cannot afford both heat and food. Or, heat and electricity. Since when should either heat or food be a trade off. Fortune, Forbes, Business Week, the Wall Street Journal have all profusely published on the profits our utility companies earn. Enron is just one of the many players who have contributed to this mess.
Instead the GOP rants, almost foams at the mouth at the family values under attack: marriage, stem cell research, activist judges (which I swear is just utter nonsense). Believe me if the GOP could figure out who to shake down Gays for billions of dollars, gay marriage and adoption would be legal so fast my head would spin. The same is true with stem cell research and the other fear-mongering they blather about.
All of the above aside, I do believe that the GOP's theme song will once again be "family values", the "liberal media", "activistic judges" all phrases which mean nothing.
The notion that George W. Bush can be compared to Jimmy Carter is ludicrious and intolerable. In my opinion he, in one administration, is the amalgamation of four GOP administrations of failure: Hoover, Nixon, Reagan and Bush1.