One advantage of cats that won't let one sleep in on New Year's Day - looks like I get to be one of the first to rant about the clueless NY Times piece by David E. Sanger
The Bush Legacy - 2006 Is So Yesterday. Sanger takes up all of that dead-tree space on a minimalist puff piece which tries to frame the Bush legacy as hanging on what will happen in Iraq while giving a nod to Harry Truman's rehabilitation by History from the sad disrepute he suffered while he was in the White House.
Reading through this drivel just confirms for me the irrelevence of the NY Times to any real coverage or discussion of news these days. When The Wall went up, it was just one more indication that the people running the paper like so much of the MSM have only one core value - protect the bottom line. Informing the public runs a distant second to that these days. Forget about afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted. (More below the fold.)
You'd think the NY Times might learn something from the President they've been so assiduous about protecting from actual truthiness in print. Bush Co. is watching the clock run out on the Bush presidency and they're already trying to shape the history book verdicts that will be written. As
Sanger's piece notes:
"We think we changed the debate," one of the designers of that strategy said in Washington recently. "But it only worked because we married it up with admitting some mistakes and that was quite a fight, because the president doesn't talk that way."
They've only changed the debate because the Times and the rest of the MSM has let them - again and again. The NY Times admits mistakes only when absolutely forced to. An honest discussion of the Bush legacy would do more than regurgitate White House spin trying to equate W to Harry Truman. The Bush legacy is far more than Iraq - and passing along the White House line about Iraq being comparable to Korea and the Global War on Terror as just like the Cold War struggle against Global Communism is inane.
(Although come to think of it, Korea does have some resonance - thriving democracy on one side, maniacal secretive despot on the other armed with nuclear weapons and still no actual peace treaty. Does the Times and Bush Co. really want to use this as an example of what a fractured Iraq might become?)
((Clarification - "maniacal secretive despot on the other armed with nuclear weapons and still no actual peace treaty' refers to North Korea - Not W and the Global War On Terror; or so I'd like to believe.))
IF the NY Times really wants to talk about the Bush legacy, there are so many, many things it could add to the discussion, not least of which is the role it has played in putting Bush in power and keeping him there with its overly defferential coverage.
Let's take a quick stroll down the memory hole to look at the other elements of the Bush legacy Sanger apparently couldn't be bothered to mention. Just off the top of my head-
- Pre 9-11: Bush sitting at his ranch for a month worrying about stem cells while Richard Clark and others were desperately trying to get his attention about something called Al Qaida and indications of imminent terror attacks on the U.S.
- Post 9-11: Bush-Cheney and the Vulcans seizing on 9-11 as an excuse to go after Saddam Hussein. Memos from England showing Bush was determined to go to war all the time he was claiming it was the last resort.
- Overthrowing the Taliban in Afghanistan - then letting Bin Laden slip away into Pakistan. Diverting resources away from Afghanistan to go into Iraq; letting the War Lords keep power with fig leaf elections, rebuild the opium trade - and let the Taliban start creeping back in.
- Taking the world's support for the U.S. after 9-11 and throwing at all away with bar-room tough-guy rhetoric while twisting and lying about the facts to fake the case for going into Iraq. Sending Colin Powell to lie at the U.N. - while doing everything possible to marginalize it. (John Bolton)
- Invading Iraq with no real plan for peace, not enough troops to hold it, and an occupation by the incompetent for the benefit of the connected. (Halliburtion et. al.)
- Elsewhere in the world? Uzbekistan. Korea. The Kyoto accords. Trade policies. Torture and secret prisons. And so on.
On the domestic front:
- Taking a Federal budget surplus and turning it into record deficits to the end of time.
- The 'Compassionate Conservative' New War on Poverty - one that's actually producing body counts.
- No child left behind - when the military comes looking for recruits. No Public School left undamaged when it comes to actually funding mandates.
- Social Security is Doomed! Doomed I tell you - and I just happen to have some friends in the Stock Market who have some really great investments for you.
- Tax cuts for the rich, now and forever. How dare you talk about Class Warfare! The war is over - and guess who won.
- Co-opting the press. Jeff Gannon. Editorials and commentaries bought and paid for. Fake news stories. Scott McClellan. Judy Judy Judy.
- Valerie Plame scandal - just a small part of politicizing national intelligence.
- Illegal wiretapping by the NSA.
- Goodbye FOIA.
- Goodbye Habeas Corpus and all that jazz. You too can be an 'enemy combatant.' (Say anything bad about Bush Co, and the FBI will be watching. Don't you know Everything Changed and There's A War On?)
- Total politicization of policy - ideology over facts every time. Rampant cronyism and loyalty tests at Federal agencies. Loyalty trumps competence every time.
- Homeland Security - defending the administration from accountability at every turn while failing to do its supposed job. Very effective at creating fear and uncertainty in election years.
- FEMA - "Heckuva job Brownie" - and he's STILL working for them as a consultant.
- The In-Justice Department. Forget civil rights, disabilities, worker issues. Goodbye to those annoying class action lawsuits, last resort when the government can't be bothered to regulate industry or police itself. Goodbye 'activist' judges, who try to rule by the law rather than the politics.
- Christian nation now and forever. Terry Schiavo lives! (Or doesn't.) Abstinence only - the problem with sex education is the 'e' word; ignorance is bliss and Morally Right!
- Karl Rove. Scooter Libby. Dick Cheney. Condi Rice. Them and the people who keep them at their right hands.
- One Dollar, One Vote - government of, by, and for the Rich and Powerful. Congress of Corruption, White House of Corruption. The Supreme Court is next.
- Elections stolen, disputed, and swept under the carpet. Don't look too close, and anyway it's always been that way, right? What are you? Some kind of conspiracy nut?
- If a Democrat says anything, anywhere, and there's no one else around, is he/she still wrong and still an America hater? You betcha! Just ask the Great Uniter.
- Fake town meetings with fake talking points and fake 'real people' who just happen to believe everything the President says - and can repeat it on command. Fake press coverage if any - and protesters kept miles away.
- The President can do whatever he deems necessary - break any law, torture anyone, spy on anyone, lock them up for years - because there's a war on - and there will always be a war on, as long as he says so. What - you want the terrorists to win?
And so on and so on. I could add more, but this ought to be plenty. You'd think if anyone at the NY Times is going to do a piece about the Bush legacy, they might want to make mention of the whole nine yards - but that might involve actual work - looking things up and checking facts.
It might also raise questions about where the Times has been while all this is going on and what the Times had to do with it. Oh wait - I know the problem - not enough sex involved. Just massive corruption and abuse of power. Who wants to hear about that?
Happy New Year!