Just got this email from a friend- I hope that this has not been diaried.
This is the first time that I have heard of it.
Subject: This comes from Doug McIntyre. For those who are
unfamiliar with McIntyre, he's a Conservative Republican radio talk show host on KABC.
Doug McIntyre read this on his ABC radio program recently.
"I was wrong to have voted for George W. Bush. I believe George W. Bush is
unarguably the worst two-term President in the history of the country. Worse
than Grant. A case can be made he 's the worst President, period. I reached
the conclusion he ' s either grossly incompetent, or a hand puppet for a
gaggle of detached theorists with their own private view of how the world
works. Or both.
After September 11th, I believed President Bush when he said we would go
after the terrorists and the nations that harbored them. I supported the
President when he sent our troops into Afghanistan. I supported the war in
Iraq because I believed Colin Powell at the UN, and trusted Tony Blair. The
President said Iraq was an urgent threat, and after 9-11, the risk seemed
too real.
But in the months and years since shock and awe I have been shocked
repeatedly by a consistent litany of excuses, alibis, double-talk,
inaccuracies, bogus predictions, and flat out lies. I have watched as the
President and his administration changed the goals, redefined the reasons
for going into Iraq, and fumbled the good will of the world and the focus
necessary to catch the real killers of September 11th.
The President says the commanders on the ground will make the battlefield
decisions, and the war in Iraq won't be run from Washington. Yet, politics
has consistently determined what the troops can and can' t do and any
commander who does not go along with the administration is sacked, and in
some cases, maligned.
I was wrong about everything associated with Iraq. We're not in the waning
days of the insurgency. We're about to slink home with our tail between our
legs, leaving civil war in Iraq and a nuclear-armed Iran in our wake. And
Bin Laden is still making tapes. It's unspeakable. The liberal media didn't
create this reality, bad policy did.
James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon, Warren Harding
were all failed Presidents but the damage this President has done is
historic. His mistakes have global implications, while the other failed
Presidents mostly authored domestic embarrassments.
And speaking of domestic embarrassments, let's look at President Bush ' s
domestic record. He cut taxes and I like tax cuts. But tax cuts combined
with reckless spending and borrowing is criminal mismanagement of the
public's money. We're drunk at the mall with our great grandchildren's credit
cards. We traded tax and spend Liberals for borrow and spend Conservatives.
Bush created a giant new entitlement, the prescription drug plan. He lied to
his own party to get it passed. It was written by and for the pharmaceutical
industry. So much for smaller government In fact, virtually every tentacle
of government has grown exponentially under Bush. Unless, of course, it was
an agency to look after the public interest, the environment or worker' s
rights.
His open border policy is a disaster for the wages of working people-- he
debases the work ethic, jobs Americans won't do . He doesn 't believe in the
sovereign borders of the country he's sworn to protect. And his devotion to
cheap labor for his corporate benefactors, along with his worship of
multinational trade deals, makes an utter mockery of homeland security and
calls into question his commitment to sovereignty itself.
Katrina, Harriet Myers, The Dubai Port Deal, shrinking wages for working
people, staggering debt, astronomical foreign debt, outsourcing, open
borders, the war on science, media manipulation, a cavalier attitude toward
fundamental freedoms-- this President has run the most arrogant and
out-of-touch administration in my lifetime, perhaps, in any Americans
lifetime.
With a belated tip of the cap to Ralph Nader, the system is broken, so
broken it's almost inevitable it pukes up mediocrities like
George W. Bush. Where are the Trumans and the Eisenhowers? Why do we
have to settle for recycled hacks and malleable ciphers? Greatness is always
rare, but is basic competence and simple honesty too much to ask?
Does this make me a waffler? A flip-flopper? I prefer to see it as realism.
For those of you who never supported Bush, it's also fair to accuse me of
kicking Bush while he's down. After all, you were kicking Bush while he was
up.
You were right. I was wrong.