The brilliant Charles Pierce perfectly punctures the MSM's fluffery of the opening of Dubya's Museum:
The elite press is dedicating an entire day of coverage to the perpetuation of a monstrous public lie. Electing George W. Bush twice was a monumental act of democratic self-destruction from which the country has yet to recover. Celebrating him celebrating himself is simply to pour battery acid into the still-open wounds.
In order to take in the ginormous magnitude of Dubya's project to destroy the American Dream, ponder this simple question --
what if he'd done nothing? Follow me below the fold for this speculation...
WHAT IF...Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld had done nothing, and allowed Richard Clarke & Company to continue their pursuit of Osama bin Laden? What if Bush had paid attention to those warnings (as Clinton did)? 9-11 might well have been averted.
WHAT IF...Bush had valued what he inherited -- a balanced budget -- and DONE NOTHING. No massive tax cuts benefiting the top 1/10th of 1 percent. No massive deficits. 8 years -- budget still balanced, instead of trillions in new debt and a tax code designed to make the government untenable without savaging the social safety net.
WHAT IF...Bush had treated FEMA as a serious agency with a vital role to play in national emergencies? What if he'd appointed a serious administrator, instead of an incompetent crony bent on looting the agency and wrecking its ability to function properly? Katrina might have turned out quite differently.
WHAT IF...Bush had hadn't worked overtime to destroy the regulation of financial markets? What if he'd DONE NOTHING, and let regulatory agencies do their proper work? The financial crash of 2007-8 might never have happened.
WHAT IF...most importantly...Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld hadn't conjured stove-piped "intel" to stampede us into war after 9-11? No trillion dollar wars, shoveled onto the spiraling national debt...no thousands of American soldiers killed...no hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed...no Abu Ghraib...no disillusionment of the American public in our ability to fight and win wars...
What always struck me about Bush and his incompetent cronies is the activist nature of their "wreck everything quickly" administration. All Bush had to do was NOTHING to have a successful presidency. Everything he touched turned (immediately) to shit...and yet he couldn't wait to destroy more. Thank goodness the American people turned on him during the post 2004 "Wind At My Back" "Hand Social Security Over To Wall Street" debacle.
I'm convinced that someday, 50 years from now when historians are analyzing the moment that "broke the back" of the American dream, they'll focus on the Bush Administration -- specifically the catastrophic response to 9/11. Karl Rove's goal was always to repeal the New Deal, monkey-wrench the government to make it untenable, and hand the burning wreckage over to his billionaire pals who are greatly inconvenienced by all those middle class "entitlements", environmental protections and Union rights.
All he had to do was nothing. Instead, he almost wrecked everything
8:36 PM PT: THANK YOU for promoting this!
