The Bush team had worked assiduously to make the transition smooth for the incoming President Obama and stayed out of the way as he used the postelection period to take leadership of the economy even before being sworn in. And now, as far as some of them were concerned, the new president had used his inaugural lectern to give the back of the hand to a predecessor who had been nothing but gracious to him.
Peronally, I thought Obama was a little too gracious. If it were me, I would have had Bush and Cheney arrested right after the oath but before the address.
I heard this quote from Senator Specter the other day:
The facts are that an expression of an opinion by Judge Mukasey prior to becoming attorney general would put a lot of people at risk for what has happened.
The NPR reportor then helpfully explained it meant that CIA employees who have been using waterboarding would be liable for prosecution. That works for me.
I'm a little late on this, and too lazy to look it up, but why hasn't the press and in particular the White House gaggle picked up on this?
All through the Plame investigation and Libby trial, the White House has avoided saying much about it because they say they don't want to affect the wheels of justice. Well, fine. If I was less cynical and this was any other administration I'd give it a pass. If the White House thought they could get some sort of political advantage about talking about Plame or Libby, they would. Once the Libby trial was over, they still avoided talking about it since there was an appeal pending. There is a theoretical possibility that the appeals court could grant a new trial. But the commutation of the sentence lets Bush have it both ways: a loyal aide stays out of jail and the appeal is still pending so they have a paper thin excuse to not talk about it.
Here's my point: Bush said he wasn't questioning the jury's decision (with good reason, apparently), he merely thought the sentence was unfair. Does the president really think perjurers shouldn't do time? No, of course not. He just thinks people who commit crimes on his behalf shouldn't suffer the consequences. He has made a statement on the case and the press should hold him to it.
I tagged my previous post with "worst president ever," but I think this post makes a good argument that James Buchanan, not George W. Bush, was the worst U.S. president ever. Still, we have almost 2 years left and there's no place to go but down.
I remember when I first noticed him. Maybe I knew that George H. W. Bush had a son named George, but I didn't make much of it at the time. The first time I saw him on TV was during a Red Sox pre-game show. It must have been the early 90's, probably during the Clinton administration. Sean McDonough was interviewing him and they were talking about baseball. I'd like to think I said to myself, "I'm sure glad he's only running a baseball team and the country," but I probably didn't. I don't remember any of the substance of the interview. I just recall I wasn't overly impressed by him.
Flash forward to the late 90's. He was governor of Texas and starting to raise money for a presidential run. I always thought he used his name and his father's contacts to try to vacuum up as much campaign contributions as he could to scare of other potential candidates. The more I heard him talk, the more I came to the conclusion that he was: 1) a fake, 2) and not very bright. I never would have considered voting for any of the Republican candidates over the Deomcratatic contenders, but I do like to limit the damage. The other major candidate, John McCain, seemed at least at the time, the lesser of two evils.
Al Gore wasn't my ideal candidate, but I knew it was a load of crap to say there really wasn't much difference between the candidates. The Florida fiasco should have put that out of any one's mind. The "uniter not a divider" and his ruthless effort to win Florida should have made it obvious what kind of politician he would be.
The first few months of his presidency were pretty uninspiring. The typical Republican calls for tax cuts on the domestic side. On defense, the administration was so interested in a missile defense system that they seemed to be deliberately provoking North Korea in order to justify it.
And then there was September 11. Many people have said this before, but here it is again. He could have used 9/11 as an opportunity to unite the nation and use the sympathy the rest of the world had for us to actually reduce or eliminate the threat of terrorism. Instead, he used it to as a partisan wedge to push every thing on the radical right wish list.
That's really it. Every thing the Bush administration does is for short term political gain. Look at any thing they do, any "policy" they propose. Try to think of the most cynical, nihilist and basest motivation for the action. Then dial it down about two or three notches. You will then find you were giving them the benefit of the doubt. I know that sounds cynical on my part, but it's been a reliable way of understanding the administration.
