Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Let Me Explain It To You

Today the Wall Street Journal ran an editorial decrying what it sees as irrational "Bush hatred." This line is not new. Ever since about 2002, a large swath of pundits, talk radio jocks, and others have decried anyone critical of the President as vaguely delusional. As though they cannot comprehend how anyone could dislike this man. Let me explain why this President makes me very angry:

He birthed the idea of preemptive war, which essentially says one country can invade another even in the absence of an imminent threat. This flew in the face of longstanding religious and philosophical constraints on the use of force as well as te post war movement to minimize armed conflict. He then declared a preemptive war against a country which did not threaten us. The President and his administration knew Iraq posed no threat before they invaded yet systematically repeated falsehoods to the UN and the American people. As a result, at least 300,000 Iraqis are dead, 4500 US soldiers are dead and an entire generation of Middle Easterners will have to live their lives in chaos. The President is either very reckless or a liar.

When the coffins of our dead soldiers began to arrive home from Iraq, the President refused to publicly honor them . He did not want to be associated with coffins. He is a coward.

The President realizes his war is increasingly unpopular and expensive. He believes that if he were to ask the American people to pay for it outright, they would balk. So instead he has put somewhere between $800 billion and $1 trillion on the national credit card. The President is irresponsible.

While presiding over a US sponsored bloodbath in Iraq, refusing to expand health insurance to children and systematically gutting the social safety net the President has consistently blathered on about the "culture of life." He supports the death penalty and as Governor of Texas killed more inmates than all other governors combined. The President has gone to extremes in defense of the right to torture. This President's actions indicate that he does not care about the dignity of any one's life. He is poseur and a hypocrite.

This President has made being a Christian his personal calling card. He uses his supposed faith to divide us into believers and non believers. He implies that his supposed faith justifies his actions. I do not see anything even vaguely Christian about the President's disregard for the poor and disregard for human life. He is not a Christian and I do not understand how any one who calls themselves a Christian can support him. The President is a faker who either lacks the courage of his convictions or simply ignores those parts of Christian doctrine that do not fit his ambitions. The President is a man of false faith.

At a time when the gap between the rich and everyone else is growing, the President has put forth tax cuts that benefit only the top 1% of taxpayers and has proposed other positions -- such as the elimination of the Estate Tax - that benefit only the rich. The President is a class warrior for the privileged.

The President has consistently used his appointment powers to promote his allies even if they are incompetent and unqualified. "Brownie," "Fredo" and Harriet "Chief Justice" Miers are but the tip of the iceberg of people low in integrity but high on loyalty. The President has also allowed politically connected companies such as Blackwater and Halliburton to fatten their pockets off war and natural disaster. The President has used his power to reward his friends and has failed to safeguard our interests.

In the face of a challenge from radical Islam, the President has done everything in his power to turn us into the bullying, paranoid, and unprincipled country our enemies say that we are. The President has championed preemptive war, condoned torture, suspended habeuas corpus and conducted illegal wire taps. The message to the world has been that we are not who we say we are. The message to us is that the freedoms and principles this country hold dear are just trappings we can ignore when they are inconvenient. The President does not understand what makes America special. He will do what is easy instead of what is right.

From the Iraq war to global warming, people within the President's party and even within his Administration have given him counsel inconsistent with his policies. The President has either disregarded them, demoted them or fired them. The President is arrogant.

The President said he was a "uniter not a divider" yet he consistently uses hot button issues like gay marriage, abortion, and stem cell research to divide the country into red and blue. The President is divisive.

This President has claimed an unprecedented amount of Executive power and has openly shown his disdain for Congress, his co-equal branch of government, by stating that he is is not obligated to follow any law he thinks will interfere with his defense of the country. This country fought a long war to get out from under the idea of a unitary and supreme ruler. The President hoards power in defiance of our Constitution.

Please do not tell me about Bill Clinton. He had an assignation with an intern and lied about it. His crime was as pedestrian as it was dishonorable. I suspect all those involved have gotten over it. In contrast, this President's sundry misdeeds are international and deadly in scope. Their effects are marked in body bags not embarrassment.

And please do not tell me the President was misled by people close to him. There is simply no truth to that assertion. Too many people and too many documents have shown tha the President was informed that his case for war was, at best, flawed and at worst, a fabrication. Even if there were, he is, after all, the President of the United States. A man with his power and resources has little excuse for getting it wrong.

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