Posts Tagged "George W. Bush"
100 Bush-Free Days
Today marks Barack Obama’s 100th day in the White House. I have no idea how or why we need to judge him at day 100, since its little more than a nice figure to look at. 3 months, perhaps. 6 months, I get. Days, I do not.
Regardless, I’ve always been a cynical supporter of Obama. (Once, Twice, Thrice.) I still think America is as polarised and divided as it was 101 days ago, (arbitrary figure) but at least I’m on the side that’s winning at last.
On the flip-side, the Republicans are acting as if the Russians had invaded, I don’t catch Fox news much, for fear of catching something worse, like swine flu, but the clips I see are certainly not isolated examples.
Like some, I was sceptical that Obama would see himself as an American President rather than a world leader, and he would act as an American rather than a statesman (This was around the time of the “Buy American” protectionist debate). However, he’s made plenty of decisions that should have been made a long time ago.
It’s a shame he has to deal with the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, but it’s not a shame that he’s the one to deal with it.
Best of luck to him.
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In other news, my best friend from school died today. I always remember going to stay with him for a week when I was seven, while my brother was being born. I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it to the funeral due to exams; I’m not sure I’ll even get an invite, since I hadn’t seen him in eight years.
Bush Makes a State of the Union
George W. Bush has recently given what is expected to be his last State of the Union address. This is not a political obituary, but with all the coverage given to the presidential race currently, it seems as if the Bush clock has already expired.
The tone of the address was much different to last year. The message before was “We need more troops” while this year it has changed to “The surge is working.” The number of mentions of Iraq is particularly interesting. 0 in 2001, 2 in 2002, 22 in 2003, 24 in 2004, 27 in 2005, 16 in 2006, 34 in 2007, 38 in 2008.
By way of achievements, it is fair to say that on average Americans pay less tax, this is a promise he has delivered, broadly speaking. He also promised reforms of the pension scheme as well as the immigration problem, but both have failed miserably. In a wider sense, the entire campaign for the social conservatism agenda, a sentiment fuelled by his core supporters, including restrictions on the access to abortions as well as gay rights, have really amounted to very little.
His real “success” has been in the Supreme Court. Ronald Reagan appointed three judges in his time, two of which turned out to be rather unreliable conservatives. George W. Bush has appointed two solidly conservative Supreme Court justices, Samuel Alito and John Roberts. The Supreme Court is responsible for making hugely important decisions, including a constitutional re-examination of ‘the right to bear arms’ later this year and as a result of Bush’s appointments, the Court moves from the centre ground and now leans to the right. In a year, Bush will be gone, but his judges will be around for years and possibly even decades.
Nevertheless, Bush seems to be fading away, like a radioactive substance going through the half-life process. Due to his political toxicity, the Republican presidential candidates are constantly trying to identify and compare themselves with Ronald Reagan instead of backing up Bush.
Ultimately, this is not necessarily Bush’s final State of the Union address; in the past, some presidents have decided to add in another burst of rhetoric just before the inauguration of their successor, but it is nobody really expects the USA’s 43rd president to bother.
The Rules of Resignation
Over the past few weeks, we have seen two significant resignations from within the United States’ government. It may not seem particularly urgent, but the last time that happened in Westminster, it was Claire Short and Robin Cook who met their political ends. I would venture that Mr Cook’s resignation was one of the most significant events in British politics at the time, and his speech was nothing short of Churchillian in its gravitas; view the speech or video here.
In politics, a solely voluntary resignation is incredibly rare. To hand, the first one I can think of was Harold Macmillan’s decision to step down as Prime Minister in 1963, when he was diagnosed (mistakenly) with prostate cancer at age 63. Ministers resign left, right and centre and as such, a few lines are reused from time to time.
Carl Rove was the first to go. His excuse was that he ‘wanted to spend more time with his family’. I do not think anybody could have timed it better, since his resignation came into effect two days before his son left for university. Mr Rove is usually credited as ‘Bush’s Brain’ so I cannot wait to see what crazy shenanigans the novelty president will create in the final months. I have read numerous articles about Carl Rove and most people view him as half genius, half Satan- a sort of Emperor Palpatine character; Dick Cheney plays Darth Vader in numerous editorial cartoons and George Bush… well, I suppose he would be Jar Jar Binks.
The “51 percent doctrine” is Carl Rove’s pet contribution to political strategy, which states that you only need 51% of the votes to win, so do not bother aiming higher than that. To me, this is a given, as it certainly should not take a genius to invent the idea of “doing the bare minimum to succeed.” Logically, there is no reason to keep Carl Rove on the White House’s staff, as his main purpose no longer exists since the constitution (despite being incredibly flexible over the course of this administration) forbids a president from running for more than two terms. I wonder if his resignation was actually a bone for the media to distract them from a much more insidious story…
The second resignation came from Alberto Gonzales. Admittedly, this story has been incredibly quiet in the British press, but I find it both amusing and interesting, although I see American news through the eyes of shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Mr Gonzales was the Attorney-General, which I believe is an infinitely important role. If my knowledge from watching season 5 of 24 is accurate, he is the only person who can bring down the president and start impeachment proceedings. It is my understanding that justice is supposed to be impartial to the differences between partisan politics, and thus it is a breach of the law to fire US attorneys who oppose the views of the current government, which is supposedly what he probably definitely did, even though he is innocent until he is caught and is subsequently pardoned. (Until then, I will just have to imagine him tying Lady Justice to some train tracks, like in so many old films.) There has been an attempt to veil the whole scandal of course, but Mr Gonzales lacks the performance skills required to face so many hearings; in one meeting he said “I do not recall” over 70 times.
I can understand why humour may currently struggle past “Americans are stupid” considering how naturally comic the current government is. I do not often appreciate irrational anti-Americanism (“some of my best friends are American”) although I cannot help but think about Charles de Gaulle when he said, “You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination.”
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