Let's talk about replacing GWBush in 2004.

So perhaps we should push Tres as a 2004 replacement for George the Younger



timber

Something is very stinky here.

timber

It was the mirror thing, right!

Mark Crispin Miller, Author of "The Bush Dyslexicon" and a Professor at NYU, has become the unofficial "translator" for those who feel horrified at the path that the George W. Bush is leading us down. He shares some thoughts at Buzzfash.com. Here's some excerpts:

BUZZFLASH: In an age of pervasive visual media, can we ever restore politics to being about substance over image? Or are we condemned to forever be ruled by "image" presidencies with color-coordinated backdrops and messaging?

MILLER: That's a tough one. On the one hand, TV lies more easily than print, because the image often lies without the viewer quite knowing it. And yet television also tells some truths that print cannot convey. Certainly the truth about George W. Bush is readily apparent on TV: his short fuse, his pathological rigidity, his lunatic self-righteousness, his boundless ignorance. Every medium can tell us something, if it's honest with us. Although TV will always take us in, the audience can also learn to watch it with a certain healthy skepticism. This tends to happen when there is a great disorienting gap between the world around us and the world as televised. Which is to say that it is happening now. Fewer and fewer people buy this president, or what TV has to say about him.

BUZZFLASH: We recently penned this commentary: "So the next time you hear George talking about God being behind his little war, just remember that Bush hijacked the government -- and now he's hijacking God." (See http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/03/02/21.html) Bush tends to speak pretty clearly when is quoting the Bible and the like. You have indicated he speaks fairly normally when he talks about things he believes in. Do you believe that he is a sincere fundamentalist? Does he believe that if Armageddon is coming, it is the Lord's will?

MILLER: Like many sociopathic leaders, Bush is both sincere and calculating.

On the one hand, he has used religion very cannily to get himself installed as president. He was smart enough to get himself reborn at just the moment when his father had to make connections with the Christian right, and he's always been expert at pushing all the right-wing Christian buttons. On the other hand, he does believe that God has chosen him to be His instrument against "the evil one."

In short, he's dangerously grandiose -- more so since 9/11. Being a man of shabby character, like Nixon, he appears to have gone mad from having all that power. And as he's dragged us all toward war, he has sounded more and more apocalyptic and fanatical. He uses all the buzzwords of "the End Times," so it's likely that he sees it as his mission to bring human history to an end, so that his buddy Jesus can come down and run the show for a millennium. Reagan had some of the same delusions, but he was also well-protected from himself in that regard.

Few in Reagan's court -- and no one in his family -- encouraged his eschatological imaginings. With Bush we're not so lucky.

We can only hope that God will find a way to stop him. After all, he is no more a Christian, really, than he is a Democrat or a conservative; Jesus certainly would not approve of him. Bush is himself a swaggering contradiction of the Sermon on the Mount.

Pressure is on to get Miller removed from NYU, or so I read...

Here's another way our great president is protecting our security at home. The front page news in today's San Jose Mercury News is titled "CRISIS IN HEALTH CARE." The essense of this article is that as benefits drop, costs are rising. "In the Bay Area, rising costs forced Lifeguard Insurance to close in December, pushing 160,000 people to other plans." Health insurance premiums jumped 12.7 percent last year. "The San Jose/Good Samaritan Medical Group filed for bankruptcy protection, its practice eroded by tech layoffs." So it seems we have a double whammy: more unemployment, and our hospitals going bankrupt. I just wonder why we can afford this war with Iraq, and pay Turkey 10 billion? Something just doesn't seem right. c.i.

26 billion for Turkey, cicerone...but that's our final offer.

They're holding out for 32...or is it 30?

''Our 'president,' having lost the election by a half-million votes, has succeeded brilliantly in turning the whole world anti-American. In fact, the Supreme Court delivered the United States into the hands of the hard-right, imperialist, fundamentalist, death-penalty wing of the Republican Party (the president's ''base''). The administration has offended by its insensitivity, its arrogance and its cement-headed imperialism the ordinary people of Europe--including our English allies and, heaven save us all, the Irish. And the pope! Nice going, Mr. President!"
--Andrew Greeley, 'No sympathy for American devil', suntimes.com

All the war-mongers can't see the damage being done at home. Are they blind? c.i.

I was just thinking about how eloquently some attempt to vindicate the motivations of this administration. I can't help but think their words come from a place inside them that feels strongly (albeit ill-advisedly) that they must defend their president, notwithstanding the idiocies he manifests.

This was said about those who defended Clinton in spite of all his obvious moral failings, and I'm not saying that's totally untrue, either.

I think it might stem from some insecurity we all have that if we don't defend those in power who most closely represent our ideologies, we stand at risk of being even less in control of our destinies.

Just a thought.

snood, I don't think you're too far off the mark. I think the same thing happens in religious faith. Just a thought. c.i.

That's a scary thought, Snood. I've always been skeptical about power and those who hold it, and I don't (never thought about this before) think of my "destiny" as interlocked with that of my country or any political leader. I think we make our own destinies, sometimes with the help of and sometimes in spite of those who lead the government. However, I do believe that if this government gets its way, it may be responsible for many "destinies" arriving sooner than expected.

Okay, help me out here... which part of this is Bush's fault?


Is he responsible for doctors choosing not to accept insurance from companies that have a poor track record on paying? Is he responsible for health care consumers having to make hard decisions? Is he responsible for the fact that consumers have been too shielded from the costs of their health care for too many years, or for the rising costs of that health care? Or is it your contention that he is responsible for people now seeing those costs and being frightened by them?

Please help me out here... which of these is Bush's fault?

Thanks.

And not a bad one at that...

I think you ignore the very real option that--at least some of the time--those who defend Bush do so because they see reason in his actions where you do not. (And that just means you and they/I disagree. I'm not speaking to right or wrong here. (!)) But let's leave that alone for now and consider your point; when someone like me leaps to defend Bush even when I think his actions may be ill-advised.

Speaking for myself, I may sometimes be over-zealous in thinking I need to defend Bush because I think I see so many people who seem overly zealous in their need to attack him. (And I will also add that I am not among those who likewise feel the need to take every shot at Clinton they can manage.)

So, perhaps it would be better for all if everyone were more willing to look at the actions of Bush and others while trying to ignore his party or his politics and just consider what it is he says he wants to do. Just as so many conservatives assumed that every action Bill Clinton took was not only wrong, but intended to do harm to our nation, many liberals seem to take a similar tack on Bush. Many seem not just to think that he's wrong, but that he's evil.

So, when so many call him Satan, that may push those of us who see him as a man trying to do what he thinks is right in a very difficult job to try to prove he is a Saint. The truth is of course somewhere in between.

Oh, and if it ever seems that I think he's a Saint, I don't. I think the previous paragraph sums up my point of view. (And I think the pretty much the same thing can be said of Clinton.)

Trespassers will has been asleep for over two yrs
Trespassers will that I hope that you don't mind if I say
that george bu$h is the worst excuse for a pres to ever sit in the oval office. I feel that the only way you can think that bu$h is doing a good job is if you are and have been sound asleep the last two years.

I will never understand how anyone can look at the disaster this little man has been and say he's doing a good job.

For example he claims that he is a "military" man....loves his military people but in the past few weeks he has opted to ask for a 50% reduction in their cost of living increase, reduce the amount of housing allowance for married members not living on base and finally just yesterday announced the elimination of gov. funds to schools near military bases.

So this military loving man wants to cut pay and housing for the lowest on the income scale in the military. I was in and around the military for over 25 yrs and I know who the people are who live off base for the most part. They are the lower income married couples who cannot obtain living quarters on base because the housing is allotted to the higher ranking people first and foremost.

Ask the military families living around Ft Hood TX if they know about king george's newest plan for them.......if he has his way federal funds that used to go to the schools because most of the military rent or live on base and do not contribute to local property taxes will be eliminated...not cut but eliminated!

I can only wonder what other ways does the king of mean and hateful have in mind to show his "love" for the military.

I think it is despicable that he asks for cuts in the cost of living pay raises even as he sends these fathers and husbands to their possible death. Or gee why not make some of these families homeless by cutting the pittance of a housing allowance? School? How can he keep America dumbed down if he allows school?

You have a right to your opinion of course but that does not make it true when you say that bu$h & /or Congress leans to the left to appease the Democrats in Congress. That confirms for me that you have been totally asleep for the last two plus yrs.

Tresspasser, I think you are one of those people would defend bu$h's actions if he walked out in the middle of Pennsylvania Av and started shooting people. I do believe you would find a way to call it patriotic!

Just replace him!!!!!!!!!!!!

Were a suitable, qualified option to be presented, I would not hesitate to join the Dump Bush the Younger camp. Much of his agenda dismays me. I see no likely Republican challenger, though of course that, given unforeseen developments over the next year or so could change. Not one of The Democratic Hopefulls has done a thing to cause me to feel any one of them would in any way improve the current situation. That too could change.

I admit only the possibility of change, and do not infer there is any probability of such. Given reasonable success in the military arena, diplomatic reunification to some extent, and no personal scandal, along with substantial economic recovery (which likely would follow military and other diplomatic success), Bush remains heavily favored in The Point Spread at the moment. Of course, as I said, that could change ... I just don't expect it to.



timber

Here's another disaster happening in our own yard, while Bush the younger spends billions of our tax money to fight his war in Iraq. These stats are taken from today's San Jose Mercury News: $3.2 billion = LA County's 2002-2003 health budget. $710 million = LA County's predicted health budget shortfall over the next four years. 40% of LA's hospitals are on "diversion" status and turning away patients. 16 of 40 health centers the county closed in 2002. This trend is common in all communities in the US. (My quote.) The California state deficit for the next 18 months is pegged at $35 billion, while Bush the younger gives Turkey $32 billion to stage our troops for his war against Iraq. This picture is completely wrong! c.i.

And, BTW, the state legislature is now working to reduce our education budget by one third. Here'a another example of Bush's "Leave No Child Behind." c.i.