Last night, looking uncannily like a character straight out of the film The Stepford Wives, Laura Bush took center stage at the Republican National Convention to paint a picture of her husband for the viewers of America. Specifically, she set out to convince us why we should re-elect her husband. She used the following characteristics to describe him:
* has led our country with strength and conviction...
* tell[s] you what he really thinks.
* You can count on him, especially in a crisis.
* His friends don't change and neither do his values.
* boundless energy and enthusiasm for his job and for life itself.
* treats every person he meets with dignity and respect
* dignity and respect...for the office he holds.
* a loving man with a big heart.
* strong and determined leader
But when it comes to President George W. Bush, the American voter should measure him on his performance and actions. No matter how loving or big-hearted George appears to be to Laura, he has put on a different face to a majority of Americans. Consider these thoughts:
If he has strength and conviction, why did he hang out in that elementary school room while the World Trade Towers were burning? Why did he scurry off to an unknown location in Nebraska until the threat of terrorist attacks on Washington D.C. dissipated? Why did his White House staff lie about a threat against Air Force One that day?
The truth is that we cannot count on Bush in a crisis. On 9/11, he was not on the scene making decisions. He was not the one that grounded all flights. He was not the one to decide that a jetliner would be shot out of the sky if it didn't land.
Rather, we can count on Bush to create a crisis, whether that be his flawed No Child Left Behind program, his tax cuts that have plummeted us into a deficit nearly beyond repair (not to mention that the cuts favored the wealthy); his foreign policy; his blind eye toward greedy energy corporations; his pre-emptive war against Iraq that was poorly planned and executed; his environmental policies; his resumption of nuclear weapons development and testing; etc. There is a crisis in every aspect he's had his fingers in.
Laura suggests that we can count on George. But how can we count on him when he has spent nearly 40% of his presidency on vacation in Crawford? How can we count on him to make a logical decision for America when he struggles to answer questions at press conferences and town hall meetings in complete and competent sentences?
How can we count on this president to win the fight on terror when he has neglected to fund our major cities and ports in order to create better and more substantive first-responder units and upgrade their hazmat/security tools? And how can we count on this president when he has to be forced to investigate the events of 9/11, the leaking of Valerie Plame, or the tortures of Abu Ghraib?
The George that Laura knows might have values; he might be a loving man with a big heart. But from what we have seen the past four years, he has orchestrated over an administration that has displayed none of these characteristics to foreign officials (except the ones they like) and to their foes (McCain in 2000 and most especially Democrats). They are exclusionary, devisive, arrogant, secretive, manipulative, presumptuous, greedy, egregiously idealistic, obfuscatory, prevaricators, and narcisstic.
Yes, these are the characteristics I've come to see in our dear President Bush since he took office on the wings of a highly controversial Supreme Court decision nearly four years ago. And it's been a journey from one crisis to the next ever since.
