Text 1491, 106 rader
Skriven 2004-08-28 07:31:10 av BOB SAKOWSKI (1:123/140)
Ärende: Incompetent
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Is the boy king incompetent?  Richard Reeves counts the ways.

THE REAL ISSUE: BUSH IS INCOMPETENT

Fri Aug 27, 2:43 AM ET

By Richard Reeves

NEW YORK -- President Bush (news - web sites) is coming to town. You better
watch out, you better not shout -- unless you're a certified delegate
inside Madison Square Garden. With protesters somewhere out of sight, the
Republican National Convention will be a celebration of the ideology,
values and interests served by this second Bush presidency.


Latest headlines:
·  Kerry, Greenspan Differ on Social Security
AP - 13 minutes ago
·  Kerry Steps Up Attack on Bush's Economic Record
Reuters - 17 minutes ago
·  NYC Police Arrest 250 in Bicycle Protest
AP - 1 hour, 3 minutes ago

All Election Coverage



Richard Reeves

  

Whether you agree or disagree with the words pouring from the podium over
Americans who see reflections of themselves in George W. Bush, the real
issue of this election will not be mentioned. The core issue is this: Our
president is incompetent. He is not a good president.

Let me count the ways:

(1) He has divided the country; we are all part of a vicious little hissing
match. We were united and humbled on Sept. 12, 2001. We are divided and
humiliated now, telling lies about each other.

(2) He has divided the world. "We are all Americans now," headlined Le
Monde on that Sept. 12. Now there are days when it seems as if they are all
anti-Americans.

(3) He is leaving no child or grandchild without debt. He has taken the
government from surplus into deficit in the name of national security and
increased private investment. We can pay the debt in two ways: with more
government revenues (taxation) or by borrowing -- against the sweat and
income of new generations. The president has chosen to borrow.

(4) He campaigns as a champion of smaller government, but is greatly
increasing the size and role of government. Ideological conservatism, it
turns out, costs just as much or more than ideological liberalism.
Conservative and liberal politicians are both for increasing the reach and
power of government. The difference between them is which parts and
functions of the state are to be empowered and financed. The choice is
between military measures and order, or more redistribution of income.
Money is power.

(5) He is diminishing the military of which he is so proud now as commander
in chief. The invasion and occupation of Iraq (news - web sites) have
obviously not worked out the way he imagined -- naked torture was not the
goal. But the far greater problem for the future is that our proud
commander has revealed the hollowness behind the unilateral superpower.
From the top down, we have not been able to win Iraq, much less the world.
And going into Iraq has compromised or crippled the war on terror he
declared himself.

(6) He is diminishing scientific progress, the great engine of the 20th
century. Only the truly ignorant can believe that the proper role of
government is to hinder medical research and environmental study in the
name of God.

(7) He is diminishing the Constitution of the United States. Cheesy tricks
like amending the great text of freedom to attack homosexuality can be
dismissed as wedge politics. But it is worse to preach against an activist
judiciary while appointing more activist judges who happen to hold
different beliefs, particularly the idea that civil liberties are the
enemies of patriotism, security and freedom itself.

(8) He has surrounded himself with other incompetents. The secretary of
state is presiding over the rape of diplomacy and its alliances. The
secretary of defense has sent our young men and women into situations they
were never meant or trained to handle, and now they are being ordered into
battle by an appointed minister in a faraway land. The national security
adviser does not seem to know that her job description includes
coordinating defense and diplomacy. And then there was our $340,000-a-month
local hire, Ahmed Chalabi, sitting in the gallery of our House.

(9) He has been unable or unwilling to deal with declining employment and
the rising medical costs of becoming an older nation.

(10) He is, as if by design, destroying the credibility of the United
States as a force for peace in the world -- an honest broker --
particularly in the Middle East.

The list is longer, miscalculation after miscalculation. President Bush has
not been able to function effectively at this pay grade. He may mean well,
but this has been a difficult time, and he is in over his head. We and our
kids will pay the price for his blundering, blunderbuss adventure in
Washington. He has been tested in a difficult time -- and, unhappily for
all of us and the world, he has not been up to the job. 
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