Bush Campaign Lies
Saturday, November 06, 2004
Bush Wins - What Were You Thinking?
For obvious reasons, this will be my last post. And I have only one thing to say to the millions of people who voted for Bush last Tuesday: What were you thinking?
This is only a guess, but I estimate that Bush received at least 20 million votes from people who might have been willing to vote the other way, but decided for one reason or another that Bush was the better candidate.
But how could ANYONE think Bush was the better candidate? What was the one accomplishment of the Bush administration that persuaded them to give Bush four more years? Was it the fact that the worst terrorist attack ever to take place on American soil happened on Bush's watch? The fact that Bush spent the first seven minutes after receiving word of the attacks staring blankly at a room full of elementary school children? The fact that the Bush administration willfully withheld an EPA evaluation on how dangerous the air was in downtown NY after the attacks, so that thousands of people, including unborn children, will have health problems for the rest of their lives?
Was it the fact that Bush resisted the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, and the creation of the 9/11 commission? Or maybe it was the fact that Bush willfully withheld information from the 9/11 commission for months, and refused to testify before the commission in person, and then finally agreed to testify but only if Dick Cheney could come along and hold his hand?
Maybe it was the fact that Bush and friends relentlessly politicized the attacks, using them to cast their Democratic opponents as unpatriotic, using Osama bin Laden's picture in campaign ads in the 2002 midterm elections to smear an incumbent Democrat who had served heroically in Vietnam? Or the fact that they used the attacks to strongarm Democrats into voting for a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq less than a month before those midterm elections?
Or maybe the war against Iraq was enough all by itself? Was it the way that Cheney and Wolfowitz set up their own intelligence agency, the Office of Special Plans, to cherry pick intelligence reports about Iraq's WMD capability, so that exculpatory data never made it to Bush's desk, but inflammatory and often unreliable data did? Was it the way Colin Powell went before the UN and boldly lied about Iraq's weapons stockpiles? Or the comments Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice and especially Cheney made giving detailed descriptions of Iraq's weapons capabilities, stating unambiguously types and quantities of weaponry when they knew their statements were based on questionable evidence at best and complete fabrications at worst?
Was it the fact that someone in the White House committed a felony by blowing the cover of a CIA operative working on WMD intelligence, and Bush didn't really seem to give a damn?
Maybe it was the fact that David Kay and Charles Duelfer both reported unambiguously that Iraq basically never had WMD (since 1998) and never would as long as the sanctions remained in place, yet until very recently, Bush and Cheney both insisted that the weapons really had been there? Maybe it was the way Bush joked around about our inability to find those weapons, even as our troops were getting killed by Iraqi insurgents at the rate of more than one a day?
Maybe it was the fact that we sent far too few troops to Iraq in the first place, and thus have had to withstand much higher mortality rates than if we had gone in with the recommended level of troops. Or the fact that the Pentagon made up a detailed post-invasion plan to secure the country, and Rumsfeld threw it in the trash, confident that U.S. troops would be greeted with open arms and flowers.
Maybe it was the way we invaded a country ruled by a ruthless dictator with no significant ties to terrorism and made it a terrorist haven. Maybe it was the way we shredded almost all of the international alliances we ever had in the process, thus making success in Iraq much more difficult for this president, and making diplomacy in general much more difficult for any American president for years to come.
Maybe it was the way the Bushies raided the U.S. treasury, slashing billions in tax revenues to lower taxes for everyone a little bit, but for the wealthiest a lot. After all, it is 'our money'. Maybe it's the way that Bush showed his deep concern for spending every tax dollar wisely by indiscriminately doling out multi-billion dollar no-bid contracts to Cheney's Halliburton cronies with no oversight.
Maybe it's the biggest national debt in U.S. history. Maybe it's the fact that Bush is the first president since Hoover to see a net decrease in the number of jobs during his term of office. Maybe it's the fact that Bush was so eager to pursue a meaningless and expensive war of choice in Iraq that he let Osama bin Laden get away. Maybe it's the fact that his administration has done more to damage the environment than any other administration in American history.
Maybe it's the fact that by invading Iraq, we allowed 377 tons of explosives to get into the hands of terrorists. Maybe it's the fact that every counterterrorism expert believes that the war in Iraq made the U.S. less safe instead of more safe. Maybe it's the fact that the administration lied about the cost of the Medicare bill because even congressional Republicans wouldn't have supported it if they had known the true cost, or the fact that they made it illegal for Medicare to use its buying power to negotiate lower drug costs with manufacturers.
Maybe it's the fact that a bunch of liars spent a month smearing Kerry's heroic record of service in Vietnam, and so people decided they'd rather vote for a deserter who to this day consistently lies about his military record.
If anyone is still reading this site, and if they're Bush supporters, they'll call me a sore loser. Damn right I'm sore. We could have gotten this country turned in the right direction with this election. But no. 48% of the people in this country had better sense than you, but because you prefer cheerleading for the Cult of Bush to thinking, we all have to suffer right along with you.
I'm talking to you, West Virginia, and you, Colorado, and you, Nevada. If Kerry had taken those three states, I wouldn't be writing this right now. But it doesn't stop there. Florida went for the incompetent buffoon, and apparently Ohio did, too.
This election shouldn't have been close. Yeah, I'm sore, because I'm trying to raise my kids, and you idiots are going to make this country a much more unpleasant place for them to grow up, just because you think it's more important to make 'flip-flopper' and botox jokes than it is to get a responsible leader in the White House.
And yes, I'm a loser, too. But unless you make over $200,000 a year or work for the Republican party, the oil industry or the defense industry, so are you. 98% of the people in this country are going to be losers, all because of you frat-boy Bush supporters.
Congratulations. I hope you're as happy with your 'victory' three years from now as you are today.
