Letters to the Editor

• Spealing of corporate types, has anyone read the diatribe from Lee Iacocco that is part of his new book

  [Read the article: A genuine political sea change?]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  Iaccoca never impressed me that much but:

  clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane . . . But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say,"Stay the course." Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. . .

  The President ... given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't need it) ... While we're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions... You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged.

  How did we end up with this crowd in Washington? Well, we voted for them-or at least some of us did. ... We didn't agree to suspend the Constitution... to stop asking questions or demanding answers. Some of us are sick and tired of people who call free speech treason ...

  A leader ... has to listen to people outside of the "Yes, sir" crowd ... He has to read voraciously ... Bush brags about never reading a newspaper. "I just scan the headlines," he says... He's the President of the United States and he never reads a newspaper? ... Jefferson once said, "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter." Bush disagrees. As long as he gets his daily hour in the gym, with Fox News piped through the sound system, he's ready to go.

  Bush prides himself on never changing, even as the world around him is spinning out of control. God forbid someone should accuse him of flip-flopping. There's a disturbingly messianic fervor to his certainty. Senator Joe Biden recalled a conversation he had with Bush a few months after our troops marched into Baghdad. Joe was in the Oval Office outlining his concerns to the President-the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the disbanded Iraqi army, the problems securing the oil fields. "The President was serene," Joe recalled. "He told me he was sure that we were on the right course and that all would be well. 'Mr. President,' I finally said, 'how can you be so sure when you don't yet know all the facts?'" Bush then reached over and put a steadying hand on Joe's shoulder. "My instincts" ..

  Bush has shown a willingness to take bold action on the world stage ... but shows little regard for the grievous consequences. He has sent our troops (not to mention hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens) to their deaths-for what? To build our oil reserves? To avenge his daddy because Saddam Hussein once tried to have him killed? To show his daddy he's tougher? ... A man of character does not ask a single soldier to die for a failed policy.

  Swagger isn't courage. Tough talk isn't courage. George Bush comes from a blue-blooded Connecticut family, but he likes to talk like a cowboy. You know, My gun is bigger than your gun. ...

  Bush can't even make a public appearance unless the audience has been handpicked and sanitized. He did a series of so-called town hall meetings last year, in auditoriums packed with his most devoted fans. The questions were all softballs.

  Bush has set the all-time record for number of vacation days taken by a U.S. President-four hundred and counting. He'd rather clear brush on his ranch than immerse himself in the business of governing. He even told an interviewer that the high point of his presidency

  so far was catching a seven-and-a-half-pound perch in his hand-stocked lake....

  .. put him at a global summit where the future of our planet is at stake, and he doesn't look very presidential. Those frat-boy pranks and the kidding around he enjoys so much don't go over that well with world leaders. Just ask German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who received an unwelcome shoulder massage from our President at a G-8 Summit. When he came

  up behind her and started squeezing, I thought she was going to go right through the roof.

  Bush brags about being our first MBA President. Does that make him competent? Well, let's see. Thanks to our first MBA President, we've got the largest deficit in history, Social Security is on life support, and we've run up a half-a-trillion-dollar price tag (so far) in Iraq. And that's just for starters.

  George Bush doesn't have common sense. He just has a lot of sound bites. You know-

  Mr. they'll-welcome-us-as-liberators-no-child-left-behind-heck-of-a-job-Brownie-mission-accomplished Bush.

  It's easy to sit there with your feet up on the desk and talk theory. Or send someone else's kids off to war when you've never seen a battlefield yourself. ...

  On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader ... a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. . . George Bush? He was reading a story about a pet goat to kids in Florida when

  he heard about the attacks. He kept sitting there for twenty minutes with a baffled look on his face. It's all on tape. You can see it for yourself.

  Then, instead of taking the quickest route back to Washington and immediately going on the air to reassure the panicked people of this country, he decided it wasn't safe to return to the White House. He basically went into hiding for the day-and he told Vice President Dick

  Cheney to stay put in his bunker. ... It took Bush a couple of days to get his bearings and devise the right photo op at Ground Zero.

  That was George Bush's moment of truth, and he was paralyzed. And what did he do when he'd regained his composure? He led us down the road to Iraq

  Permalink Saturday, April 28, 2007 02:05 PM