Letters to the Editor
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Saving Bush
To the Editor of Salon:
Who can save Mr. Bush? Throughout his career Mr. Bush has been sure bets and when even then things went wrong, he was bailed out by family retainers. Examples are Harken Oil and that baseball team. When he started his run for President he was given Dick Cheney, a 'grown-up', as a minder. As it turned out, the minder was worse than the mindee in his support for regime change in Iraq.
Now, again, a family retainer (James Baker) has been recruited to pull Bush's chestnuts from the fire.
Why have we not heard more about the blue ribbon Iraq committee, formed to determine what, really, we have to do to get out of Iraq without losing face? Why couldn't Hoover have formed his own depression committee? Why didn't he?
It was clear Mr. Hoover wasn't enjoying his job at the White House then, and it is clear Mr. Bush is not enjoying his job there now. Before, when he was not so visible, Mr. Bush could just walk away when the job became boring. Now he is going down in flames and doesn't even know it.
JR Rudert
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Staying the course...
Staying the course is not a good idea when you're heading over a cliff.
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The Value of Historical Review
Isn't it interesting how close, incisive review of American history in this and the preceding century always reveal the same two tenets:
Things were always scandalously screwed up...
and the overriding Republican credo has always been prevention of downward income redistribution.
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Blumenthal hits it on the head.
Once again, Blumenthal is the voice of reason in the cacaphony of bedlam that is the American media circus. Giving us the benefit of his deep understanding of history, he puts the Bush administration in the proper perspective.
I think Blumenthal has somehow mastered time travel - the wisdom and clarity of his perspective makes me think that he has traveled ahead 6 months in time & is looking back on things with all the intelligence, insight, perspective and comfort that 6 months of hindsight affords.
Why this guy is not given the big megaphone into America's living room that Matthews, Russert etc etc are given is America's loss. His vision, clarity & wisdom are badly needed. Thank god that at least we can read him in Salon.
E.Horan
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Comparing George W. Bush to Herbert Hoover
is an insult to Hoover. I'd take Hoover 8 days a week over Dubya. This strikes me as another of the faux-historical comparisons that have become so popular in recent years. Often they only prove that you can take any two disparate situations and find some common thread.
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The Measure of a Man...
Informative. Thanks for that little insight into behind the doors of this administration.
I always say the measure of a man is how he treats his underlings -- not his cronies. That little incident with the cheeseburger is an indictment of Bush's character, a telling aspect of how he treats those he believes are inferior to him; those not part of his inner circle.
Keep giving us the benefit of your enormous experience and keen insight. Your articles on Salon.com are a must-read for me, along with a few others - Keillor, Zacharek, KChronicles,Broadsheet - to name a few.
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Re: Bush's Card Trick
What else can be said about this sorry excuse for a leader, let alone a man? This joke that has been played upon the american public grows increasingly pathetic day by day. As much as Mr. Bush likes to play the part of a "born-again" Christian, he still exhibits all the classic symptoms of the town drunk. Even though he says he does not consume alcohol anymore, he still shows all the signs of those who abuse alcohol and drugs. He will utter a statement or commit an act and then later deny that act or statement. He hides others in his family who also suffer the affliction. When have we last heard of or even seen his alcoholic daughters?
Yes, it's a sad time for our country when other countries can see right through this person, this "Crusader Rabbit" who only sees the world as good or evil. I'm sorry, Mr. Bush, your greatest devil is yourself.
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No Elephants
The republikan mascot is not the elephant any more. It's the toad. As in toady.
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stupid americans
Remember this, GWB will be replaced by someone just like him. You idiots have just allowed yourself to be scammed out of what was once the greatest democracy in history.
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It's not really about Bush
This kind of thing could hardly be called "analysis." As a person, Bush is clearly an unimaginative prick, and his policies are terrible, but no President has the power to simply do whatever strikes his fancy. Bush has been able to pass the Patriot Act, wage two pointless wars, construct a secret police, build a gulag of concentration camps, etc. etc. because the Democrats have been actively helping him. And behind both parties stand Wall Street, the Zionist lobby, the oil and arms industries, the various pressure groups and think tank loonies that really draft policy. Above all, we have the passivity and conformism of the U.S. public. Without all of these forces going along with Bush and his PNAC fanatics, they would be nothing. Putting the blame on Bush's "rigidity" is ridiculous. If the powers that be didn't like Bush's policies, or at least tolerate them, he would change in no time. (Same for Hoover, I'm sure: if big capital had thought a different direction was appropriate, no amount of ideological rigidity would have kept him from making changes.)
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The man who always fails
Great article. But what more can we expect of GWB? He failed as an oil prospector and daddy's friends bailed him out. He failed as a sports team owner and ran the business into the ground and took the money and left the next owner to bail it out. He failed to finish his national guard agreement. Daddy's friends helped him become governor of a prosperous state, and he ran it into bankruptcy. He destroyed the strong public school system in Texas and used it as a model for his NCLB program for the nation. He couldn't win an election honestly in either 2000 or 2004. He learned how to win from his failed attempt to be elected to congress. Now he is a president who is absolutely clueless about everything. He is one of the worst presidents we have ever had and history tells us we have had some doozies.
I am 76 years old and I hope I live long enough to see this man get his just deserts.