"You are not being governed." - Dick Meyer, CBS news

[trof]

Dick Meyer is the editorial director of CBSNews.com.

Washington - The great impulse of the punditocracy right now is to look at President Bush's swelling problems with the public and his party in the context of the elections coming up in November and then in 2008. Big mistake.

Short of another disaster on the scale of 9/11, George Bush no longer has the power, credibility or ability to effectively govern for the rest of his term in office. Contrary to what you hear on television, governing remains more important than campaigning. Government is more important than elections - to the extent the two can be differentiated anymore.

<snip>

But what is apparent, is that George Bush has at his disposal none - none - of the tools presidents have used to turn bad situations around: public support, party support or skilled statecraft. He's a lame duck less than two years in to his second term.
You are not being governed.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/17/opinion/meyer/main1623700.shtml

[greekspeak]

1. Has the man ever GOVERNED? His residency has been a campaign

after the campaign is over. There has never been governing out of the WH as long as Our Doofus of the Sagittal Crest has been there. It is just an ongoing political campaign...attacks on others, framing of issues, presentation of a persona rather than rule by a person. Just a campaign that never ends. And the world suffers for it. It is lame, sad, evil, radical, cynical, patronizing and a whole lot of other adjectives.

[indepat]

3. Yet the tumultuous throngs clamored for four more years, four more

years.

[Lexingtonian]

12. It's called moronocracy.... n/t

[tanyev]

16. Unless you count governing by photo-op.

[cantstandbush]

25. Sorry, but another disaster like 9/11 will totally destroy Bush and all

the neocon Rethugs. They had better hope it doesn't happen on their watch because it will mean the all the faith the public had placed in the Rethugs being able to protect us from those bad, bad terrorists was misplaced. So I disagree with the journalist on this point. Another disaster like 9/11 will not save Bush and his administration.

[dennis4868]

2. "You are not being governed."

no shit sherlock.

[ThoughtCriminal]

4. They can't deal with any of the problems we face

Their ideology offers only the counter productive.

[valerief]

5. Yeah, and this clown has been a lot of help since 2001. Why

start telling anyone now? Go back under your rock.

[calimary]

20. That's what I was just wondering. What did YOU do, sir, to prevent

this from happening? What truths did YOU expose, early-on, about this jackass? What myth-debunking did YOU do to tell the truth about this asshole? What part did YOU play in fighting through the crap and propaganda and spin to give us the truth? Where were YOU when we were being sold down the river, when we anti-war people were laughed at, demonized, ignored, and condemned with every awful name and concept they could throw at us? And btw, WE turned out to be correct about EVERYTHING. The people YOU paid attention to, and gave airtime to and face time to - they lied to you and they lied to us, and you just sat there and didn't question it. So don't get all preachy and holier-than-thou with ME, asshole. YOU are one of the reasons we're in this fix - people like you, positioned to tell the truth and expose the lies, and you stayed safely and obediently asleep, allowing every last fox in the forest to run amok through every hen house in America. Don't you come scolding to ME! Look in your own bathroom mirror before you start sounding off, schmucko.

[Love Bug]

31. Well said, calimary!

:applause:

[bemildred]

6. Good, I don't want to be "governed".

We are supposed to govern ourselves. The sooner we depose these self-serving swine and take control of out own destiny, the better.

[Gato Moteado]

7. how does another 911 style disaster give the chimp credibilty to govern?

i mean, they were negligent and stupid (and some in the admin possibly complicit) with the first 911. how does a second 911 result in anything less than the people and the military going in there and removing the whole crew of criminals forcibly?

[paparush]

18. Exactly, his ENTIRE EXISTENCE since 9-12-2001 is that he and only he..

can protect us. Give me all your freedoms and I will keep you safe. Another 9-11 terrah attack, with the Repubs having run EVERYTING for the last 5 years, would drive a stake through the RNC.

[pretzel4gore]

8. had the pigmedia done their job re clinton

bush simply would not be in this trouble, and the usa/planet not in this mess. meyers needs his night on death row after a fair trial, along with 100k other mediawhores. the punks can't blame geeb (brother of john ellis bush, called 'jeb' in a mockery of the south, kind of like junior mocks texas) for exploiting their racism, greed, sexism and selfish stupidity!
bill clinton had the media as a counter to everything he did, which allowed the system to work a little - even if 'political correctness' ran amok during clinton years, lookit the colossal mess we in now? And political correctness has really been 'greed is only good' for 15 years now (see limbah-humbug) when you reflect on it!

[stevedeshazer]

9. !!!

:wow:

Now Dick, about that Rove indictment....

[orwell]

10. Good... n/t

[linazelle]

11. Bush doesn't have party support? Yah right.

I don't buy that for a minute.

[Cha]

13. Don't give the neoCONS any

ideas that they don't already have.."Short of another disaster on the scale of 9/11, George Bush no longer has the power, credibility or ability to effectively govern for the rest of his term in office."

It took 5 years for the rest of the country to catch up to what we knew in 2000 and how many deaths later?

[calimary]

27. Unfortunately, I fear they've already thought of that.

After all, were they not the ones who talked in their PNAC manifesto about the "unintended" benefits of a "new Pearl Harbor" to hog-tie the American people and win their meek compliance to everything, silencing all dissent, and "uniting" the country naively and unquestioningly behind their savior-president?

What concerns me is if they see their prospects at the polls in November (and perhaps beyond) so bleak that they may feel compelled to instigate something else to force those conditions on an unsuspecting country again? And that would also imply that they're reading the tea leaves and realizing that they're not in position to steal as many elections as they'd have to - to ensure that they keep their majorities in November. Remember, by now, the American people are angry and have turned on george. They're NOT in the same place, mentally or emotionally, that they were back in 2000, or 2001-2002, or 2004. They're neither as docile and fearful nor obedient and unquestioning anymore. They've seen too much. They've been lied to, too much. There will be many elections that will NOT be close enough to steal and get away with it. This time around, there's liable to be more than a few voices screaming a little too loudly to be ignored anymore. Plus, the media's started waking up, and if the exit polling doesn't match the results, and there are just a few too many come-from-behind-at-the-last-minutes, there will be objections this time, and perhaps even media investigations with some teeth.

The conditions this time around are just not there, as they were, in years past. The heist won't be that easy this time around.

[nicknameless]

14. When did * ever want to govern? He wants to rule.

[SupplyConcerns]

15. Do tyrants "govern"?

[Gato Moteado]

21. the question is: do puppets govern?

bush wishes he were a tyrant.

[baldguy]

17. "Short of another disaster on the scale of 9/11..."

Expect one.

[SupplyConcerns]

26. Will do. Maybe they've been thrown off in their plans

Like the Dubai port deal exploding in their face, or the fact that alot of people noticed the security company change for this year's Superbowl and cried MIHOP in advance.

[Arugula Latte]

19. The media largely still sees Bush in the context of "normal" presidents.

They think he had intentions of actually acting like a president, but has failed in that. Most still don't seem to grasp Bush is another animal all together -- more along the lines of an old style, batshit crazy dictator. He doesn't give a SHIT about governing or the "Amurikin People." He has always been about lawlessness, seizing power, and seizing assets for the upper .5 percent uber wealthy corporate CEO class. That's it. In Bush's world, everyone can go fuck themselves as long as the transfer of wealth continues apace.

[opihimoimoi]

22. The man canardly read ...FGS. much less Lead/Govern...

A weak mind gives us weak decisions...He may be the DECIDER////of POOR DECISIONs????????????

[Scriptor Ignotus]

23. the king reigns but does not govern

........

[ebayfool]

24. He may be late to the party, but he got some points laid right out!

We all scream @ the media not calling *ushco out, & when one does peek out & speak some truth ... holler go away, crawl back under your rock, etc. I'd like to see more of them speaking up - late to the party or not! He's left out reams of the pissypants' failings & crimes, but he does rap on:

Rove is fighting off an indictment
Dubai deal
Harriet Miers
deficits
Porter Goss (disaster not just politically but
substantively)
never reached outside his core circle for advisers,
staff or ideas
the party's Christian soldiers (being used)
Senate and House Republicans are in almost open warfare
(that one makes me feel warm all over!)


snip/

... voters trusted Democrats over Republicans to handle all 10 of the major issues the pollsters asked about.

& snip/

Bush's realm of efficacy will be limited to areas where he can make unilateral decisions, mostly in war and foreign policy. The tax cuts that oozed through Congress last week may well be his last "significant" piece of domestic legislation; I put quotations around significant because they are, in fact temporary. The entire menu of Bush tax tinkering is set to expire in 2010 on someone else's watch, an apt metaphor for this administration.


Then he morphs into the whining I've been hearing alot of lately (as though it's an excuse for ?what? :argh: ) -

Democratic gains would simply lead to continued do-nothingism.

Two steps forward - one step back, I guess.
Still like seeing increments taken ... here's to them becoming leaps & bounds!

[Stevepol]

28. He does have one "tool" to fight against his bottomless fall:

"But what is apparent, is that George Bush has at his disposal none - none - of the tools presidents have used to turn bad situations around: public support, party support or skilled statecraft."

That one tool is spelled D * I * E * B * O * L * D

And it's the only tool he needs (along with ES&S, Sequoia, Hart Intercivic, etc. of course).

[Auntie Bush]

29. Stop giving me nightmares! What would we do if bush* won due

to diebold and similar tools? I can't imagine what would happen.

[pretzel4gore]

30. i fear bush being diagnosed with some fatal disease

they could so easily arrange thst, either in fact, or a media op.....10 years from now, bush still partying.....:(