Asia Times-Bye Bush: "Close To Destroying A Superpower & Global Economy Virtually Single-Handedly"

[kpete]

Middle East
Jan 17, 2009


THE ROVING EYE
Fade out on George W Bush
By Pepe Escobar

.................

When Bush came into office the US had a US$237 billion surplus. Three days after 9/11, on September 14, 2001, his approval rate was 86%. By mid-2004, the budget deficit was in excess of $400 billion - and growing. (Thanks in large part to a big bipartisan majority in Congress having happily passed his $1.35 trillion package of tax cuts to the rich in May 2001.)

By mid-December 2008, his popularity ratings had plunged to 23% - only one point from an all-time low in every poll taken since 1938. Still, at 30% this month, this means that almost one in three Americans still approve of his job. H L Mencken must be wallowing in horror in his grave.

Coming close to destroying a superpower and the global economy virtually single-handedly is not bad for someone born with a silver spoon in his mouth who never held a steady job until the age of 45 - until "turd blossom" Karl Rove, the little, fat, bald Machiavelli, engineered him as the ultimate, corporate-pleasing, Southern Strategy lethal weapon, and Bush family consigliere James Baker turned a massive electoral fraud, mostly in Florida and Ohio, into a hijacked mandate via the Supreme Court. (American corporate media, by the way, loved it.)

As for the 2004 re-election - when his approval rate was at most 40% - it was a mix of low-tech - absentee ballots that were never mailed, rejected "provisional ballots", "spoiled ballots" - and high-tech - via scores of dodgy Diebold machines - corruption.

more at:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KA17Ak01.html

[tabatha]

1. Thanks. Good article.

[Poll_Blind]

2. Asia Times rarely gets it wrong- they're spot on this time.

Single-handedly. That's the War Head that tried to destroy America.

PB

[spindrifter]

3. Phenomenal!

How can they even get up in the morning, knowing--which they do--what they have done?

[bobd0]

4. K&R Great read. nt

[glitch]

5. His grandfather(s) would be so proud. nt

[bushmeister0]

6. "Frat boy ships out, " from the Economist.

I posted this yesterday but it seems to go right along with the gist of this thread. It's so great, it deserves to be reprinted.

"George Bush has presided over the most catastrophic collapse in America’s reputation since the second world war . . .

America is embroiled in two wars, one of which Mr Bush launched against the tide of world opinion. The Bush family name, once among the most illustrious in American political life, is now so tainted that Jeb, George’s younger brother, recently decided not to run for the Senate from Florida. A Bush relative describes family gatherings as 'funeral wakes'.

Frank Bruni, who covered his election campaign for the New York Times, wrote in 2002 that 'the Bush I knew was part scamp and part bumbler, a timeless fraternity boy and heedless cutup, a weekday gym rat and weekend napster.'

Other facets of Mr Bush’s personality mixed with his vaulting ambition to undermine his presidency. Mr Bush is what the British call an inverted snob. A scion of one of America’s most powerful families, he is a devotee of sunbelt populism; a product of Yale and Harvard Business School, he is a scourge of eggheads. Mr Bush is a convert to an evangelical Christianity that emphasises emotion—particularly the intensely emotional experience of being born again—over ratiocination. He also styled himself, much like Reagan, as a decider rather than a details man; many people who met him were astonished by what they described as his “lack of inquisitiveness” and his general 'passivity'.

His lacklustre attorney-general Alberto Gonzales, who was forced to resign in disgrace, was only the most visible of an army of over-promoted, ideologically vetted homunculi."

http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystor...

Orignial thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4849906&mesg_id=4849906

[quiet.american]

7. On. the. money. nt

[DCKit]

8. Just another wacky conspiracy theorist.

After all, Congress would have impeached him it any of it were true. :sarcasm:

[lostnfound]

9. How sweet that they said "coming close"..

Really, I feel a bit grateful at the choice of wording.

[Stevepol]

10. Amen, Brother!

[Raster]

11. Fuck you george bush*! Fuck you!