The Inauguration Day Blues or Why I Learned to Stop Whining and Actually Do Something

20 January 2005

In a January 14 interview with the Washington Post, George Dubya Bush told the American people that he and his administration were absolved from accountability for the blunders of his first term because the election was an "accountability moment". During the second debate with John Kerry, he was asked to enumerate 3 mistakes he'd made. The only sputtering response he could muster was that he'd made a whole bunch of right decisions about invading Afghanistan and Iraq and WMDs and tax cuts… but he had made mistakes in some of his appointments. In an April press conference he couldn't even think of one little mistake he'd made… but then went into phony self-effacement mode by saying maybe he wasn't "quick enough". In light of everything that happened in his first term, does he really think he's made the right decisions or is he trying to fool everyone including himself?

Bush has passed on opportunities to show us some humility and human fallibility. This behavior might be understandable during campaign season, but the "accountability moment" remark to the Post is not in the context of a campaign… it's really in the category of pathological rationalization. There is an impressive list of items for which Dubya believes he is not accountable. The search for WMDs was called off in December without any word from the White House and the Duelfer Report that sank the WMD rationale for war became final. 1370 Americans have lost their lives, 10% of the deployment strength. Over 10 thousand more have been wounded. An estimated 100,000 Iraqis have been killed and countless more wounded. The city of Fallujah is in ruins and yet is still not in US control. The US-forced Iraq elections are scheduled to be held in just 10 days with the country in chaos. A recent poll cited by NPR said that only 7% of Iraqis knew who any of the candidates are… and that's no surprise because candidates are afraid to show their faces for fear of being blown up or gunned down in the streets. The Sunnis have announced a boycott of the elections altogether. Vast areas of Iraq are in the hands of the insurgents, who are unlikely to stop their campaign regardless of whether the elections happen or not. Reports by intelligence agencies such as the CIA's National Intelligence Council say that Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the breeding ground for terrorism, the exact opposite of what the phony "war on terror" was trying to accomplish. Observers have suggested that a civil war in Iraq has now become likely… and some, such as The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh have suggested that Dubya needs and is provoking a civil war because he cannot defeat the insurgency in a united Iraq. The trials of Americans and British soldiers have revealed even more heinous acts of torture and prisoner abuse and have destroyed US credibility in the field of human rights. Foreign businesses are finding ways to avoid buying American when they have the opportunity to show their disapproval of Bush's fractured, specious, and imperialist foreign policies.

Certainly Dubya can't be serious when he says all this goes away because he won the election.

Bush has certainly been remarkable when it comes to setting records, but if he had a hard time coming up with a mistake he'd made, you can bet he'd be hard-pressed to mention any good records he's set. He set a new record for the national debt, which is now over $7 trillion. He set a new record for a federal budget deficit. How about the trade deficit? It just topped $60 billion for the first time last month. He's working on a few others, too, like the most public money given to private religious organizations without going through the budget process. The most detainees held by Executive Order without legal counsel or even being charged since the Civil War. The most EPA and OSHA regulations overturned. The biggest un-funded federal mandate with the catchy name of "No Child Left Behind". The biggest tax cuts ever given to the top 1%. And let's not forget, he's the Most Hated Man In The World.

The Inauguration celebration today is practically meaningless yet it is symbolically rich. Bush had un-elected power before, now he has been elected. To the rest of the world, it may appear that Americans now support all of these mistakes listed above; Bush says it does. They must believe that Americans support the paranoid delusional policies of attacking anyone we suspect of being evildoers. They must believe that Americans are too stupid to know that Bush is a liar and his lies have gotten a lot of people killed. They know our culture is thoroughly infused with violence, sex, materialism, phony religiosity, and the smug feeling that America has the manifest destiny to control the world, its peoples, and its resources. They must think we all think and act like pigs at the trough. Spending $40 million on this activity when so many people on this planet are literally starving is unjust and senseless, two words that aptly describe the Bush Administration.

But things are not always as they seem. The face of America to the world is our media, and the mass media are shallow to a fault and corrupted to the core. Bush does NOT represent the views of 55 million voters, almost 50% of the electorate. Even those who voted for Bush do not blindly support all of his policies. To those world citizens who might believe that America has lost its mind, I say the following: Bush starts his second term tied for last place with Richard Nixon for approval ratings on Inauguration Day. A poll released today shows that only 39% of respondents believe that attacking Iraq was "worth it". 53% of Americans believe our country is on the wrong track, only 42% think we're headed in the right direction. 59% of Americans say Bush is too quick to use military force rather than diplomacy and 49% to 37% say that the US should consider the positions of our allies when formulating foreign policy. So please take heart; reason has not abandoned our nation entirely. We are a nation rich with a history that nobody bothers to study so sometimes the magnitude of the catastrophe takes some time to sink in; but it will sink in.

This Inauguration Day is indeed a black day for America and the world, because it marks the beginning of another four years of danger. Another four years of fear, of a rogue government defying international laws, four more years of wars, of blatant imperialism, economic blackmail, and irrational jingoism. However, this will serve to unite the Progressives more than ever and the pendulum will continue its deliberate movement, finally once again moving to the left.