Why Bush will be a one-term President (?)
 

Link:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?u=/.../79/1fclt.html


Text:

WHY BUSH WILL BE A ONE-TERM PRESIDENT
Fri Apr 19, 9:03 PM ET
By Richard Reeves

WASHINGTON -- This was a day in the life of the president of the United States, Thursday, April 18, 2002:



The circumstances of endless savagery in the Middle East forced him to look into a television camera and tell the world that Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) is "a man of peace."

Halfway around the world, on the West Bank, the U.N. peace envoy to the Middle East, a Norwegian hardly given to flamboyant language, one of the first outsiders to inspect Mr. Sharon's recent work, looked into other cameras and said: "Horrifying, horrifying ... Israel has lost all moral ground in this conflict."

In Kabul and Washington, members of the forces commanded by President Bush (news - web sites) had to face the cameras and apologize for the killing of Canadian soldiers, our best friends, by American bombs in yet another friendly-fire incident of the kind that punctuates long-distance, high-tech warfare.

On Capitol Hill, it was Democrats who commanded the cameras, exulting in easily defeating Bush's most important energy initiative, the drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Back on television, the president gave a lecture to the elected president of Venezuela, an incompetent, if charismatic, lefty named Hugo Chavez, who had been overthrown two days before with some help and cheers from the right-wingers running the middle levels of the Bush State Department. Bush warned Chavez that he better do more of what we consider the right things, or we'll get his army after him again.

Up the road in New Jersey, which happened to be one of the 13 original United States, the federal Justice Department (news - web sites) issued directives to prevent the state from releasing the names of hundreds of people who have been held in five Jersey jails without charges for as long as seven months. The order from "Justice" reads: "It would make little sense for the release of potentially sensitive information to be subject to the vagaries of the laws of various states within which these detainees are housed or maintained." Meaning no disrespect, I seem to remember we fought a revolution to protect the vagaries of state laws.

In England -- now I remember that's who we fought the revolution against -- the ambassador from our favorite oily medieval monarchy, Saudi Arabia, has published poems he wrote about "God's Martyrs," the killers of Americans and Israelis at the World Trade Center and in shopping malls and restaurants.

Back close to home, The Washington Post is beginning to publish photographs of Taliban prisoners in liberated Afghanistan (news - web sites). They are starving. Teen-agers are weighing in at less than 100 pounds. Are they bad guys? Probably. But they look like Auschwitz. What the hell is going on out there?

And meanwhile, the president's men and women are on the Hill testifying that such things as workplace injuries can more effectively be controlled by filing lawsuits than by rules and regulations. That may be true, but only if the injured are both rich and graduates of Harvard Law School.
That really is what it is like to be president of the United States. The job is so much more than one man can ever conceive of, much less "handle," because all of these things are happening at the same time. And in some way, George W. Bush, former slacker, will have to do something about each of them. You can already see that in his face. It is not blank anymore.

Take this. While the president and his secretary of state have tried (and failed) to talk some sense into the helmeted head of Prime Minister Sharon, a New York Times reporter named C.J. Chivers was out in an Israeli settlement overlooking the Palestinian city of Ramallah -- the better to snipe from -- and the Times guy asked one of the settlers about Colin Powell (news - web sites)'s mission impossible. "What Colin Powell says, I do not care," said Baruch Zekbas. "This is not Colin Powell's country."

It is not George Bush's either, but he will end up being held responsible for whether Zekbas kills or is killed. That is his job -- and I suspect he will end up giving it up or losing it in three years.


=-=

Opinions?

X.

If Bush were to lose in 2004...and that's still some time away...I think it would be due to snarled domestic affairs and the economy.

(rant enabled) Sure, probably one term, unfortunately the way this bunch operates, it'll be the result of suspended elections... meet your President for Life, Jorge Bush.

The Reeves acticle is a Democratic fantasy piece, Syc is right, something would have to happen to the economy which couldn't be blamed on the 9-11 terrorists or other available evil doers. There is no significant opposition to perpetual war for perpetual peace, the fear of wolves will keep the sheep in a tight flock. The loyal opposition doesn't have the moral authority to oppose continued gringo aggression in the middle-east, the Pacific, and Latin America because of their wholehearted support for the Clinton interventions. The only party which opposes the initiation of force as a key touchstone has been torn asunder because of the "special case" of Israel where, apparently, anything goes. In other words we will get four more years of a "conservative free-marketeer" who supports nationalizing education and trade barriers for inefficient industries. (rant off)

And President Bush's father looked quite invincible in the summer of 2001, coming off the "butt-kicking" of Saddam Hussein. Dare I make the radical suggestion to Reeves that, with the election 2.5 years away, there isn't even a POINT to talking about whether Bush will win or not, because so much will happen before then. We don't even know who the Democrats will be fielding. We might as well discuss who will win the Superbowl in 2004: it might turn out to be a fun argument, but we lack enough knowledge of the circumstances to pretend that our argument would bear any resemblance to reality.

BUsh lost because he ignored domestic affiars, ironicly enough clinton who came in as domestic faced some of the toughest international relations quagmires in along time.

Even Manchurian Candidate McCain has been floated.

Nice pic, Dubya.
 

But George W. Bush's geography knowledge -- not for the first time -- let him down badly: Attributed to Charlotte Church by Reuters.

Option: We don't have an election in 2004, rather we trade off to who Jon Stewart so appropriately termed "our alternate President" Al Gore.

~mike

Poor communication skills
 

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com...ush_ken112.jpg

Jesus Lerma, left, and Mark Dingus, right, both with the White House Communications Agency, hang a new background sign behind the briefing podium at the news media filing center, located in the Crawford Elementary School gym, Saturday, Aug. 10, 2002, in Crawford, Texas. (AP Photo/Ken Lambert)

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com...7/mdf89347.jpg

Dubya tries to explain to the wife, that his buddy Putin,
who recently had a sleep-over at their Western White House,
is now gonna sign a $40B economic development deal
with Badass Hussein.