Herbert: A President Who Can Do No Right

[grytpype]

No linky because it's behind the subscription wall...

Reminder though... if you are a NYT print subscriber you get Times Select for free, all you need to do is sign up for it.

A President Who Can Do No Right
By BOB HERBERT

We should be used to it by now. There are a couple of Congressional committees trying to investigate the tragic Hurricane Katrina debacle, but the Bush administration is refusing to turn over certain documents or allow certain senior White House officials to testify before the committees under oath.

Senator Joseph Lieberman, a Democrat who is by no means unfriendly to the Bush crowd, said this week, "There has been a near-total lack of cooperation that has made it impossible, in my opinion, for us to do the thorough investigation that we have a responsibility to do."

Once again the president has, in effect, flipped the bird at Congress. He's amazing. Forget such fine points as the Constitution and the separation of powers. George W. Bush does what he wants to do. He won fewer votes than Al Gore in 2000 and then governed as if he'd been elected by acclamation. He dispensed with John Kerry in 2004 by portraying himself — a man who ran and hid from the draft during Vietnam — as more of a warrior than Mr. Kerry, a decorated combat veteran of that war.

...

This guy is something. Remember his "Top Gun" moment aboard the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln? And his famous taunt — "Bring 'em on" — to the insurgents in Iraq? His breathtaking arrogance is exceeded only by his incompetence. And that's the real problem. That's where you'll find the mind-boggling destructiveness of this regime, in its incompetence.

Fantasy may be in fashion. Reality may have been shoved into the shadows on Mr. Bush's watch. But the plain truth is that he is the worst president in memory, and one of the worst of all time. Many thousands of people — men, women and children — have died unnecessarily (and thousands more are suffering) because of his misguided and mishandled policies.


...

[Dunvegan]

1. This is the NY Times publishing a columnist saying this?

Damn...I guess since they've booted Judy Miller to the curb, the stuff she's been putting in the water cooler is finally wearing off.

[TacticalPeek]

2. Big time smackdown.

"This week, as the killing of American G.I.'s and innocent Iraqis continued, we learned from a draft report from the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction that, like the war itself, the Bush plan for rebuilding Iraq has been crippled by incompetence and extreme shortages of personnel. I doubt that this will bother the president any more than any of his other failures. He seems to truly believe that he can do no wrong.

The fiasco in Iraq and the president's response to the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe were Mr. Bush's two most spectacular foul-ups. There have been many others. The president's new Medicare prescription drug program has been a monumental embarrassment, leaving some of the most vulnerable members of our society without essential medication. Prominent members of the president's own party are balking at the heavy hand of his No Child Left Behind law, which was supposed to radically upgrade the quality of public education.

The Constitution? Civil liberties? Don't ask."

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_01_22_atrios_archive.html#113825278533659147

[kurth]

3. Somebody has also posted the whole article on

groups.google.com. It's in the alt.impeach.bush group. FYI.

[beltanefauve]

4. Oh yeah,

Bob Herbert is great! I don't know why, but when it comes to the great NYT columnists, for some reason Paul Krugman, Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich always get the kudos, but Bob Herbert frequently gets overshadowed.

[Demeter]

5. But Bush Doesn't WANT to Do Right

Doesn't anybody get it, yet? Bush wants to be a pirate. Pirates don't do right. They are bad guys through and through. They don't even honor contracts between themselves; ask Saddam. It's all about power and the abuse thereof.

[Burried News]

6. President George W Botch

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2005/11/21/bush2_wideweb__470x358,0.jpg

[n2doc]

7. It will be on topplebush.com in a day or so

For some reason the Grey Lady is showing some oats lately. Did everyone see today's editorial calling for senate dems to fillibuster Alito? And calling them spineless for not doing so? Almost sounded like a DU post...

[PATRICK]

8. Maybe I'm a little weak on history

No one is worse than Bush on the record if only by dint of being a smaller country with fewer self-inflicted wounds. You'd have to transplant Harding and Hannah but I think they'd do things better in some way. Grant certainly wouldn't have made the Iraq into such a fiasco even if tricked into it. Grant drunk is better than W sober(if). There just is no comparison but I guess people are reluctant to flatter our PINO(President in Name Only)by admitting his status is spectacular and unique when he is such a zero in the talent department on all levels.

Then one has to ask what idiots let this guy in, from any side and any sector of the most educated population in American history- even the bloody minded neocons and corporate welfare hogs. I almost said electorate, but in the early years the well educated had suffrage and say in greater proportion. The influence of corrupt blowhards is greater today by far than the authors of the Federalist Papers.The only person that most would have been tolerated as a "king" would have been the first George, naturally one of our finest and the prototype standard of strong but restrained.

[robbedvoter]

9. Well, at least he's better than Clinton (Sheehan sez so - so it must be

true). :sarcasm: Who you gonna believe - a NYT columnist or St Cindy?

[il_lilac]

10. Don't hold back Herbert

Tell us how you really feel! :toast: