Bush the Incompetent-"litanies of screw-ups" (WaPo)

[kpete]

Bush the Incompetent

By Harold Meyerson

Wednesday, January 25, 2006; Page A19

Incompetence is not one of the seven deadly sins, and it's hardly the worst attribute that can be ascribed to George W. Bush. But it is this president's defining attribute. Historians, looking back at the hash that his administration has made of his war in Iraq, his response to Hurricane Katrina and his Medicare drug plan, will have to grapple with how one president could so cosmically botch so many big things -- particularly when most of them were the president's own initiatives.

In numbing profusion, the newspapers are filled with litanies of screw-ups. Yesterday's New York Times brought news of the first official assessment of our reconstruction efforts in Iraq, in which the government's special inspector general depicted a policy beset, as Times reporter James Glanz put it, "by gross understaffing, a lack of technical expertise, bureaucratic infighting secrecy." At one point, rebuilding efforts were divided, bewilderingly and counterproductively, between the Army Corps of Engineers and, for projects involving water, the Navy. That's when you'd think a president would make clear in no uncertain terms that bureaucratic turf battles would not be allowed to impede Iraq's reconstruction. But then, the president had no guiding vision for how to rebuild Iraq -- indeed, he went to war believing that such an undertaking really wouldn't require much in the way of American treasure and American lives.

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

How could a president get these things so wrong? Incompetence may describe this presidency, but it doesn't explain it. For that, historians may need to turn to the seven deadly sins: to greed, in understanding why Bush entrusted his new drug entitlement to a financial mainstay of modern Republicanism. To sloth, in understanding why Incurious George has repeatedly ignored the work of experts whose advice runs counter to his desires.

More and more, the key question for this administration is that of the great American sage, Casey Stengel: Can't anybody here play this game?


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/24/AR2006012401163.html

[sendero]

1. Great article..

... and I've been thinking about this. (I know, watch out!) I think this Medicare program may just be the Republican's real waterloo.

In it, they have essentially proven to a segment of the population who votes almost in a bloc that the charges Dems level against the Reps are basically true.

Even in creating a program that will cost the Treasury twice the already astronomical figure Congress was told, the benefit to seniors is marginal. So where is all this cash going? It doesn't take a swami-guru to figure it out.

Seniors are a bunch you don't want to piss off. They vote, and they don't forget. You can screw up a war that affects only a handful of people with little consequence, because you can spin it as something the country needs and most Americans cannot wade through the claims and counterclaims to find the truth.

But the medicare program sucks, and there will be no way to convince seniors otherwise. Way to go George!

[chimpymustgo]

2. K & R. This level of "incompetence" will be one for the historians and

ethicists. Look to the 7 deadly sins to explain everything.

[Bobbieo]

7. Bush The Incompetent

Bush is an alcoholic - an addict. He acts like one and thinks like one. It becomes more obvious everyday.

[liveoaktx]

3. Mark McClellan, Scotty's bro, in charge of this,

http://www.uspoliticstoday.com/news/MarkMcClellan

[Demit]

4. No one could have foreseen that seniors would want their prescriptions

filled. As the author says, this has to be his most mind-boggling failure yet. Good column.

[dbt]

5. Look at the larger picture. We are being CULLED.

Nobody could be this incompetent without being shoo-ins for Natural Selection. This ain't no incompetence, it's a master plan.

:freak:
dbt
Remember New Orleans

[spooky3]

6. A refreshing change in the media! Here's my parents' story on Medicare

They have always been ardent conservatives and it will be interesting to see if they ever get to the point of understanding who is responsible for this.

"We are still having problems with this new medicare. We signed up for it
in early November and canceled the prescription part of our supplemental
health insurance with AARP as of Jan. l and the Social Security has taken out for it
on the Jan. 1 check but we still have no card or letter confirming it.
When we tried to use it last week, they told the drug store we were not covered.
There is a regular insurance man who goes to our new church who came and
explained it to a group that was interested in it. Dad called him and he
came out Sunday afternoon and got us enrolled in his kind of insurance. He
said not to cancel the AARP until we had in writing that we were accepted
with his. The frustrating thing with AARP was that that Dad spent most
of Saturday afternoon trying to find out our status with them and he kept
getting the run around. GRRRRRRrrrr"

[stellanoir]

8. hmmmm

Tough to figure which of these * is not guilty of . . .

The first especially. . .unbelievable hubris and total lack of humility.

Pride is excessive belief in one's own abilities, that interferes with the individual's recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity.

Envy is the desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation.

Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.

Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.

Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath.

Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness.

Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.

Great article though.

[BlueEyedSon]

9. Unless every "screw-up" was intentional....

See who benefitted
Follow the Money
etc.

[Lasher]

10. Don't forget the 9/11 attacks

Dubya ignored Clinton's advice, and was asleep at the wheel.

[Loge23]

11. Yes, the biggest mistake by far!

...and the irony is: He's made a career out of it!!

[burythehatchet]

15. MIstake NO, malfeasance YES. n/t

[WePurrsevere]

12. Yes, but the drug companies are happy so who cares about the....

seniors and disabled who can't get their drugs. :sarcasm:

These two quotes from Meyerson's above Op-Ed sum it up so well for me.:

1. "As was not the case in Iraq or with Katrina, it hasn't had to overcome the opposition of man or nature. Pharmacists are not resisting the program; seniors are not planting car bombs to impede it (not yet, anyway). But in what must be an unforeseen development, people are trying to get their medications covered under the program."
   
   
2. "There were absolutely no surprises, and yet administration officials weren't even remotely prepared.
   
   No such problems attended the creation of Medicare itself in the mid-1960s."

Total and inexcusable incompetence in addition to BushCo and the RepubiCons illegal and unconstitutional activities will have our descendants shaking their head in disgust for centuries to come... *if* these lunatics don't get us all annihilated trying to "fix" the facts in hopes of bringing on their "rapture" in the meanwhile. :nuke: :(

[WePurrsevere]

13. Dupe

Sorry... DU error message came up so didn't think it had posted.

[ewagner]

14. It wasn't Bush*'s fault

no matter what, no matter how many muddy footprints lead right back to the Oval Office, whatever the screwup, we hear the same thing:


It's not my fault!

No president ever has gotten such an accountability-free ride from the "Gentlemen of the 4th Estate".

This morning, Bush will go to NSA Headquarters to "meet and greet" in an effort to put a human face on the NSA to obfuscate the illegality of the whole issue. Another case, where Bush will try to escape accountability by asking, "Who are you going to believe? Me or your own lying eyes?"