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January 3, 2006
Political Sports Fumbler of the Year - 2005
President George W. Bush wins this year's Fumbler of the Year Award. Many on the right might disagree with this choice, after all he is the President of the good, old, United States of America, but let's consider his year. Political success is not only measured in terms of accomplishments but how one scores against the other team. In that sense he has had many, many mishaps. His poll numbers have dropped precipitously throughout the year. He lost major yardage when the press finally started to question all the misleading statements about our reasons for going to war in Iraq. Then there was the issue of outing Valerie Plame. He said he would fire anyone who was involved in any way. He hasn't done that, in fact, one can say he lied because he changed his story to firing anyone convicted of outting Plame, which is significantly different. We have the Katrina disaster, much of it brought about by his policies of appointing unqualified friends to important government posts. Add to this the torture problems at Abu Ghahib and Guantanamo, plus the revelations of secret "torture" prisons in former Soviet Gulags, the recent warrantless wiretap revelations and threats to civil rights, the problems with his Supreme Court nominee, Harriet Miers, and you have some very serious problems that has helped his opponents and weakened his own Republican team.
Many of these problems and "fumbles" transcend partisan politics. I can't believe that one can actually think we have done a good job running the war in Iraq and managing the transition to democracy. The U.S. is held in contempt in much of the world right now, based in no small degree by his policies. We have no long range energy plan to deal with the obvious problems with oil.More than 45 milllion Americans are without health insurance. And the discrepancy between rich and poor, or extremely rich and everyone else is accelerating instead of slowing down. The terms "uniter not a divider" and "compassionate conservative" are nowhere in evidence. The President and his staff clearly understood they were treading on exceedingly shakey ground with regard to wiretaps, yet they decided to act unilaterally instead of working closely with Congress, controlled by their own party, to resolve any potential legal and technical issues with existing law.
I have only touched the surface here, but the point is that the President has an enormous opportunity to do great things, to heal wounds and make people's lives significantly better. He has chosen to reward his political supporters rather than move the country in direction to prepare it for a better future. The issue of Iraq is still in question. There is certainly a possibility that his war will start to transform the Middle East. It is way to early to tell. However his methods are definitely questionable and have only served to increase frustration and anger factor in an increasingly contentious country.
Posted by Chip Spear at January 3, 2006 1:28 PM