Free Fall

Depressing. Look, nobody had been more vehemently against the election of George W. Bush as President. I knew he was trouble and I still cannot fathom how he could have fooled so many people through two elections. But even I did not see this coming, the rank incompetence, the utter disregard for law or ethics, the damage that will take decades to repair if it can even be fixed. My duty as citizen is being tested to even watch this train wreck anymore. Even Bush doesn't seem to give a damn. Here's the run down:

I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was convicted on 4 of 5 counts including obstruction of justice, lying to the FBI and 2 counts of perjury. One juror remarked that the jury wondered why Libby was on trial and not other higher ranking officials, such as Rove and Cheney. This is really a story about the Iraq war and the cherry picked intelligence to justify the war. Libby was the salesman and fall guy. If the war had been a success, US Attorney Fitzgerald, a Republican appointee, most likely would still have pursued this suit because it was not politically motivated and was based on legal facts.

Will Bush pardon Libby? You bet he will. If Poppy Bush could pardon the Iran-Contra criminal Cap Weinberger to protect his own ass, you know Dubya will do the same. Besides, as the Rude Pundit has said, prison would be unduly hard for a man named “Scooter.”

The next story entails the war that was falsely justified by Libby's boss. Nine more soldiers were killed yesterday in explosions. Bombings also killed over 140 civilians attending a Shi'ite pilgrimage. Ho-hum, just another day in our quaint little Occupied Territory. Bush's “surge” is in force-- and fully funded-- yet the security of Baghdad seems unchanged, and we are in the 2nd month of the most recent 6 month Friedman Unit that Bush has given himself. Is it working? Huh, who would have guessed?

The third story is about eight US Attorneys who were fired around the elections in 2006 for apparent political reasons. David Iglesias, the US attorney for the district of New Mexico, and Bush appointee, claims that various Republican congressmen had pressured him about pending indictments against Democrats, and when they these indictments were not filed before the November elections, Iglesias was fired. While it may be difficult to prove a cause and effect relationship in these cases, and the Iglesias case is a classic he said- he said without corroborating circumstantial evidence, the allegations are pretty damning. The fact that these eight attorneys were Bush appointees as well as the timing of the firings adds to the credibility of charges. To fire that many US attorneys is unprecedented in the middle of a presidential term.

Finally, we have Walter Reed and the Veterans' Administration Hospitals being investigated for substandard conditions and an unwieldy bureaucracy. The story is emblematic of the Bush administration's lack of preparation for anything related to the Iraq war. Over 30,000 wounded have been removed from the battlefields of Iraq; where did the president think these men and women would go?

Military hospitals and the VA operate under the venue of the Executive Branch and therefore the president bears responsibility. Bush has ordered yet another bipartisan commission to quantify his mistakes, but judging from how he has completely ignored the recommendations from the 9-11 Commission and the Iraq Study Group, I don't see the value. The Senate has been having hearings on the Walter Reed situation, and while they may be criticized for political grandstanding, what should they do, just ignore it like the president has?

As a consequence of these these issues, Bush's approval rating sits at 30%, his all time low, and he has been below 40% longer than any other president in history. Bush is not a victim of partisan sniping and gotchas, rather he has failed at substantive duties of the President due to his own incompetence and laziness. His presidency is in free fall. My question is, who are these 30%?