The “Bush Effect” (Better Hope Santa Doesn’t See This List...) (Mary Lyon)

By Mary Lyon, from the left -- World News Trust

Dec. 18, 2006 -- Since we’re one week away from Christmas, 2006, as of this writing, I decided a look back was in order.

Most people at this time have made a list to leave for whichever Santa they believe in. My list, below, is a little different, but as long as this is list-making season, well, why not? Besides, we’re also well into the season of reassessing, and (for some) obsessing over, the George W. Bush legacy.

It’s quite a compilation of mostly naughty, hardly what you’d consider nice things our friend Dubya has touched, and mishandled -– in some cases comically, other cases tragically, and many irreparably, during the last six years of his life in Washington, DC. It’s by NO means complete (feel free to add your own items), but hey, it’s filled with people, places, things, groups, and concepts well worth remembering, particularly since there may be some call to account for Junior and his pals in the new year. So here goes…THINGS BUSH AND THE REPUBLI-CON PARTY HAVE RUINED, INJURED, INSULTED, OR SOMEHOW COMPROMISED, directly OR indirectly:The truthAmerica as we knew it:

The Constitution of the United States of America
The Congressional Page Program
The presidency
The moral high ground
The presidential oath of office
An independent press
Accountability in government
Republican Redistricting in Texas
Everyone in Congress who voted for the IWR and the Patriot Act
The Republican Party
The State of the Union speech
The Bible
The Methodist Church
The Southern Baptists
The evangelical movement
The American Enterprise Institute
The CIA
The FBI
George Herbert Walker Bush
The Bush “family franchise” –- its “entitlement” to the White House
Going to Rehab
Tom Delay
Bob Ney
Mark Foley
Tom Reynolds
Don Sherwood
“Mean” Jean Schmidt
Dennis Hastert
John Boehner
Mitch McConnell
Jack Abramoff
Roger Ailes
Bill O'Reilly
Randy "Duke" Cunningham
Conrad Burns
Harold Ford
Ed Gillespie
Ari Fleischer
Scott McClellan
Jeff Gannon
Talon News
Iraq
Afghanistan
“Scooter” Libby
Douglas Feith
Harvey Pitt
Brent Scowcroft
Richard Clarke
The SEC
Colin Powell
Michael Powell
The city of New Orleans
Michael "Brownie" Brown
FEMA
The Department of Homeland Security
Michael Chertoff
The Houston Astrodome
The World Trade Center
The federal budget
American image abroad
The Dixie Chicks
Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, and other celebrity “surrender monkeys”
Toby Keith
Pat Tillman
Judy Miller
Matt Cooper
Patrick Fitzgerald
The New York Times
The Washington Post
The Los Angeles Times
Bob Woodward
John Kerry

more

http://www.worldnewstrust.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=766&Itemid=1

Thanks, Tace!

Actually, I KNOW I forgot some stuff on this list. Hopefully, others here have more they could add.

I'm hoping there are more contributions to the list. Might be good to revisit next year, or the year after.

The English Language

Family Values

Truth

The American Judicial System

Life, Itself, for the Iraqi People

New Orleans

Safe Air Travel

Geneva Conventions

Kyoto Protocol

Habeas Corpus

Global Warming

War against Science

Supporting the Troops

Free Speech

Independent Media, Print, Audio, Video, Internet

Cindy Sheehan

Right to Die (Terry Schiavo)

Right to Live (Gitmo Detainees)

Women's Rights

Gay Rights

Right to Health Care

Homelessness

Student Loans

A First-Class Education in the Public Arena

Oil Dependency

Alternative Energy

Honest, Open Elections


Optimism about America's Future

Being Proud to be an American

Separation of Church and State

Separation of Government and Corporations

"Faith-Based" Charities with Proselytizing of the Down and Out

Right to Protest (First Amendment Pens)

Presidential Press Conferences

Dignified Behavior with German Female Diplomats (Apologies from the American People, Madame Merkel)

Right to Privacy

Probable Cause

President Al Gore

President John Kerry

John Murtha

Max Clelland

Use of Nuclear Weapons

Truth About 9/11



(Bathroom break!)


Is that all there is? :(

We've listed lots of the same ones, but you came up with a few extra.

I think I'll revisit this list, maybe in a year... or so. Probably will need ANOTHER nine pages. :grr:

Perhaps I can add a few items.

You're like a regular Mary Claus, makin' your list... B-)

NGU, Mar... NGU.

NGU. Still on it! ABSOLUTELY.

Thanks -- and what a memory you have! K&R.

me. I think I'm gonna HAVE to keep track. Besides, there's the morbid curiosity factor. No telling who or what has yet to be snared in the bush spider web. All we can say for sure is that there WILL be more victims. Of every stripe.

that.

I'm keeping track of this thread myself, because I'm thinking of revisiting it maybe next year - or WHENEVER it is that this blight on American history leaves the White House.

If you can think of more, please post 'em.

Thanks!

Wonder how much longer the list will be by the time he leaves?

And thanks back atcha!

Words like Patriot. Faith. Christian.

Patriot has come to mean "If you don't passionately and earnestly believe in, nay, WORSHIP, the pResident and his actions, you are pro-terrorist.

Faith = a 'god-given' order for a closed mind, willful ignorance, and denial of anything that does not comply with religious dogma.

Christian = Don't even get me started....:rant:

What I'm saying is these words use to mean something positive and powerful, and now they have devolved into merely buzzwords...or red flags meaning that somebody is about to try to manipulate you.
:banghead::grr:

He's fucked the whole LANGUAGE.

What has he NOT screwed up? THAT would be the shortest column ever written. By anybody.

Who needs them anymore? That's "surrender monkey" stuff.

:eyes:

Shitty that it's actually come to that, isn't it? It's not outlandish sarcasm or satire. It's REAL.

only survived Incurious George, they have excelled. They lost venues in the south but picked up many more in the north and abroad.

I had the pleasure of watching them on PBS recently paying homage to James Taylor. Oh my goodness they make me weak in the knees.

Their beauty, talent and grace are admirable. :wow:

and really talented besides.

I put lots of things (and people) on this list for various reasons. They had to have been "touched" by the mark of bush in some way (and when is that EVER a positive?). Many of them HAVE prevailed in spite of it. Some have not. Some (ahem... colin powell... cough) will be scarred forever.

:hi:

K&R

believe produced or directed this movie about 9/11 with Timothy Bottoms, I believe, playing bush, and it showed us a "Superman" president who was a latter-day Prince Valiant. He's corrupted, too, as is Newsweek's White House correspondent Richard "always look on the bright side of bush" Wolffe. There's the Segway, and people who took guff from bushco: Arianna Huffington, Laurence O'Donnell, Whoopee Goldberg, Madonna, Kanye West, Neil Young, Keith Olbermann, Robert Grunwald, The "Old Man of the Mountain" - the "Great Stone Face" in Franconia Notch, New Hampshire (some people took at as a bad omen when the Old Man mysteriously crumbled in May, 2003),

http://www.mountwashington.org/about/visitor/oldman.php

http://www.matthewjcook.com/photos/greatstoneface.shtml

and let's not forget Adam Clymer - "There's Adam Clymer, major-league asshole from the New York Times," Bush said. "Oh, yeah, he is, big-time," Cheney responded.





This is gonna become an obsession...

That certainly bears the black mark of bush. As do we all.

Are we rid of him yet?

bush has killed hope.

DAMN! What he's done to our military! Oh Dear God, the veterans losing their benefits, the cut in combat pay increases, the PTSD that will afflict so many, the mourning, the probably growing, gnawing distress over a loved one having sacrificed his/her life in Iraq - IN VAIN. THAT, it seems to me, would be almost too much to bear! It's with that in mind that I crave, and lobby for, and nag for, and offer defenses for, grammatically correct or no - (always wanted to have fun with those dangling prepositions! :D) IMPEACHMENT. Seems to me that to IMPEACH this petty, incompetent, egotistical, delusional schmuck is the ONLY way to redeem the loss of all this life - on both sides, no, ALL sides of this conflict.

If we leave this as is - war based on lies, fraud and ungodly theft among defense contractors, the deceit, illicit profit, the incompetence, the bad feelings this has generated among our allies, the loss of our moral high ground, the loss of our credibility, and the loss of life (funny, the guy pushing this to this very hour claims to be soundly "pro-life" :rofl: ) and there is NOTHING done at least to hold those responsible fully accountable, with serious penalties to pay, think of the lesson we'll be inserting into later history books. These people did the unthinkable and never paid any price for it. They were never brought to justice, forced to face consequences, forced to make amends, forced to pay a penalty. Hell, they were never even forced to admit it. They got away with it with no consequences. Heaven forbid the NEXT bush-type bully who comes along uses this as a template, or excuse, to push even further. He/She'll simply shrug and say we have a precedent. This thing is evidently okay, or was okay. It was done, thousands of lives were needlessly lost, that whole part of the world descended down a death spiral of disruption and chaos, and those who started it and pressed for it were NOT held to account. So, obviously, history shows that it must be okay. To get to a "greater" goal, we have to blow all that (and pretty much get blown). Must be okay.

THAT is why it breaks my heart to think that this renders all that death to have been IN VAIN. THAT is why, in order to bring honor to all that death, and redeem its loss as something worthy, there is nothing else to do BUT IMPEACH. If it winds up meaning that THIS finally stopped dubya, AND his whole family's historical hard-on for power, then yes, perhaps all that horrible, tragic loss of life will have SOME meaning. It won't just be a waste. It won't be in vain. Their deaths for naught. Eleanor Clift called it "the family franchies." Good piece here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16115397/site/newsweek/


MY GOD, you wouldn't think ANYONE would risk loading up his soul with this kind of stuff.

This time of year is usually tough for me, what with being thousands of miles away from where all my family's holiday celebrations are happening -- plus the usual end-of-semester rush in my teaching job. And I've always thought it was nice to be able to take a couple of days for a pensive, quiet end-of-year reflection (or a bit of festive enjoyment if I'm in the mood for that).

But somehow the right-wingers have managed to turn it into some giant holy war where they go after some hapless liberal who puts up a peace-sign wreath or decides to wish people "Happy Holidays" -- or a rabbi who asks for a menorah at the airport, or a Muslim or Hindu who is genuinely puzzled about why people are getting so stressed out about an event which (strictly speaking) isn't supposed to be the number-one thing in the Christian calendar anyway. And the next thing you know, there are folks on talk-radio or FOX news, shrieking about who loves Jesus more, never mind the "Peace on Earth" part of it.

And "The Pet Goat." And Judy Woodruff's hapless husband, Al Hunt -

George Bush himself, confronting Wall Street Journal editor Al Hunt one drunken evening in Dallas (Bush was drunk; Hunt was dining at a restaurant with his wife Judy Woodruff and their toddler son, all three of them well under the limit), shouted "You fucking son of a bitch. I won't forget what you said and you're going to pay a price for it!" He was reacting to an unflattering prediction Hunt made about George's old man. Aside from being obscene, it was also verbal assault, but that's another subject.

http://www.counterpunch.org/tripp04032004.html

I KNEW I'd forgotten a few interesting additions...

And Jacques Chirac. Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, too. And Rehnquist.

kicked

:thumbsup:

Rule of Law-ignored

"Activist" Judges

The Supremes

Cheney using Presidential priviledge to shield his energy group

FCC and spying on citizens

and on and on

God, the list really is probably endless.

Our environment
The election process
Our media
Post-9/11 goodwill from other nations
Habeas Corpus
Lobbyists in general
Birth control
Equal rights
Health costs
Tolerance for others
Civil discourse
Our national pride
Valerie Plame


(sorry if there are any dupes. I might have overlooked some you already have on your list)

Thanks. I appreciate these. 'Cause I KNOW I've forgotten some. I'm keeping a running list of all the things I've thought up since this column was written. It's quite long already, thanks to suggestions here and other stuff that's jogged my memory as I've browsed around DU. If we do an update in a year's time, I'll bet the list will have absolutely mushroomed.