Gaffa's Blog

According to political pundits, Bush has suffered his worst week as President. Judging by his last five years this has to be something of an achievement for the incompetent incumbent.

Bush had to withdraw his crony Miers from being appointed to the Supreme Court even though she had no experience at being a judge. Apparently senators found her answers to written questions were "incomplete to insulting". If Bush wanted to promote his trusted allies and to reward those who helped him rather than promote on ability and experience then why didn’t he go the whole hog and try to get his mummy, Barbara, onto the Supreme Court? I mean it’s not that America is short of any lawyers to choose from. Meanwhile the Republicans are fighting like cats in a bag over this failure to get her selected.

Then vice-president Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby was charged with perjury by the 2 year inquiry into the unveiling of a CIA agent to the media. ‘Plamegate’ is about whether the Whitehouse purposefully exposed the identity of an anti-Iraq war Senator’s wife, Valerie Plame as a CIA due to spite. So far Bush’s brain, Karl Rove isn’t off the hook either. Maybe this will go right back up to Cheney and Bush. Certainly the buck seems to stop anywhere but Bush. Maybe he can blame Saddam on his brain leaking or perhaps he will ‘liberate’ another country to distract us.

Last week also saw the number of US troops killed hit the 2000 mark. So far Bush or Blair haven’t come up with a feasible exit strategy from their desert crusade. In fact Blair looks like he now wants a fight with Iran, who have ‘shockingly’ made anti-Israel remarks. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Israel should be wiped off the map. Great - now we have two nuts rattling sabres in the Middle East. However Iran has been making anti-Israel remarks since the Revolution so this shouldn’t come as a big surprise. According to the rabid right-wingers – by ‘liberating’ Iraq this was supposed to set off peace and democracy throughout the region. Hmmm – looks like Bush’s big game of Risk for beginners will have to continue.

It has been noted that those Presidents who manage to get re-elected for a second term often get themselves mired in scandal or simply lose steam in the troubled 2nd term. Clinton had Monicagate, Reagan had Contragate and Nixon had the original gate – Watergate. So in politics it seems few leaders come out with a record unscathed. If you failed to get re-elected you are a failure like Carter and Bush’s daddy and if you do get re-elected then you are treated like a lame duck. President Blair is in his third term and seems to be suffering from pinning his hopes to closely to Bush’s agenda. Like Bush he will probably be remembered for the Iraq War and squandering opportunities back home.

Of course, if the US had a decent system of electing Presidents rather than relying on a 2-party system with an electoral college and the necessity to have millions of dollars to spend then it likely Bush wouldn’t be there in the first place. In 2000 more Americans voted for Gore than Bush but this doesn’t count – as the votes in smaller populated States have more proportional weight that those living in more populated States. Still we have a similar problem of electoral credibility in the UK. Blair won with 55% of the seats despite only 22% people voting Labour. Notice how Bush and Blair do nothing to change this and yet are so keen to impose democracy using guns on other countries?

Bush’s approval ratings have fallen to 39%. I wonder what it takes to disillusion the remaining 39%? If getting thousands of Americans killed in a needless war whilst cronyism, greed and self-interest reigns supreme back at base meets with approval by the die-hards then what more can George do to prove his talent for incompetence? I suppose if he was to beat his Dad’s lowest approval rating of 29% he will have to ask the faithful to read his lips whilst he increases taxes. Now that would be scandalous and unacceptable.