The Blame Game

Today is just not a good day for those on the far left of the political aisle. I blame President Bush.

The economy continues to hum along. The stock market is strong. Unemployment is at an all time low, again this month. The federal budget deficit is being paid off at an accelerated rate, unforeseen by even the GAO. Interest rates remain historically low and the housing market remains strong, especially in areas like mine. I blame President Bush.

This is an election year and the big event in November is rapidly approaching. What is the loyal opposition to this administration running on? What is their platform? Doom and gloom, the party of no thinks they need no real solutions to anything. In elections past it was a standard strategy to simply remain confident and try not to do anything to muddy the party in the minds of the voting public. Then the party out of power would sit back and expect to win seats in a non-presidential race year.

Times have changed, however. This current president has lead his party to victories in 2002 and 2004, despite the naysayers. Think back to 1994. During the first election cycle after the election of Bill Clinton, the Republicans were so unified and the general public was so outraged by what they were seeing in D.C. that the Republicans became a majority in the House for the first time in 40 years. Then a majority was established in the Senate. The biggest source of aggrevation for voters was the failed attempt of Hillary Clinton to socialize this nation's health care system. This is the same Hillary Clinton that jumped to her feet and applauded gleefully during the State of the Union address when President Bush spoke of the failed attempt to overhaul the Social Security system, thanks to the democrats. The Democrats, so selfishly clinging to the notion that Social Security is only an issue for the Democrats to deal with, torpedoed efforts to improve the system and guarantee it will be around when the baby boomers begin to retire en masse. I realize it doesn't matter to the likes of U.S. Senators, the wealthiest of Americans, but to ordinary voters it is a big deal. So, instead of applauding a positive development the Democrats were applauding themselves for doing nothing. Kick the can down the road.

Now we are told of a movie, made by a British citizen, that tells a story of the assassination of the sitting American president and how this plays out in the War on Terror. The story revolves around a plot that has President Bush shot and killed in October 2007. It shows a scene with the head of President Bush on the body of an actor portraying him. We are to believe this Brit when he says it is not a slam on President Bush and his policies. This Brit merely wants to explore the reaction in America to the President's death and how it would affect foreign policy and the War on Terror. Uh huh.

Yes, of course the man has a right to make and distribute this film. However, where does the role of responsibility come into play? Just because you can do something, does it mean you should do it? How responsible is it to have the film debut at a Canadian film festival on 9/10/2006? Yes, that's right. The date before the 5th anniversary of the worst attack on American soil by the Islamo facists trying to destroy us and our way of life. He blames President Bush for the troubles of the world and this is his vehicle. With whom was America at war on 9/11/2001?

President Clinton was offered bin Laden on several occasions. Clinton refused the offers. Why? He didn't want to sully his high polling numbers with something like the effects of foreign policy as it relates to the safety of the American people. Nevermind that keeping the population safe is solely the most important aspect of the oath of office he took when he was sworn in as president. He took that oath as seriously as he did his marriage vows, as it turns out. Do you think ABC will run the two part, 4 hour movie they have committed to run concerning the run up to 9/11/2001 and our foreign policies during previous administrations, now that it has been screened in Washington, D.C. and the Clinton administration has-beens were not giving it rave reviews? Do you think that might be because it is not the usual pablum that has been swallowed whole from the findings of the 9/11 Commission? The 9/11 Commission, while worthy of credit, was flawed from the very beginning. Jamie Gorelick, the deputy Attorney General to Janet Reno, was responsible for the wall of secrecy between the FBI and the CIA that brought about 9/11. Why was she allowed on the commission?

President Clinton focused soley on domestic policy. This president doesn't have that luxury. Eight months after being sworn in, the world forever changed for the American people. Under strong and courageous leadership, millions of people in foreign lands have been freed. Despite constant antics in the press and grandstanding former diplomats and important people, the truth of the last gasp of a full assault on the Bush administration has come to a whimpering end. Despite the railings of indignation of those who opposed the war in Iraq, the exposure of the real liars is coming through. After 3 long years and the indictment of Scooter Libby, former Ambassador Joe Wilson and former CIA agent Valerie Plame are shown to the world to be the outright frauds that they are. Wilson outted his own wife's identity to Richard Armitage, the deputy to Colin Powell in the State Department. Armitage and Powell were against the others in the administration planning the Iraq war. Armitage took it upon himself to allow the campaign of Joe Wilson to flourish in D.C. about how the President, Vice President, Karl Rove and Scooter Libbey were out to get him. That they were the ones to expose and endanger his wife, Plame, in response to Wilson's report from his trip to Niger, arranged by his wife. First he lied that his wife didn't set up the trip for him. Then he lied that the administration was out to get revenge when he cooked up a report after the trip to Niger that said Saddam wasn't after yellow cake to develop weapons.

Why did Armitage allow all of this to go on so long? A special counsel was appointed and the taxpayers picked up that tab. Libby is not charged with leaking identities. He is charge with perjury. This perjury involves what most of us would consider a lack of memory of events. Not the kind of perjury Clinton committed where he denied an affair and was impeached over lying to a grand jury. Where does Scooter Libby go to get back his reputation, money and time? A new book is coming out by David Corn and Michael Isikoff and names Armitage as the source of the leak. Corn is known for his Bush hatred and wrote a book about "Bush lies", complete with a website devoted to it. Isikoff you may remember is the journalist that wrote of the Quran flushing at Gitmo that wasn't, yet caused a riot in Afghanistan resulting in many deaths. He never apologized and still works for Newsweek like nothing happened. Still blaming President Bush.

So, this president carries on with the dual responsibilities of domestic and foreign policy. He is not running for office again. VP Cheney isn't running for office again. You would never know that to listen to the election year rhetoric of the Democrats. Yesterday the former Kerry campaign filed papers to open a lawsuit in Ohio to investigate the 2004 election outcome. They wuz robbed, I tell you. I say, go ahead. Keep looking at the past. It's a losing strategy. Voters pull the lever with the future in mind.

Oh, yeah, that's what the Dems are afraid of. The grown ups are in charge.

I blame President Bush.