Nedenstående bringer krigen mot fedmen som Bush 2. nå har lansert i et
forklarelsens lys.
” Almost daily, new facts emerge in the shaming of a security apparatus
apparently warned about the al-Qaeda attacks - the latest picked up by
the National Security Agency on 10 September, that 'the match is about
to begin'. Meanwhile, The White House stumbles over itself: Bush's
spokesman, Ari Fleischer, insists that a crucial, overlooked memo passed
to the President in August 2001 prompted an alert to the Federal
Aviation Authority and all airlines.”
Bush er redd at hans stab er i ferd med å røpe for mye. Derfor: ut og
jogg, Fleischer og alle andre, så gjør dere ikke noe galt så lenge. Det
man ikke fikk advart om før 11.sep. tas dog igjen i desto større monn
nå:
”The campaign for November's elections to Congress and governorships
nationwide kick-starts and stalls again, as real-life politics is
interrupted by the latest suspiciously well-timed ' terrorist alert'.”
Logikken for den lille mann og kvinne i gata er klar: vær mer på vakt,
jo mindre de advarer. Og omvendt. Kanskje derfor: presidentens
popularitet synes ikke å kunne bære den republikanske halvdelen av USAs
regjerende toparti til seier alene, med mindre et nyt spektakulært
angrep finner sted og kan skyldes på en eller annen demokrats forræderi,
svikt …
Bushs målsetting om å privatisere den smule som ennå kan privatiseres i
USA (bortsett selvsagt fra militæret, politiet og selve regjeringen)
vekker liksom ingen riktig begeistring i massene: ”The reality since
Bush took office has been some distance from the 'compassionate'
platform, the consequences of which his party is bracing for. Among
Bush's election promises was, for example, to put a 'lock box' on the
social security fund. In reality, he has raided the trust fund to pay
for tax cuts, and has now established a presidential commission, under
Time Warner chief executive Richard Parsons, to examine privatising the
system.”
Nå skal det tjenes penger på å gi de fattigste sosialtrygd. Det høres
ikke ut som den mest opplagte kassasuksess. Vil ”kampen mot fedmen” bli
en vinner? Jeg tror det har mer for seg for en person med Bushs
politiske tilbudsliste å gjøre de ikke-rike så fete, at de ikke makter å
ta seg fram til valgurnene. Det er dessuten sikrere enn å måtte benytte
seg av sin brors og andres skitne knep. Valgene i Frankrike viser veien
fram for vår tids borgerskaper: at så få som mulig stemmer. Lykkeligvis
for borgerskapene kommer det av seg selv, når det ikke er noe å stemme
på, og her har man den best tenkelige hjelp av ”opposisjonen” og ikke
minst mediene. Det beste Bush kan gjøre er å sette sin lit til
demokratenes klasseinteresser: de er nemlig sammenfallende med hans
egne. Men det grunnleggende problemet har alt vist seg i Argentina, hvor
Verdensbanken ikke kan anbefale mer privatisering, innsparing osv.: Det
er ikke mer å privatisere, og man kan ikke klippe håret av en skallet.
Karsten Johansen
Bush at bay
Facing mid-term elections, the President's squabbling team has never
looked so vulnerable.
Ed Vulliamy
Sunday June 23, 2002
The Observer
The invitation arrived at the White House a few days before last week's
historic World Cup victory by the United States over Mexico.
It was from the Mexican President Vincente Fox, suggesting that
President George Bush and he watch the game together, as a gesture of
friendship between neighbouring nations. The reply came, from a member
of Bush's staff: the President would be asleep at that hour of the
night.
It mattered little, since most of his nation was likewise in slumber -
but the rebuff spoke volumes to columnists and Washington DC observers
about the clueless, crassly selfish quality of a President and a
presidency which are suddenly lurching, rather than governing, at the
apex of American power.
The wind behind George Bush's continuing personal popularity remains the
carnage of 11 September and the ensuing slipstream of national unity
around the Chief Executive - this in addition to the underestimated,
tactile skills of a 'Mr Nice Guy' politician.
But behind the stage set a mesh of policy snags, befuddled
contradictions and scandals threatens to ensnare a President whose
shortcomings are not only being targeted by his opponents, but felt by
many of those who serve under and stage-manage him.
Although Bush's poll ratings remain good, there are signs that the
Americans who propelled his candidature and elected him into office now
worry about - and do not trust - their President. Almost daily, new
facts emerge in the shaming of a security apparatus apparently warned
about the al-Qaeda attacks - the latest picked up by the National
Security Agency on 10 September, that 'the match is about to begin'.
Meanwhile, The White House stumbles over itself: Bush's spokesman, Ari
Fleischer, insists that a crucial, overlooked memo passed to the
President in August 2001 prompted an alert to the Federal Aviation
Authority and all airlines.
Vice-President Dick Cheney, however, contradicts this: he had read it
himself and found 'no actionable intelligence'. Cheney is said now to
oppose any independent commission into the unheeded warnings.
The heaviest fire against these failures comes not from the Democrats,
but from within the Republican Party's own senior ranks: conservative
senators Richard Shelby of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Charles
Grassley of the Judiciary Committee - are both demanding the resignation
of the CIA Director, George Tenet.
'There is nothing this White House likes better than to paint any
Congressional examination of what went on before 11 September as a
partisan exercise,' said one Democratic senator, asking not to be named.
'Shelby and Grassley make that impossible.'
The administration is famously at its own throat over foreign policy -
the war between Bush's White House and Colin Powell's State Department
has never been more vitriolic, or its muddled consequences more starkly
exposed as now, over the Middle East.
But sources in Washington told The Observer that even discounting
Powell, there is squabbling about what to do over a matter of clear
presidential resolve: Iraq. Civilian appointees at the Pentagon and the
National Security Agency favour a limited plan using special forces on
an Afghan model, says one senior Defence Department official.
Military leaders, however, say any comparison between Iraq and
Afghanistan is naive, and an action should involve overwhelming force by
some 200,000 troops or none at all. But the real stumbling for the Bush
presidency - and the explanation for the continual language of war -
lies in the neglected terrain of unpopular domestic policy in a mid-term
election year.
'This has nothing to do with politics,' the President told a Cabinet
meeting after 11 September. 'No one talk to me about politics for a
while.' That was a good many months ago now, but the White House
priority remains to keep political discourse to a minimum - for reasons
other than national security.
Taking office after a disputed election, the Bush presidency set about
reconciling the harsh ideology of its programme with the promises of a
'compassionate conservatism' agenda on which he was elected. On 10
September, the President's popularity had fallen to 50 per cent, the
lowest on record for a President after that period in office.
All polls now show that, even if most voters support Bush (about 70 per
cent), they tend to side with the opposition on single policy issues.
The campaign for November's elections to Congress and governorships
nationwide kick-starts and stalls again, as real-life politics is
interrupted by the latest suspiciously well-timed ' terrorist alert'.
The White House message is that this is largely a Republican Party
election campaign of state-by-state contests, not an endorsement of
Bush's popularity.
But sources in Washington say an alarmed President and Vice-President
have taken personal roles in recruiting candidates, forestalling
damaging primary contests - and raising money. Most significantly, the
election is being fought as an attempt to re-adopt the 'compassionate
conservatism' label.
The reality since Bush took office has been some distance from the
'compassionate' platform, the consequences of which his party is bracing
for. Among Bush's election promises was, for example, to put a 'lock
box' on the social security fund. In reality, he has raided the trust
fund to pay for tax cuts, and has now established a presidential
commission, under Time Warner chief executive Richard Parsons, to
examine privatising the system.
A number of Republican representatives and senators have tabled Bills to
that effect, but are now scrambling to avoid having them come onto the
floor of the House. 'They do not dare have it on the record that they
voted for their own measures, because they know that, if they do, they
would probably not get re-elected,' said one Washington insider.
Democrats are anxious to force the social security privatisation vote,
with a 'discharge petition' to get the proposed legislation out of
committee and into the cold light of a floor debate. Corporate sleaze -
highly unpopular after the Enron scandal - is becoming a hallmark of the
Bush presidency.
More companies emerge as closely entwined with the administration and
Bush's own policies, after it was revealed that the national energy plan
was drafted entirely as a payback to big oil and power companies which
had backed Bush for the White House.
After the passage of a senior citizens' prescription package that hugely
favours drug companies - and can be interpreted as penalising pensioners
- few were impressed last week by the spectacle of a fundraising gala
with the President as guest of honour at Washington's Mayflower Hotel,
with GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Bayer and Merck among the companies paying
up to $250,000 for a table.
At the other end of the age scale, Bush's policies on children are
unpopular. He pledged he would 'leave no child behind' - stealing the
slogan the Children's Defence Fund has had for 30 years. Since the
promise was made, the fund has become so appalled by the President's
track record, it prints its slogan with a registered trade mark symbol.
In office, however, Bush has frozen money for the popular 'Head Start'
programme for children in poor districts, and all funding for child
care. He has backtracked on a bipartisan deal increasing federal funds
for public schooling, in exchange for the testing programme and a
controversial system of tuition vouchers for parents.
Although Bush respects the senior women in his Cabinet - the resignation
of Karen Hughes providing a model blend of career success and commitment
to family- women voters, who tend towards the Democrats anyway, do not
like such sweeping measures as the crippling of the Department of
Labour's women's bureau, abolishing its regional office, or the
continuing barriers to reproductive rights and sex education.
Political analyst Stuart Rothenberg, who edits the Rothenberg Political
Report , believes that, for the moment at least, the Republican Party
can still 'take the moral high ground' in the afterglow of 11 September,
and Bush can 'revert to that time-honoured position of complaining that
this is a time for national unity and his critics are being partisan'.
But, he adds, 'by August, September or October, the desire for national
unity will not be nearly as strong. Voters will be ready for
partisanship - voters expect elections to be partisan'.
Meanwhile, the presidency is simply becoming less credible, after months
of apparent unassailability. The President is making gaffes that are not
those old 'Bushism' jokes, but seriously political. Among the current
irregularities, defending his Budget plans, he insists over and over
that he said on a campaign stop in Chicago in 2000 that he would
countenance a deficit under three exceptional circumstances: war,
national emergency and recession.
All attempts to dig out the reference have failed, including calls to
the White House. Faced with a challenge to provide it, the man in charge
of the Budget, Mitch Daniel, snapped: 'I'm not the White House
librarian.'
But Bush remains strong because of 11 September and also because of the
formidable triad that sponsors his presidency: his father,
Vice-President Cheney and the mysterious figure of Karl Rove. Rove is
his senior policy adviser, the man who managed and raised the money for
all the President's election campaigns, the Svengali of the
administration, long-time friend and adviser to Bush Senior and his
ambassador in the present White House.
Rove is at the centre of the wheel, adapting America's response to every
world event to the domestic electoral agenda. It was his decision to
impose huge tariffs on steel imported from Europe and the East, to
protect steelworkers in electorally crucial states.
It was Rove's choice to send Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to
a massive pro-Israeli rally - giving it (and the Jewish vote) the
administration's stamp of approval. It was his decision to halt the test
bombing of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, concerned about
alienating the Latino vote.
Crucially, Rove is tireless in his work with core Republican and Bush
supporters, endlessly working the governors' mansions, the industrial
and commercial interests that back the President financially and
politically, and groups such as the National Rifle Association.
In the parlance of Washington, the Republicans have a word for this
constituency, which slips off the tongue without regard to what it has
come to mean given recent events. They call it 'The Base', which in
Arabic translates as 'al-Qaeda'.
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