It Could Be a Lot Worse: A Retrospective on the Bush Presidency from a Progressive Christian Perspective

For as bad as we think things may be today with a stripped down health care reform ready to become law, a stalled effort on tackling climate change and the lack of true reform in our financial system, it was just a year ago that we were saying goodbye to one of the worst Presidents in American history, George W. Bush.    I have put together a number of postings from crossleft.org that I wrote throughout his second term.  Enjoy.

Table of Contents

Bush stops the spin? - 9/14/05

Bush the Crusader - 10/7/05

Christian Right Wins Again - 10/27/05

Couple of really bad weeks for the President - 2/25/06

Garrison Keillor's commentary on the Chief Occupant - 3/17/06

Colbert's Blistering Attack of the Bush...from 3 feet away - 5/4/06

Do Bush's low poll numbers mean anything? - 5/10/06

We could have won Vietnam? Really?! - 12/26/06

Where does the buck stop? - 3/12/07

Bush's Iraq Progress from MoveOn - 9/5/07

Bush: "We're kicking ass in Iraq" - 9/7/07

When the Boy Who Would be King Went to War - 9/20/07

George W. Bush does more evil. - 10/07/07

Religious Leaders Call for Change in Bush - 1/25/08

Shame! Our Leaders Approved Torture - 4/10/08

Why McClellan's Coming Clean Is Important - 6/3/08

Bush's unexamined life.

Bush stops the spin?

on Wed, 09/14/2005

It appears as though Bush, finally, finally took responsibility for his failure in running the federal government. After trying to spin, he finally took responsibility, the first mistake he's admitted in his administration. Unfortunately, its two weeks too late. JFK took immediate responsibility for the Bay of Pigs. For Harry Truman, the buck stopped at his desk. Bush blames the bureaucracy that he is supposed to be running. He only takes responsibility once his approval rating falls to 38%.

But taking responsibility for the severely failed hurricane response is only part of the equation. Bush must take responsibility for the grinding poverty that left the poor disproportionately affected by the hurricane.

The questions that must be posed to him however is: what will he do now to end poverty? What will he do to ensure that the government not only handles the next major emergency but also ends the daily tragedy of poverty in this country?

Bush the Crusader

Fri, 10/07/2005

The big story today is that Bush claimed to be told by God to start a war in Iraq to end the tyranny there. Nabil Shaath, a Palenstinian negotiator, claims that comments were made in 2003.

The White House denies that Bush said this in that meeting, but the fact is that Bush has invoked his religion frequently in the war on terror, on the campaign trail and frequently in his speeches throughout his Presidency. Invoking religion in the public square isn't necessarily an awful thing when its used to explain the basis of your values. Unfortunately, Bush and others on the Christian right, use their religion to claim to have the hold on absolute truth and that anyone who disagrees with their interpretation of Scripture is just plain wrong, if not evil.

This absolutism is dangerous frankly because it creates little space for dialogue and understanding. And Bush, putting the war on in Iraq on religious grounds not only hurts the ability for deliberation within the body politic, but also undermines Christianity.

Would Jesus have really encouraged our President to drop bombs that often find their way to innocent people?
Woud Jesus have told Bush to invade another country that posed no immediate threat to us?
Would Jesus have have told him to cut taxes to the rich and programs to the poor (another 1/2 billion in food stamps cuts proposed this week)?

I'm sure Bush is a devoutly religious man, but if he's praying to same God made man in Jesus Christ, I have a tough time seeing how he arrives at decisions that promote violence and give more wealth to those who don't need it.

Beyond religious talk, Bush also played with other forms of language in his comments this week on the war on terror claiming that terrorists were seeking to "...establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia." What? Whose acting like the imperialist? Every day seems a bit more Orwellian around the White House.

Christian Right Wins Again

on Thu, 10/27/2005
Well, the Christian Right has won again. Harriet Miers is no longer a candidate for the Supreme Court. Despite reassurances in veiled language from the Bush administration that Ms. Miers is a pro life candidate, the pressure on the right forced his hand. Apparently Ms. Miers wasn't anti-abortion enought. The Christian right wins again.

What this does say about Bush is obvious: he is a severely weakened President who must rely on his base on the extreme right for the rest of his term if he is to have any effectiveness at all. This does not bode well for us on the left in terms of budget cuts, the war, and future Supreme Court nominees.

It was less than a year ago that Bush won re-election stating: "I've earned political capital and I intend to use it." Like most of his business ventures, Bush is politically broke and going back to the Bank of the Radical Right and asking for another loan.

We on the left need to enforce those new bankruptcy laws and hold Bush to account for his gross mismanagement of government and his immoral war. Bring on the indictments.

Couple of really bad weeks for the President

on Sat, 02/25/2006

It sure has been a couple of bad weeks for the President. First the Abrahamoff scandal swirled around Washington seemingly getting closer and closer to the President. Then, his Vice-President shoots his friend and sends the owner of the ranch he was on to talk to a local paper. Then last week, the President is caught off-guard about a sale of our ports to a company controlled by the United Arab Emirates. No matter how we might about either of those issues, the administration failed in its poor handling of the media, its disrespect of other political leaders and its failure to recognize and deal properly with ethical issues.

Given the arrogance of this President, given the inherent evil of his war and anti-poor/pro-rich policies, its hard for a progressive not to gloat over the continued misfortune of this President.

As progressive, there is no time to be gleeful about Presidential missteps. Progressives must work hard to offer policies of hope and vision. We must work to win these mid-term elections by offering a different vision. We must all call out evil when we see it, and the fact is this President has brought us down a path in which we must reverse soon. We must balance our budget and expand programs for the poor by eliminating the tax breaks for the rich. We must extricate ourselves from a war in the Middle East that continues to be pigheaded and wrong. We must find a way to provide health insurance to all our citizens. We must stop corruption in politics and big business by getting money out of politics and holding corporate executives accountable for paying decent wages and being responsible stewards of environmental resources.

Let's work hard to accomplish the agenda set out by Progressive Christian Leaders at the Summit at the beginning of the month. (http://www.crossleft.org/?q=node/1165) CrossLeft for its part will be partnering with organizations and individuals who are committed to drive the changes we seek as stated in the 2006 policy agenda.

Garrison Keillor's commentary on the Chief Occupant

on Fri, 03/17/2006

CrossLeft Leadership Team Member Peggy Kirkendall, sent this to her email list and I think it captures the mood of our country about President Bush, who Garrison Keillor calls the Current Occupant. I have a tremendous amount of admiration for Garrison. I listen to his radio program, Prairie Home Companion, whenever I can. He has a cutting wit and a Midwest sensibility that allows him to combine centrism with political humor and commentary.

The fact is that George Bush Jr. has had an easy life and has always had his father's buddies help him out of his incompetence. Never tested in war, never successful in business, never committed to social causes, he took his mediocrity into politics. By claiming Jesus as his hero and guide while delivering tax cuts to people who don't need them, Bush made himself the embodiment of the two sides of the Republican party. We now living with the consequences of his mediocrity, of his unfitness for the highest office of our nation.

I disagree with one point of Garrison...Democrats can't call him to account. They can, but they have refused to do so. Progressive Christians must push Democrats and Republicans to hold Bush to account...to get us out of this war and to return fiscal responsibility of the Clinton years. Democrats could run on better managed government and win. But they need to rebuke the President strongly for illegal acts of surveillance and immoral acts of pre-emptive war and cuts to programs that serve the needy.

I've said other times in my blog that this administration will go down as one of the most repudiated in the history of our nation. I still believe that and Garrison gives all the reasons why...

Day of Reckoning for the Current Occupant

By Garrison Keillor
The Chicago Tribune
Wednesday 15 March 2006
Spring arrived in New York last week for previews, a sunny day with chill in the air, but you could smell mud, and with a little imagination you could sort of smell grass. I put on a gray jacket, instead of black, and went to the opera and saw Verdi's "Luisa Miller," a Republican opera in which love is crushed by the perfidiousness of government. A helpful lesson for these times. I am referring to the Current Occupant.
The Republican Revolution has gone the way of all flesh. It took over Congress and the White House, horns blew, church bells rang, sailors kissed each other, and what happened? The Republicans led us into a reckless foreign war and steered the economy toward receivership and wielded power as if there were no rules. Democrats are accused of having no new ideas, but Republicans are making some of the old ideas look awfully good, such as constitutional checks and balances, fiscal responsibility, and the notion of realism in foreign affairs and taking actions that serve the national interest. What one might call "conservatism."

The head of the National Security Agency under President Ronald Reagan, Lt. Gen. William Odom, writes on the Web site NiemanWatchdog.org that he sees clear parallels between Vietnam and Iraq: "The difference lies in the consequences. Vietnam did not have the devastating effects on US power that Iraq is already having." He draws the parallels in three stages and says that staying the course will only make the damage to US power greater. It's a chilling analysis, and one that isn't going to come from the Democratic Party. It's starting to come from Republicans, and they are the ones who must rescue the country from themselves.

I ran into a gray eminence from the Bush I era the other day in an airport, and he said that what most offended him about Bush II is the naked incompetence. "You may disagree with Republicans, but you always had to recognize that they knew what they were doing," he said. "I keep going back to that intelligence memo of August 2001, that said that terrorists had plans to hijack planes and crash them into buildings. The president read it, and he didn't even call a staff meeting to discuss it. That is lack of attention of a high order."

Over the course of time, the Chief Occupant has been cruelly exposed over and over. He sat and was briefed on the danger of a hurricane wiping out a major American city, and without asking a single question, he got up from the table and walked away and resumed his vacation. He played guitar as New Orleans was flooded. It took him four days to realize his responsibility to do something. When the tsunami killed 100,000 people in Southeast Asia, he was on vacation and it took him 72 hours to issue a statement of sympathy.

The Republicans tied their wagon to him and, as a result, their revolution is bankrupt. He has played the terrorism card for all it is worth and campaigned successfully against Adam and Steve and co-opted whole vast flocks of Christians, but he is done now, kaput, out of gas, for one simple reason. He doesn't represent the best that is our country. Not even close.

He openly, brazenly, countenanced crimes of torture at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and Bagram. He engaged in illegal surveillance, authorized the arrest of people without charge and "disappeared" them to foreign jails. And he finagled this war, which, after three years of violence, does not look to be heading toward a happy ending. And now it's up to Republicans to put their country first and call the gentleman to account.

The Current Occupant is smart about handling a political mess. The best strategy is to cut and run and change the subject. You defend the Dubai ports deal in manly terms until you lose a vote in a House committee and then you retreat - actually, you get the Dubai people to do it for you - and that's it, End of Story.

Harriet Miers was fully qualified one day and gone the next. Social Security was going to be overhauled to give us the Ownership Society, and then the stock market went in the toilet and Republicans got nervous, and suddenly it was Never Mind and on to the next new thing.

Let's bring the boys home. Otherwise, let's send this man back to Texas and see what sort of work he is capable of and let him start making a contribution to the world.

Colbert's Blistering Attack of the Bush...from 3 feet away

on Thu, 05/04/2006

The blogosphere is abuzz with the Stephen Colbert's brilliant performance at the White House Correspondent's Association's annual dinner. With the President sitting just a few feet away, Colbert stayed in his Fox News-like character, and not so comically decimated the practices and policies of the administration.

Some of my favorite lines:
"I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq."

"Now, I know there are some polls out there saying that this man has a 32% approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality." And reality has a well-known liberal bias."

"I stand by this man. I stand by this man, because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things, things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound with the most powerfully staged photo-ops in the world."

"The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday."

Colbert should be applauded for speaking to power with a biting wit that cuts through the litany of nonsense and lies from Bush and his administration.

You can add your thank you to Colbert on this site.
http://thankyoustephencolbert.org/

More thoughts here:
http://democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/03/145234

Do Bush's low poll numbers mean anything?

on Wed, 05/10/2006
The New York Times just came out with the latest poll numbers on Bush's job performance; he's down to 31% approval rating, the 3rd lowest rating of a President. Only Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon had lower approval ratings, not good company for the President.

In many ways, the chickens have come home to roost. You can deceive the American people for only so long, before they realize that they've been had. The selective use of intelligence included trumping up intelligence that supported the war, while ignoring intelligence that did not beat a war drum. Many folks are coming around to the fact that this at best represents the President's incompetence and more likely is indicative of lying and misleading the American people.

Congress, and Republicans in Congress are not fairing much better. The approval ratings are even worse as corruption touches more and more of the Congressional leadership. The mean-spiritedness on issues such as immigration, the poor, environment and health care is hurting the Republicans, especially among evangelical Christians who have been part of their base. These Christians are realizing that support profits over people, irreparably damaging God's creation, and ignoring the poor are not part of a Christian agenda.

I'm also picking up a reinvigoration of a populist progressivism coming through most in the gas price issue. As Americans pay the high gas prices, the oil companies continue to announce record profits. During the Katrina quarter, Exxon-Mobile recorded the most profitable quarter ever for a company. You think that in a time of tremendous need the company would take a profit cut from 9.9 billion to something lower. Instead, the company gave its CEO a $400 million golden parchute for retiring. Ordinary working Americans realize this is wrong, and that the Republicans support this behavior hiding behind free market ideology rather discussing issues of justice and fairness.

As I've said in other blog posts, none of this matter if the Democrats can't form a principled agenda and articulate that agenda effectively between now and the November elections. The Democrats have to be something more than Republican-lite or not Bush. They should promote a robust agenda so that the election turns into a mandate for change. Without standing for something, the Democrats will continue to have no place to stand in the political system.

For all the poll numbers follow the link below:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/10/washington/10poll.html?ex=1147924800&e...

We could have won Vietnam? Really?!

Fri, 12/15/2006
As the Iraq Study Group and most of the country seek to extricate ourselves from the morass that is Iraq, the comparisons to Vietnam have found their way into the political discourse. One might expect such comparisons given the poor planning and strategy, the deaths of young American soldiers, and the open ended commitment of troops. Ironically, though the comparisons are coming from the twenty percent of Americans who still support this war.

In recent weeks, moral standard-bearers for the hard core conservatives such as Tom Delay have started to work allusions of Vietnam into their public statements. Neo-cons who are still holding out so in Iraq so that their ideology might not totally be debunked, are looking for someone to blame other than themselves, their ideology, or the failings of their guys in the White House. Getting out ahead of the inevitable framing of Iraq as another Vietnam, the conservatives have gone on the offensive by defining the issue as a loss of the American will. In the very worst kind of revisionist history, the loss of the Vietnam is being attributed to a loss of American will, rather than the untenable overextension of our forces into ideological civil war.

In comparisons to Vietnam, these conservatives (many of whom did what they could to avoid fighting in Vietnam themselves) blame our failure in Iraq on the American people. Apparently, our diminishing will to win is the root cause of our failure in Iraq. Forget the fact that every book written by accomplished reporters have told tails of criminal incompetence, gross negligence, and complete failure of strategy. Forget the charges of failed planning of former members of the military from former Generals to GIs. Forget the administration's years of pigheaded staying the course no matter how much conditions on the ground worsened. The

I have a message to the Tom Delay, Bill Kristol, Dick Cheney and indeed the President:

THIS WAR'S FAILURE IS NOT OUR FAULT!

You are the guys who gave us the rosy scenarios of "We'll be welcomed as liberators" and "Mission Accomplished" and "The insurgency is in its last throes".
You are the guys who gave out no-bid contracts with not a lick worth of oversight.
You are the guys who didn't plan on enough troops.
You are the guys who lied about the reasons for war.
You are the guys beating the drums of war, rather seeking alternatives for peace.
You are the one that brought us the un-Christian strategy of pre-emptive strikes, the first in our nation's history.

You got us into this war, now the American people are demanding that you get us out. Doing so will require that the President will have to say I made a terrible, terrible mistake. And for the second time in his life, he can be man enough to own up to his mistake and change his course.

Just like our over-extension in Vietnam, victory in the glowing terms that the President has spoken about is just not possible. American troops are yet again placed in the midst of a Civil War in which domestic passions can not be quelled by an outside force. It took us 7 years to get our Vietnam at the cost of thousands of American and Vietnamese lives. Let history not repeat itself: let us not take 7 years, but 7 months to rid ourselves of this conflict.

Where does the buck stop?

on Mon, 03/12/2007
Harry Truman was popular only after history had taken a second look. As the Korean War dragged on, his approval ratings looked a lot like our current President. History treats "Give 'em hell" Harry as a popular figure for his willingness to make difficult decisions that demonstrated little pandering or self-doubt. Such traits are an important part of good leadership, but if not coupled with a willingness to take responsibility for decisions when you are wrong, the leader fast becomes narcissistic or worse, dictatorial. Harry Truman demonstrated both the decisiveness and humility required for leadership in one simple phrase displayed prominently on his desk, "The Buck Stops Here."

Fast-forward 60 years and the nation finds itself with another leader who prides himself on making the touch calls as "the Decider". The nation also finds itself in another intractable war with no end in sight. This leader refuses to accept the mantra about where the buck stops preferring not to take blame for poor decisions even as most of the country acknowledges such mistakes in opinion polling.

Here's a short list of where President Bush has refused to take responsibility (feel free to add your own in the comment section):

- When the war intelligence is clearly manipulated where does the buck stop?
- When billions are wasted defrauding the government, including the Vice-President's old company, where does the buck stop?
- When administration officials out the identity of CIA agent, where does the buck stop?
- When the war that the President started under false pretexts descends into a civil war due to various mistakes, where does the buck stop?
- When poverty goes up every year of the administration by a million people where does the buck stop?
- When the government ceases to function during Katrina, where does the buck stop?
- When US Attorneys are fired for political reasons, where does the buck stop?

It would be great to hear the President say, "I was wrong.", not a wishy-washy "If mistakes were made, the responsibility rests with me." We want a statement just as direct as any other statement that was made in our march to war. For a President in twilight, looking towards the history books, such an admission could be the one saving grace of an otherwise dismal entry into the history books.

Bush's Iraq Progress from MoveOn
on Fri, 09/07/2007

Thought this was well done about how the administration keeps dangling this progress line in front of us, even as more of our men and women are killed in the midst of a civil war.

Bush: "We're kicking ass in Iraq"

on Fri, 09/07/2007

Yep, Bush said so in Australia the other day.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/09/07/bush-on-iraq-were-kickin...

What a complete fool! Is that a Christian thing to say? Our brave soldiers die every day with many Iraqi citizens, and we're kicking ass? This isn't a video game George, these are real lives.

First of all, he's not doing anything. Our brave men and women are those who are battling it out under the extreme conditions of a civil war in the middle of the desert. When it was his turn to "kick ass" in Vietnam Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz decided to stay home.

Second, we're not winning! Bush continues to dangle this progress thing out in front of us, even though its clear that the politics in Iraq continue to disintegrate.

How could one man bring us so much dishonor throughout the world and continue to be so pigheaded as to think we are actually kicking ass in Iraq? The world used to look to us as beacon of hope because of our promotion of freedom and economic progress throughout the world. We worked closely with our allies to win the world wars and the cold war. Now we are disdained for our our go it alone strategy and launching pre-emptive wars.

TO THE CONGRESS:
The Congress must refuse to authorize any further war funding and bring these guys home and end this charade. Use some strategy...its not about whether to defund the troops its about allocating only enough money to bring them home over the next 6-12 months. Do not have another vote about whether to bring them home. Rather have an affirmative vote on the budget to only allocate the funding for withdrawal. Reduce the funding for the war every month in the next budget. And if Bush vetoes withdraw his war authorization that was mistakenly passed in 4 years ago. Rescind any declaration of war implied or explicit in that authorization. That is the Congress's prerogative under the Constitution.

When the Boy Who Would be King Went to War

Thu, 09/20/2007

As I was reading Jeff Sachs's The End of Poverty, I came across a quote from Immanuel Kant that spoke to me. 150 years before the formation of the United Nations he argued for some semblance of global governance to end war. To quote Sachs and Kant:

In 1795, Kant argued that perpetual peace between nations could be achieved if self-governing republics linked through international commerce replace monarchies. Kant explained that monarchs have the incentive to launch wars because war does not require the ruler "the least sacrifice of the pleasures of his table, the chase, his country houses, his court functions, and the ike. He may therefor resolve on war as on a pleasure party for the most trivial reasons, and with perfect indifference leave the justification which decency requires to the diplomatic coprs who are ever ready to provide it."

In a republic, by contrast, "the consent of the citizens is required in order to decide that war should be declared." "Nothing is more natural than that they would be very cautious in commencing such a poor game, decreeing for themsleves all the calamities of war," which include "having to fight, having to pay the costs of war from their own resources, hving painfully to repair the devastation war leaves behind, and, to fill up the measure of evils, load themselves with a heavy national debt...."
Hopefully, you can see why this spoke to me. We have a President who was born with the silver spoon in his mouth. When it was his turn to learn the pain and horror of war, he decided to stay away. I wouldn't fault Bush, Cheney, or others from staying away, if they weren't war mongerers today. Perhaps if they would have gone to Vietnam they would have learned the real lessons of war of which Kant speaks. The boy who would be King sacrificed nothing during Vietnam, had his powerful father get him out of every DUI or cocaine bust, rescued him from failed business dealings, and even tried from a distance to show him the way out of the war with his friends from Baker-Hamilton. Because the boy who would be King never had to learn a life's lesson in taking responsibility for his own failings, never had enough contact with an average person to understand that families need health insurance and child care and other services, never had the experience of war to temper his own exuberance for the matter, we in the republic now reap the calamities of his failed Presidency. He essentially has acted the same as king in Kant's analogy.

We do now live in Republic, but not a Republic structured as well as it might be. When a President can continue a war, that the overwhelming majority of people have been against for years, we have to wonder about the efficacy of our Republic in representing the people. This isn't a situation where the whims of the people have changed abruptly, but rather a sustained voice to end war for the last three years. The fact that one man can hold the nation at war against its collective will indicates that something structural must change.

The other problem of our republic, is the sacrifices are not shared as Kant suggested they might be. I do not disagree with the All-Volunteer Force, but clearly the burden has fallen on a small minority of Americans. Perhaps that is why we do not hear the voices against the war nearly so loudly as when young people were being indiscriminately shipped off to war through the draft during Vietnam. When the draft ended, the voices subsided, even though the wrongs continued.

As Kant noted, we have rung up a national debt as a result of the war. Instead of asking people to pay for it through higher taxes as would be done in Kant's proper vision of a republic, the boy who would be King lowered taxes, and lowered taxes a lot for rich people. So instead we ask our major threat on the horizon, China, to finance this war so we can pay them back throughout our lifetimes instead of spending that money at home. Let's be clear, eliminate the Iraq War and you eliminate most if not all of the deficit.

Kant's words about a republic our supposed to be true. Republics are supposed to be better at determining when to go to war since the sacrifice is shared amongst the people. Unfortunately, we have a President who has essentially lived the life of a boy who would be King, lacking any consequence for failure and now unable to face the reality of the biggest failure of his life, Iraq. To me, he is still a boy. A man would have learned to face up to his mistake and seek to remedy the harm he has caused. He has circumvented the world body that Kant dreamed about and that our nation established to launch this war. He has not asked our citizens to shoulder the burden of this war and so while we are against it, we do not rise up as we should to demand a cessation to endless war.

The Boy Who Would Be King, has sinned mightily against our republic and against humanity. But this Repubic is ours, not the Kings's, and we must take it back.

Finally, as a side note, I commend the End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs to all of you. Too few Americans know about the Millenium Development Goals as a means to end extreme poverty in the world. I agree with Professor Sachs that we can do it, if we only have the will.

George W. Bush does more evil.

on Tue, 10/02/2007

This morning George W. Bush vetoed an expansion of health insurance for the children of this country. Its hard not to get angry. In fact, I'm angry as hell. This guy has never known want in his life. He has never dealt with the stress of living without health insurance or worse yet, without your child insured. Bush has never had to deal with the perverse set of questions that arise from a lack of health insurance:
- Should you take your child in to the hospital or not?
- How bad does it have to be before you go?
- How will we pay? Could we even pay?
- Will we have to declare bankruptcy?
- What if a parent becomes terminally ill?

Many progressive people of faith do no not necessarily even believe in Hell. I think I do. There may opportunities for redemption even after death, but I believe in a just, but forgiving God. The evil that this man continues to do strikes me as the type of thing that might earn a first class ticket right into the gates of Hell.

Who can deny the evil of unnecessary war and killing, the complete disdain for the poor in this country and around the world, and now vetoing health insurance for America's children. The additional cost of $35 billion over the next 5 years is about 1/5 of the cost of Iraq over the next year. Plenty of money for war, but not for our children. Time is running short for George W. Bush to do something redemptive in his Presidency. It does not seem likely.

Maybe at some advanced stage in his life this soul, George Bush, will realize the tremendous harm he himself has done and ask his Savior for forgivensss. To a man so immature as to be unable to admit mistakes to himself, I doubt that day will come soon. No one is ever completely lost to God's flock, but he certainly seem ostracized from it and the 75% of Americans who believe children should have health insurance.

Religious Leaders Call for Change in Bush

 Fri, 01/25/2008

Wishful thinking in my opinion, but as a believer I must say no is one is beyond hope.  Bush could turn from his evil ways of war, torture, slashing and burning the environment, and his lack of concern for the poor.   He could make a big difference in his last year...if he could somehow acknowledge to himself that I must rise above this state that I am currently, and make a success out of myself by doing the right thing.  The fact is that despite him being a President, he has essentially failed in everything he's done throughout his professional life.  His story presents a miserable student, an absent national guardsmen who chose to let others fight the war he supported, a number of failed business ventures and while a successful political career in terms of position, an abject failure who will likely go down with James Buchanan and Herbert Hoover as one of our nation's worst Presidents.  He still has time to redeem himself...I pray that God might turn his heart even at this very late stage away from evil and towards righteousness.

POLITICS-US:
Religious Leaders Assail Bush Agenda

William Fisher

NEW YORK, Jan 25 (IPS) - Describing George W. Bush as "an explicitly evangelical president" with a "sadly truncated" moral vision, a group of religious leaders is calling on the U.S. president to use his State of the Union message to Congress Monday evening to salvage his legacy by "changing course on the most pressing moral issues of our time".

In a telephone news conference Thursday, Protestant evangelical and Roman Catholic leaders challenged the president to use his speech to announce major changes in his administration's policies on war, torture, climate change, and U.S. and international poverty. The teleconference was held under the aegis of Faith in Public Life, a not-for-profit resource centre for the faith community

The group credited Bush for some of his efforts, including his programmes to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa, increasing foreign aid, and his domestic Faith-based Initiative. But it was highly critical of many other Bush administration policies, particularly the war in Iraq, providing insufficient resources to help millions of Iraqi refugees, seeming indifference to growing poverty in the U.S., the use of torture, and failure to take a leadership position on global climate change.

The group was particularly critical of the president and his team regarding the use of torture as a tool in the war on terrorism. Rev. David Gushee, president of Evangelicals for Human Rights, said, "In his well-intentioned efforts to protect national security, President Bush and his team over-reached by authorising and employing torture that certainly qualifies as and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment."

Noting that "these decisions were made in secret" following the Sep. 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S., Gushee said that once abuses such as the Abu Ghraib prison scandal were revealed, the courts, the media and public opinion forced Bush into "a kind of tactical retreat." But, he added, Bush "still reserves the right to authorise the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to employ a range of secret 'enhanced interrogation' techniques, including waterboarding."

He criticised the president for threatening to veto pending legislation that would make these practices illegal, and urged him to abandon his objections to using the Army Field Manual as the standard for all interrogations, including those carried out by the CIA.

"It is hard to overstate the devastating effect of this policy on the moral standing of the U.S.," said Gushee, who is the author of the anti-torture statement recently endorsed by the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), which claims a membership of about 4.5 million people.

Sister Anne Curtis of the Institute of the Sisters of Mercy, who recently returned from Iraq, focused on the plight of the estimated four million Iraqis who have either fled to neighbouring countries or been internally displaced by the war. She said U.S. efforts to assist these refugees -- many of whom have become targets for insurgents because they worked for U.S. authorities -- are under-funded and under-resourced.

Talking with refugee families, she said, "I felt a great sense of shame and deep sorrow as a citizen of the U.S.," she told reporters. "President Bush needs to understand the reality" of the refugee situation. He has "a responsibility, a moral obligation, to end the war in Iraq, aid the refugee applicants, and provide for the necessary funding of refugee assistance," she said.

Asked whether any of the contenders for their respective presidential nominations would feel comfortable endorsing the ideas expressed by the group, the speakers declined to name any particular candidate. "The evangelical world has been hurt by its identification with President Bush's immoral choices," said Dr. Ron Sider, president of Evangelicals for Social Action.

But in response to a question from IPS regarding former Gov. Mike Huckabee's proposal to amend the U.S. Constitution to bring it more in line with Biblical scripture, Sider said, "I would not state it that way. This is not a Christian nation. We should not talk about making the Constitution in line with any religious text." Rather, he said it is appropriate to "talk about moral norms and how people understand these norms," adding that he favours an amendment to the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

Poverty in the U.S. was high on the group's agenda. Father Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA, noted that in 2002 his organisation provided 43 percent of its services to the working poor; by 2006, the number had risen to 52 percent.

"More than 36 million people living in poverty in the U.S., which is simply unacceptable. It is a moral and social crisis, because as a country we have the knowledge and the resources to significantly reduce this number," he said. He criticised Congress as well as the president for failing to pass legislation to address the long-term health care needs of poor children.

Global warming was another major concern for the group. Rev. Dr. Paul de Vries, an NAE board member and an original signer of an "Evangelical Climate Initiative" statement, urged Bush to use his Monday night speech to lay out his commitment to "take care of God's creation." He should "praise the scientists, praise the Congress, and lay out a programme to set an example for the rest of the world."

In 2006, the NAE declined to take a stance on global warming, and released a letter stating that "global warming is not a consensus issue". Twenty evangelical leaders, such as James Dobson and Charles Colson, were signatories. But a year later, the 86 NAE members joined a group of prominent scientists in a statement demanding "urgent changes in values, lifestyles and public policies to avert disastrous changes in climate."

The statement cautioned that "millions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbours."

The group also expressed concern about the current economic downturn triggered by the sub-prime mortgage market meltdown. Rev. de Vries called attention to "the extraordinary levels of deceit" by banks and mortgage companies, and charged that "no one seems to have the guts to say so and conduct a thorough investigation."

He added, "The bank robbers have taken over the banks."

On achieving a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, Rev. Sider said President Bush could have a "huge impact" on current negotiations. "But this is not going to happen unless he invests himself and his credibility" in the effort.

Shame! Our Leaders Approved Torture
on Thu, 04/10/2008

Information is coming out to day that meetings in the White House in 2002-03 that included Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Powell, National Security Advisory Condoleeza Rice, CIA Director George Tenet and the Attorney General John Ashcroft. The meetings approved enhance interrogation techniques in other words torture. They did so on a case by case basis. There were lawyers at the justice department that were found to sign off I suppose as some sort of legal protection.

These are war crimes!

Will anyone care? Will the Congress get a backbone? The Congress should at the very least censure each one of the participants for this. What ought to happen is impeachment hearings against those officials still in office and criminal proceedings against those involved.

Of course, we're also led to believe that Bush was not in any of these meetings. It seems odd that the commander in chief would not be in meetings in which he seemed to be discussing in public with so much bravado.

Surprisingly, Ashcroft comes up off a bit better saying, "Why are we talking about this at the White House. History will not judge us kindly." How right he is.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080410/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/interrogation_tactics

Why McClellan's Coming Clean Is Important

on Tue, 06/03/2008
Last week, partisans from both sides of the aisle seemed to suggest that Scott McClellan's new tell all book was insignificant and somehow did not speak well of the man. From the Right, the talking points went out and we heard things from "puzzled" to much worse in Senator Dole's comments: "There are miserable creatures like you in every administration who don’t have the guts to speak up or quit if there are disagreements with the boss or colleagues. No, your type soaks up the benefits of power, revels in the limelight for years, then quits, and spurred on by greed, cashes in with a scathing critique." Rather talking about the issues raised in the book, the attack machine pointed the barrels at their former native son.

On the Left, the general criticism was "too little, too late" questioning why he didn't speak up during his years in the White House when it could have done some good. These criticisms are fair, but we ought not look a gift horse in the mouth. I agree with Jim Ramelis that there's very little new in what the former Press Secretary said (http://www.crossleft.org/node/6252), but I do believe the fact of who was discrediting the warmaking enterprise is extremely important.

Our project must be to completely discredit the Bush administration and the senseless and frankly evil mindset that chooses war over diplomacy, that twists intelligence and the public perception about the threat, that uses the threat of terrorism for partisanship and political gain. As I have said before, I believe we will look back on these times and find them similar to the McCarthy era, saying to ourselves, "How could we let our leaders scare us into something that was clearly wrong?"

So books like McClellan's or Richard Clarke's that expose the administration for the lying and the preference towards violence are extremely important. A former insider disavowing himself and essentially saying that he too was guilty, is far from inconsequential. As the stories pile up, they write the terrible history of this administration and remind Americans about what where we do not want to return: neoconservativism and leaders that use fear and division to run our great country.

I know I'm probably in the minority on this, but I thank Scott McClellan for having the guts to come clean making his contribution to writing a page of history. As Christians we believe no one is beyond redemption and my hope is that others in the Bush White House now realize the errors of their ways and follow McClellan's lead. They would do our nation a great service and give their souls a bit more peace.