A Long, Contentious Grind

[babylonsister]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/10/418/

A Long, Contentious Grind
by Scot Lehigh

snip//

It’s obvious the next two years will be a long, contentious grind. But what’s even more frustrating is the litany of problems this president will leave his successor.

First on the list, of course, is Iraq. As Iraq Study Group member Leon Panetta underlined in The New York Times last week, the Iraqi government has made minimal progress toward meeting key milestones for national reconciliation. No matter. If this president has his way, the chaos in Iraq will land squarely in the next chief executive’s lap.

So will the nation’s long-term fiscal problems, exacerbated by both the tax cuts and the massive prescription drug entitlement this president pushed through Congress.

Meanwhile, consider how remarkable it is that an administration ever eager to assert its unbridled authority — at least when doing so serves its ideological ends — would argue that the EPA lacks the power to regulate carbon dioxide. The Supreme Court has now rejected that claim, but don’t hold your breath waiting for significant action on climate change.

And, of course, there’s the US prison at Guantanamo Bay. It’s untenable for the United States to keep hundreds of people imprisoned for the rest of their lives without trial. Yet even though Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has urged Bush to close the facility, deciding what to do with the detainees is another matter Bush seems likely to dump on his successor’s desk.

In sum, George W. Bush has spent two terms making one colossal mess. The next president will have to devote much of his or her energy to cleaning it up.

[Vincardog]

1. Take the GITMO prisoners and ship them to the pig ranch in Crawford.

And don't let lil george scoot off to Argentina until he deals with them.

[frogcycle]

2. The extent of the mess

is so broad and deep as to be unfathomable

It will actually take the next several Presidents.

I would venture to say that we will be in worse shape than we were when FDR came in. He faced the Great Depression and the looming Nazi threat.

But he didn't face the economic disaster we are heading in to, in which other countries are doing well and hold all our "markers".

And the degree to which we will have alienated our allies and antagonized the Muslim world is incalculable. The threat is different, but we're the target now.

[babylonsister]

3. It's a really, really scary mess they've got us into. nt