While Olbermann is right on when he blames Bush for losing

[question everything]

any unity that we felt on 9/11, for squandering the trust that we had in the government, for politicizing 9/11, I think that blaming Bush for the hole in the ground is misdirected. At least, if he meant this literally.

I posted that question http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2106226 yesterday morning, and others on the media did so, too, and the answers are that it was in the hands of the City of New York, with a lot of groups and regulations being involved.

But, I suppose, Olbermann did not mean that literally, and the empty space of ground zero really is a metaphor for the empty space in our nation that was united - most of it, judging by too many posts on DU - willing to let Bush do whatever it took to fight terrorism where they were and to assure and secure a frightened nation. With meaningful words, like the one Peggy Noonan wrote for Reagan to say after the Challenger disaster, not the cowboy words of "dead or alive" "either with us or against us" and others.

But, as Olbermann so well said:

They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused; as appeasers; as those who, in the Vice President’s words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists."

They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken… a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated Al-Qaeda as much as we did.

****

How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death… after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections… how dare you or those around you… ever "spin" 9/11.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/09/11/keith-olbermanns-special-commnet-on-bush-who-has-left-this-hole-in-the-ground-we-have-not-forgotten-mr-president-you-have-may-this-country-forgive-you

[neoblues]

1. Still, If Bush Exercised Leadership...

He could have brough America and the City of New York as well as his wealthy 'base' along to have long since rebuilt that 'hole' in the ground. It however suits Bush's purpose to have that hole there to remind us and keep us where he wants us--whether he's explicitly at fault, applying pressure behind the scenes/indirectly or has nothing to do with it other than failing to lead. I think Bush had even said something like 'we will rebuild' or some such promise; promises yet unkept by whoever.

[question everything]

4. Agree. But for this one needs leadership that Bush never had

Thank you for clarifying this.

[n2doc]

2. Leadership was required

Do you think FDR or Kennedy would have let that hole sit there? Or do you think that they would have marched all the major parties into the WH and made them hash it out? FDR did more in his first 100 days in office than W has done in 5+years to fix the problems he was handed.

[question everything]

5. Thank you. Yes. And leadership and Bush just do not go together (nt)

[Skinner]

3. I disagree.

Yes, Keith Olbermann was using the hole in the ground as a metaphor. But he was also using it literally, and he was fair to lay the blame at Bush's feet.

It is technically correct to say that the hole is the responsibility of New York or the Port Authority or whatever. But it is not correct to absolve George W. Bush of responsibility. He is not powerless. Bush is the most powerful man on the planet, he is the head of our government, and the head of his own party. When the president of the United States picks up the phone, people answer. When he says "jump" people jump. He has the biggest bully pulpit in the world. If rebuilding in New York were a priority for him, he could have made it happen. Instead, he washed his hands of the whole thing, and left the job to a squabbling bunch of anonymous nobodies.

That hole is his.

[Greyhound]

6. Exactly, everything this idiot frat boy has touched in his whole life

turns to shit. He is utterly incompetent, appallingly ignorant, and shamefully unconcerned. He is an inept puppet and we don't spend nearly enough time looking at who is pulling his strings, IMO. :banghead:

[bushisanidiot]

7. Well Said, Skinner!

n/t

[question everything]

8. True, in theory. Yes, he is supposed to be the most powerful man

on the planet, getting things moving by picking up the phone, but in reality he is incapable of doing this, unless told to do so by his handler.

He failed with Ground Zero - unless purposefully kept it until he is out of office - and failed with Katrina. He is failing with Iraq and is failing with the economy.

Hard to imagine that for many Republicans, he is one of the best presidents.

[Cosmocat]

11. Absolutely ...

It is just like NOs ... He is the freakin president of the united states, and if he says it has to get done, it gets done ...

By the Tuesday of the NO fiasco, he should have been on the phone telling people if water and food were not dropped to the people in NO within 2 hours, he was going to clean house ... If the national guard did not have total control within 12 hours, he was going go clean house ...

This deal ... FIVE FREAKIN YEARS ... Jimminy, SOMETHING needs to get done ... Again, he had to look forward to today within a year of 9-11, and two or three years ago demanded that a project be started to be completed by today ...

Make NO mistake ... If Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton were president, the WTC site being what it is today would be grounds to have them impeached and strung up on a pole in the minds of the lunatics on the right ...

[ProSense]

13. When Bush said

start a war, it was started!

[underpants]

16. They don't vote Republican

Niether do firemen (the Fire Act reversed by Bush)nor black people (New Orleans). It's all politics all the time. That leap you and I take to get to a reasonable consideration is the margin they operate in.

[longship]

9. Ah, but you've missed Olbermann's point.

Talking about the hole was brilliant. It really wasn't the main issue and Keith never intended it to be.

We're talking about a powerful metaphor here. Nobody looking at that 17 acre hole while hearing Keith's strong statement is going to take action to advocate that the hole be somehow filled with some construction. Instead, Keith has labelled ChimpCo with this image of yet another failure. Even though building at ground zero might not be the most important agenda item, nobody hearing Keith's commentary and seeing the image behind him will ever forget the big hole and its association with ChimpCo failure.

The theme of the commentary was its most brilliant part.

[KoKo]

10. His use of the "hole" was a brilliant indictment of Bush's useless

P-Residency. He's left a gaping hole wherever he goes filled with death and destruction. Think of 9th Ward in NO's, think of the Iraq Destruction, Afghanistan and what he allowed in Lebanon. Bush's holes are his legacy...the holes that he never manages to fill with anything positive. And, in more ways than that metaphor...he does in my mind an many others "indeed" own that hole in NYC that he allowed to happen in one way or another with his incompetence.

[question everything]

15. Yes, of course, This is what I was trying to say.. (nt)

[Laughing Mirror]

12. Bush is guilty, he is responsible for that hole in the ground

and those thousands of deaths. He & Cheney. They failed to protect their people.

[ProSense]

14. The response to Olbermann commentary proves

that there is an intelligent public out there who can understand English that isn't dumbed down to Bushspeak!

[Doctor_J]

17. Smirk is a destroyer, not a builder

always has been, always will be. He has destroyed everything he's ever been involved in, including now the US and of course Iraq. In fact destroying things is what he's most proud of in life, be it executing record numbers of people in Texas or Shock & Awe while Resident.