Jim Lobe: Bush’s Twilight Year Looks Grim, Lonely

[babylonsister]

Bush’s Twilight Year Looks Grim
by Jim Lobe


WASHINGTON - If the last days of 2007 are any indication, U.S. President George W. Bush’s last year in office is shaping up as grim and lonely.

Grim, because Bush’s signature “war on terror” is nowhere near the kind of “victory” on which he had placed so much hope. Hundreds of billions of dollars from the U.S. Treasury have been spent, but the democratic transformation of the Middle East and the wider Islamic world has not materialised.

Indeed, while Bush’s Surge strategy has helped reduce violence in Iraq over the past year, his top military commanders stress that the relative peace that has been achieved to date is fragile and that prospects for national reconciliation — the Surge’s political goal — remain dim.

Meanwhile, victory in the larger terror effort is nowhere in sight, as this week’s assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, helped illustrate.

Grim, because the economic news — which has generally remained upbeat over Bush’s tenure — has turned decidedly negative in recent months. The chances that his successor may inherit a recession, as well as the many foreign-policy fiascos created by the disastrous combination of the administration’s ideological rigidity and incompetence, are growing steadily.

Lonely, not only because of the departure during the past year of virtually all of his closest and most long-standing loyalists — Dan Barlett, Karen Hughes, Harriet Miers, Alberto Gonzales, and Karl Rove — but also because he is seen increasingly as both a lame duck and an albatross around the necks of his party’s candidates.

more...

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/31/6075/

[rodeodance]

1. in between trips--he will prob. spend lots of time at the 'western white house' just guessing

[MasonJar]

2. I just wish he were lonely in solitaire in some maximum security prison,

where he belongs.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. Good. That asshole deserves as much grim and lonely as the universe can dump on him.

...Considering how much shit he's managed to pile on the rest of the world.

[Fridays Child]

4. If only Pelosi would compassionately put this administration out of its misery.

Impeachment would be an act of kindness.

[babylonsister]

5. Ha! Think we could sell her on that reasoning?

:D

[Fridays Child]

7. Anything is worth a try.

Personally, though, I think she's probably made some sort of secret Faustian bargain with Bushco, and we will never see these thugs impeached.

[marmar]

6. 2008 is going to be a watershed year for all of us, I think, and not necessarily in a good way.

:scared:

[Rageneau]

13. Agree. I never looked at a year ahead more apprensively than this one.

Bad moon rising.

[gratuitous]

8. Where does Lobe pull this nonsense?

"Bush’s Surge strategy has helped reduce violence in Iraq over the past year." Really? Civilian deaths are up, military deaths are up, I think suicide bombings are down, but I don't know if that's directly attributable to the surge, and I'd bet a dollar to a hole in a doughnut that Lobe doesn't know, either. And the only reason the economic news has been upbeat is because of the relentless happy talk peddled by the administration and its mouthpieces. Jobs added have been anemic and haven't kept up with the number of workers added to the economy, and the earnings of everyone except the overrich have lagged. It seems only now, when the Big Shitpile of the mortgage mess has become apparent, that the happy talk has at last been exposed for what it is.

And as for being an "albatross," I'd believe that if any of the credible Republican candidates were actually distancing themselves from Bush's policies. Romney's been re-writing history at a furious pace (even for a Mormon); McCain is running as the second coming of George W. Bush including the dirty tricks; Giuliani's thirst for the Big Chair and the chance to start wars of his own is hurting him; and Huckabee would dearly love to continue the "compassionate conservatism" Bush pioneered.

Yeah, Bush's last year in office is going to be grim indeed for the nation he's misruling. Things would sunny up quick, though, if the House would get about the business of drafting articles of impeachment.

[MoonRiver]

9. But how much more damage can he do?

Bored and lonely sociopaths are dangerous creatures. :scared:

[TwilightGardener]

10. He's like a giant boil on America's ass. We're just waiting for it to heal up and fade away.

[Olney Blue]

12. You give Head of State a new meaning.

[trusty elf]

14. Nice one!

Adolf Zitler?

:shrug:

[Mr Rabble]

11. This guy is insane.

Bush has accomplished every objective he has set for his administration.

Invaded Iraq.
Looted the treasury.
Destroyed the middle class.
Created an endless "War on terror".
Cemented US control of petroleum resources in the ME.

And now, he is set to hand off a devastated country to his political opponents. Who of course will be blamed for all of it.

Total success.

Unless you actually believe that Bush was interested in "spreading Democracy" and all that. Of course, there is some evidence that this was Bush's objective: Bush said so. In fact, he said so immediately after the other rationales for the invasion collapsed.

Like almost all pundits in the US, Jim Lobe is operating from the perspective that Bush has been telling the truth about everything- and was simply incompetent.

Bullshit. Bush has finished off a project begun in earnest in 1981. And he has done so in grand fashion.
I don't plan on letting him get off with an excuse of incompetence.