How George W. Bush has ruined the family franchise

Our resident Angry Old Broad went off the other day, and rightly so, on 41 boohooin' it up over No. 2 son's loss of the Florida governor's race a number of years back. I touched on this in 'comments' as being in response to No. Wrong son backing into the presidency instead of Jeb. Well, Elinor Clift, obviously a regular reader of the Brain, expanded on my riff:

On the eve of a report that repudiates his son's leadership, former president George H.W. Bush broke down crying when he recalled how his other son, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, lost an election a dozen years ago and then came back to serve two successful terms. The elder Bush has always been a softie, but this display of emotion was so over the top that it had to be about something other than Jeb's long-ago loss.

That election turned out to be pivotal because it disrupted the plan Papa Bush had for his sons, which may be why he was crying, and why the country cries with him. The family's grand design had the No. 2 son, Jeb, by far the brighter and more responsible, ascend to the presidency while George, the partying frat-boy type, settled for second best in Texas. The plan went awry when Jeb, contrary to conventional wisdom, lost in Florida, and George unexpectedly defeated Ann Richards in Texas. With the favored heir on the sidelines, the family calculus shifted. They'd go for the presidency with the son that won and not the one they wished had won.

The son who was wrongly launched has made such a mess of things that he has ruined the family franchise. Without getting too Oedipal, it's fair to say that so many mistakes George W. Bush made are the result of his need to distinguish himself from his father and show that he's smarter and tougher. His need to outdo his father and at the same time vindicate his father's failure to get re-elected makes for a complicated stew of emotions. The irony is that the senior Bush, dismissed by Junior's crowd as a country-club patrician, looks like a giant among presidents compared to his son. Junior told author Bob Woodward, for his book "Plan of Attack," that he didn't consult his father in planning the invasion of Iraq but consulted a higher authority, pointing, presumably, to the heavens.

Bush was asked during the campaign in 2000 what would happen if he lost. He said he'd go back to Texas, watch a lot of baseball and have a great life with Laura and the girls. He's an accidental president, a man who was vaulted into a job he wasn't prepared for, and who treated war like a lark. Bush's father observed between sobs in his Florida speech, "A true measure of a man is how you handle victory and how you handle defeat." He was talking about Jeb, but surely it's his first-born who triggers the tears.

No shit.

Besides spawning an accidental president, I wonder if 41 has ever mentally chastised himself for not making that trip to the drug store back in '46 that could have prevented the worst accident of all.

Readiness ...

Huh ... what?

Dec. 8, 2006 | WASHINGTON -- Whatever its ultimate fate, the Iraq Study Group report released Wednesday should have destroyed the spurious notion that flooding Iraq with more U.S. troops might win the war. As the report makes clear, a major influx of U.S. combat brigades into Iraq is somewhere between totally unrealistic and completely impossible.

In interviews with Salon, experts who served on the study group's "working groups" explained why: The military is running out of troops and equipment. The cold, hard facts about military readiness and a 1.4 million-strong active-duty force rule out a big increase in the size of the U.S. footprint in Iraq. "We don't have enough is the short answer," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University who served on the military and security working group of the bipartisan commission headed by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton. Advocating a big increase in troop levels now is just political theater, Hoffman argued. "This is the beginning of the who-lost-Iraq debate," he explained. "No one wants to be a charter member of the club." [my em]

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Didja hear that, Mr. McCain, Mr. Lieberman you bleedin' fools?

I joined the military just after the Vietnam era and it was in sad shape. Looks like we're heading for that honor again, sooner rather than later.

Hat tip to Nicole at C & L.

What I'm trying to do ...

I started this a few months ago and haven't really done anything with it because ... well ... I been crazy. But I've had this idea to get a buncha bloggers together, not just the crew here, and have them post original content, or cross-posts from their own blogs, and tie the blogs together in a loose ring identified by this button:



Details here. I really don't care the direction it takes and I'd like it if it moves away from political or veterans' issues.

If you and your blog would like to become part of AltBrainNet, just email me and I'll send you an invite and the AltBrainNet blogroll code for your blog.

As always, no rules, no censorship.

Shorter ISG

From Empire Burlesque:

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The Iraq Study Group's report simply confirms, yet again, the bedrock truth of the war: the American Establishment has no intention of leaving Iraq, ever, and no intention of having anything but a pliant, cowed, bullied puppet government in Baghdad to carry out whatever the Establishment decides is in its best interests on any given day. Iraq was invaded because large swathes of the American elite thought they could make hay of it one way or another (financially, politically, ideologically or even psychologically, for those pathetic souls who get their sense of manhood or personal validation from their identification with a big, swaggering, domineering empire). And U.S. troops will remain in Iraq, indefinitely, at some level, because the American elite think they can make hay of the situation one way or another. The war is all about -- is only about -- what the American elite feel is in their own best interest, how it aggrandizes their fortunes, flatters their prejudices, serves their needs. That's it. The rest is just bullshit and murder.

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There should be no 'American elite'.

Tip o' the Brain to Hugo Zoom.

So ...

Whaddaya think about Congressional term limits; 3 terms for senators, 5 for representatives or something of that sort. Froggy suggested it in comments on AOB's post and I think it's a pretty good idea.

Originally, elected officials were only supposed to serve a couple of terms and then get back to running their estates. The Founding Fathers never intended for someone to sit in the Senate for 36 or more years and in the House for twenty or thirty years...

Maritime art

Since Gord brought up the subject of crusing, it reminded me of a book I bought while aboard MS Noordam a couple months back. It is a compendium of the works, and the stories behind them in the words of the artist, of maritime artist Stephen Card, commissioned by Holland America Line. You can only buy it through Holland America but I figured I'd introduce you to his stuff. If you're into maritime art, you know Mr. Card already. If you're not, go visit his gallery.

MS Rijndam entering the Upper New York Bay in 1953.

No more Bush

My good friend Indian sent me this via email. Heh ... (yes, ladies, I know it's sophomoric male bullshit.) NOT work or child safe.

If it's Saturday ...

I must be whoring another chapter of my novel The Captains at The Practical Press.

On the homefront ...

Seems the extended deployment of Guard and Reserve troops is having an effect* on more people than just their immediate families:

WASHINGTON - The deployment of thousands of police officers to Iraq, Afghanistan and other military reserve posts is costing local law enforcement agencies up to $1.2 billion per year, according to a new analysis of Justice Department data.

The review, prepared for a law enforcement trade journal by Justice Department statistician Matthew Hickman, found that the number of military call-ups is outstripping the pace of new hires at a time when agencies are struggling to find new recruits, and as crime is ticking upward after several years of historically low crime rates.

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I did 2 years Active Reserve duty once my active-duty hitch was over and I know the part the Guard and Reserves play in their local communities. As you see with the cops, this hurts people who have no direct connection to the military and the war.

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The problem is particularly acute in small police agencies, which often have struggled to fill gaps in patrol coverage left by cops who have been called to military duty, according to Hickman's analysis, just published in Police Chief magazine.

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It's also tough on employers* who are obligated to keep a Reservist's job for them while on active duty. While I support the law, it does cause hardship when the Guard and Reserve are used interchangably with active duty troops.

WASHINGTON - The number of reservists and National Guard members who say they have been reassigned, lost benefits or been fired from civilian jobs after returning from duty has increased by more than 70% over the past six years.

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Retired Marine lieutenant general Dennis McCarthy, executive director of the Reserve Officers Association, a private advocacy group, acknowledged the deployments can be difficult for employers, particularly small companies. "That burden is an acceptable cost when it's compared to the value of reserve service to our country," he said.

What will happen, is Guardsmen and Reservists will be denied employment in the future because of their military commitment and obligation. I can't run a business if I know one or more of my people will be gone for up to 18 months, come home for 6, and then leave for another year and a half.

This is what you get when you put incompetents, amateurs, and morons in charge of the world's strongest military. I dare anyone to tell me our military isn't broken. Like the underreporting of the violence in Iraq, I'll bet you anything they're hiding the fact our Army and Marine Corps are worse off than any of us expect.

*Great thanks to the lovely Pam Spaulding for the links.

Prolific

I was up this morning, hoping to do the switch to the new Blogger software. Then I find we'll have to wait a little longer because they're not ready for the bigger blogs yet. By bigger, I mean the amount of content on a particular blog.

Blew my mind when I realized, over the past 2 1/2 years, we've put close to 7000 posts up. This is #6649. Seems my cohorts and I have a lot* to say. Good ... heh.


*(It may not all be intelligent, thought-out punditry but you're getting the unvarnished truth as it affects real people who have to deal with the consequences of decisions made by the folks living in the fantasyland inside the Beltway. I hope our readers will appreciate what the people assembled here have been trying to do with the little bit of power this blog offers; the opportunity to add their voices to the din of those who want to help this nation reach its potential. To be the nation we all know it can be. ~ Fixer)

ThreatCon

Watch your asses, comrades:

NEW YORK A new report from the Committee to Protect Journalists has found that the rise in Internet journalism has fueled an increase in the number of journalists imprisoned around the world. According to the group's new census, 134 journalists are now in prison worldwide, and one in three jailed journalists is now a blogger, online editor or Web-based reporter. [my em]

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Great thanks to Lindsay Beyerstein for the link.

GOP senator criticizes Iraq war

CNN

In an emotional speech on the Senate floor Thursday night, Sen Gordon Smith, a moderate Republican from Oregon who has been a supporter of the war in Iraq, said the U.S. military's "tactics have failed" and he "cannot support that anymore."

Smith said he is at, "the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way, being blown up the same bombs, day after day.

"That is absurd," he said. "It may even be criminal."

Smith said he has tried to quietly support President Bush during the course of the war -- and doesn't believe the president intentionally lied to get the U.S. into the war -- but now recognizes, "we have paid a price in blood and treasure that is beyond calculation" for a war waged due to bad intelligence.

Moved this week by the findings of the Iraq Study Group, Smith said he needed to "speak from my heart.

"I, for one, am tired of paying the price of 10 or more of our troops dying a day. So let's cut and run or cut and walk, but let us fight the way on terror more intelligently that we have because we have fought this war in a very lamentable way," he said.

One more R sees the light.

Buh bye

Today is the LAST DAY of the 109th Congress. We're doing the Dance of Joy here in the Fixer household!

As we say at the shop: Take your shit and get out!

SS Gypsy Queen

After reading all about the Fixers' recent cruise, I kinda got the bug. I surfed the shit outta the internets and finally found one I can afford:



Now I gotta save up for some mosquito repellent and a snake-bite kit and I'll be all set...

The neocons have finished what the Vietcong started

The Guardian

Vietnam traumatised the US but left its power intact; Iraq, however, will be far more serious for the superpower

What is true regionally is also the case globally. We are reminded of how even the most powerful and, indeed, the most knowledgeable can get things profoundly wrong. It is worthwhile recalling the longer-term global context of the American defeat in Vietnam. It did not signal any serious upturn in the fortunes of the Soviet Union; this was already in a state of economic stagnation and growing political paralysis that was to become terminal in the 80s, leaving the US as the sole superpower. It was this that encouraged the neoconservatives to utterly misread the historical runes at the end of the 90s. They believed that the world was ripe for a huge expansion of American power and influence.

A few years later we can see the full absurdity of this position. Far from the US being in the ascendant, deeper trends have moved in the opposite direction. The US might enjoy overwhelming military advantage, but its relative economic power, which in the long run is almost invariably decisive, is in decline. The interregnum after the cold war, far from being the prelude to a new American age, was bearing the signs of what is now very visible: the emergence of a multipolar world. By misreading global trends, the Bush administration's embrace of unilateralism not only provoked the Iraq disaster but also hastened American decline.

Them Limeys have a way with words. Please read this one.

How can we miss you if you don't go away?

Raw Story

Concern that soldiers and Pentagon civilians might appear to be celebrating outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's last day has caused the date of a Pentagon Christmas party to be changed, according to an item in today's Washington Post.

A segment of Al Kamen's "Inside the Loop" column reports that the offices supporting the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon planned to celebrate the holiday season next Friday, December 15th. But an order came down from the office of General Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, to change the date of the party.

According to Kamen, someone in Pace's office "had fretted that it might look as if all the hootin' and hollerin' that would be spilling out into the hallways was in celebration of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's departure that same day."

I think Rumsfeld deserves a nation-wide 'going away' party. The day after he leaves.

GOP Hypocrite of the Year

Guess who. From BuzzFlash:

Look, when your daddy engineers a perennial milquetoast D.C. commission to haul your butt out of the frying pan, you should already feel like you're back in nursery school.

But when the group of status quo insiders, including your father's consigliere, concludes that you've crapped in your pants, killed all the livestock and burnt the house down -- and you sit there and basically say "thanks, but I've got more important things to do," then you are beyond being a hypocrite; you're a dangerous moron.

Bush is no longer content with achieving the oil grab, he wants U.S. GIs to continue to die so that he isn't "embarrassed' by withdrawing them from the most dangerous areas and appearing to "lose" the war.

That's criminal behavior and misconduct in office to sacrifice lives for a man's ego.

But BuzzFlash can't indict or impeach Bush, we can just declare him the BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrite of 2006.

They're too kind. He may very well be the biggest hypocrite - and many other negatives as well - in the GOP since its inception. In a party full of 'em, that's quite a distinction.

Explains a lot ...

I got about 8 sets of Man Magic in my toolbox ... tha's right ... heh ...

Ladies and Gentlemen ...

The President of the United States:

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I thought we would succeed quicker than we did.

God, it's so embarrassing to travel out of the country.

They were warned ...

Brother Lurch has a piece up showing that the Chimp was briefed on the deteriorating situation in Iraq over two years ago. The briefers described the current scenario accurately and warned of the consequences if the flawed policy in Iraq was pursued.

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And so now we are come upon the dark days of 2006, (and 2007, and 2008) when the world sits on the sidelines watching, waiting for the Quarterback of the Free World to be blitzed and dumped 75 yards behind the scrimmage line as he desperately flounders back and forth trying to find someone anyone that he can lateral off to in order to make the lost ball someone else's fault. His line still struggles to hold off the opposing players, some of whom have gotten into the backfield and are pursuing him. Some of his own running backs, far downfield are waving their arms trying to signal their open position as Mr Bu$h scrambles, but h[e] doesn't see them because the game has always been about him, rather than moving the ball and scoring a touchdown.

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Unless the Chimp and Cheney are impeached or arrested, or Congress pulls the purse strings shut, our brothers and sisters will continue to die in Iraq until 2009.