Monday, August 21, 2006

It's a "FIASCO" Thing

Our dear president is conspicuously missing from campaign ads for congressional seats held by people of his own party. With George Bush's popularity in the sewer, those congresspeople and senators want nothing to do with him except to see him in fund-raising events populated only with Republican diehards. Hard to blame them...

I'll be one of those Republicans not at a fund raiser; instead, I'll be going to a coffee for an opposing Democrat. I expect to be campaigning hard for anyone who is not a Republican, and I'll do that until my party gets back to its roots of fiscal conservatism, non-intervention, and social and religious moderation. The best way to do that, I suppose, is to clean house of all the folks who went along with Bush and his crew of passionate but stupid sad sacks.

And that is the issue that most Americans have now figured out - that George Bush and his crew have made far too many major mistakes when they have taken action, and they also have failed to get consensus on actions that really needed to be addressed on their watch...when they had every bit of government power under their control. There is no reason whatsoever to believe that they will not continue to make these mistakes if they stay in power, especially since you can't find a diehard Republican who even admits that mistakes have been made.

In our national government, as well as in every other component of our society - business, academia, religion, and local government - it's the people in charge who set the tone, hire the people, achieve or fail to achieve consensus, and take or hide from responsibility for failures as well as successes. In this Bush presidency the tone has been combative in both domestic and foreign affairs, poorly qualified people have all too often made serious errors, there has been little interest in forming a national consensus, and accountability has been glaringly absent. In too many areas of this administration's performance, FIASCO is a word that fits. Given this record there is no choice but to force change as soon as possible.

Some say that a congress controlled at least partially by Democrats will place too much focus on examining the conduct of the current administration. I say that is just what is needed, even if our national government is embarassed in public. The world needs to see that our democracy can honestly evaluate its leaders and "hold them to account" for the decisions they made. When it comes right down to it, George Bush is just an elected employee of the people, a man who is paid to maximize our interests. He is not a king, and he fails to listen to the people at his peril. The curtains have been drawn for far too long. Let the light of day shine!

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