Where Bush goes off the rails

President Bush in my mind is a great failure as a President in some very real ways. And we’ve seen with the Harriet Miers issue, the Dubai ports issue the flaws and where the President’s political machine goes off the rails. I have commented on the Dubai ports deal as an issue of politics but I am very briefly going to state my opinion. Because when I state my opinions on why this issue and the Miers issue will be revisited again and again until 2008 rolls around I don’t want to be slandered (as a Presidential proxy, and some bloggers are now doing) as being Anti-Arab.

I think this Dubai ports deal is very good as a matter of foreign policy relative to the Middle East. It shows good support of our ally’s interests. It helps to buttress our position in the Middle East.

I do however think the White House should have used this trade deal to leverage a whole bunch of trade liberalization issues with the U.A.E government.

I do however also think as a larger message on the stressing of a liberal economic system this deal is a major foreign policy blunder. I think the U.S government should as a matter of policy “stack the deck” against companies that are DeJur or DeFacto state enterprises. We shouldn’t be put into a position to be obvious about it but we should rig the system so a state owned company can never meet the bid.

I also think the government should really keep out of deals like this as much as is possible.

I think in the political climate with issues of border and port security being so sensitive I think their needed to be at least more transparency of the process in some ways. And I think the President could have made that happen.

I feel for President Bush because this was a tough…perhaps one of the toughest kinds of decisions a President must make. And I think the President could have said some of these kinds of things I said.

A dark flame is burning in the political body politic. And I think this flame seems to be the way the President’s team (if not the President himself) respond to people on his team who disagree with his picks. When those of us who disagreed with Harriet Miers were accused of being Anti-Woman because we had real disagreements with her appointment many of us (myself included) were upset. Finding ourselves now painted as Anti-Arab shows a very disgusting new trend.

“If you disagree with us you are a bigot” Isn’t that what we used to accuse the Democrats and leftists of? Tarring and feathering everyone who disagrees with you on a matter of policy on some fundamental flaw of character…racial or sexual bigotry. Didn’t we always say that doing so was their way to shut down debate? Appeal to a moral authority to distract from the flaw of their position….It takes away from any appeal to a more reasonable argument in defense of their position.

Why are Bush proxies out their saying “You’re a racist.” Why were Bush proxies out there saying “You’re a sexist.” No official or unofficial member of the White House team should ever put on those very dirty gloves in the area of public debate. So some one in the White House thought this was a good idea… and as the old “Evil Overlord” check list told us to do a 7 year old would know calling some one a “doodie head” won’t work. But the fact no one advising the President is as sensible as a 7 year old shows a failure of political leadership that should lead to a mass firing and bloodletting at the White House that should be unprecedented in US history. Worse the President is implying these same hints which is even worse.

The second major flaw comes in what my ancestral history in Missouri makes me unable to tolerate. “Trust Us.” I am sorry but I thought we were Republicans. I thought that the political team that lead to among other things, the very policies the President used to advance into the White House were born from people who if anything are the direct opposite of trusting the government.

But in a larger issue I'd have to say 9-10-2001 I was fairly trusting that (within reason) my government would keep people from taking a plane and weaponizing it and killing thousands of Americans.

And while much of the 9-11 commission is garbage i think the one thing the got absolutely dead on was "trusting" the government didn't work.

So beyond issues of political culture, and beyond the historical realities their is a bigger issue. Bush has run out of "trust me" cards.

from Harriet Miers to the War in Iraq the President has write a lot of stuff up on the "trust" card bill... and he really hasn't put a payment into the system. For a man who is a buisness major he should understand concepts like credit and he clearly doesn't. Nor does he understand when people refuse to take his credit and gets pretty angry

well it looks like his trust card is finally going to get chopped up.

and the last leg on this stool is refusing to address the concerns of others. This is part I think of his general disdain for transperency. But in so doing, and insulting those who disagree, and asking for blind trust it creates an island of opposition that is fueled to the point it will go to the matresses

If i think of further ways this telling flaw on how the president deals with oppisition comes up I'll let you know. But i think these examples will be key in how future historians talk about how the Bush administration works