"Bush Earned Trouble"

[That was the title under which the Raleigh News & Observer ran this my letter to the editor on November 13, 2005]

The Q question, “Why do second terms go wrong?” strikes me as fundamentally misleading. It presupposes that Bush's second term can be compared to other presidents' second terms. Not so. Bush's presidency was ill-fated from Day One.

First, his selection by the Supreme Court reeked of illegitimacy.

Second, his path to the White House was already strewn with the bodies of political opponents savaged according to the Karl Rove playbook (former Texas Gov. Ann Richards and Arizona Sen. John McCain), so that Bush was already set up, ethically, to be the victim of “what goes around comes around.”

Third, look at what has happened since Bush obtained the power of the presidency: the deception of Congress and the country into a tragic, unnecessary war in Iraq, the use of taxpayers' money to plant administration stooges as journalists, the holding up of Fox “News” (essentially a propaganda arm of the administration) as an objective source of information, the ascension of unqualified cronies to important government posts, the dismantling of federal regulations hard won over years to protect consumers, employees, and citizens generally from greed and powerful self-interest...the list goes on and on.

Bush is only getting, at last, what he has long deserved. Unfortunately, we the people are suffering from his downfall, too, but not so much as we have already suffered from the man himself, and not so much as we would suffer if he could continue to control public opinion through deception and distraction. It's all coming home to roost for Bush, Cheney and cronies. About time!