[poochee]

Washingtonpost.com

End of the Bush Era

By E. J. Dionne Jr.

The Bush Era is over. The sooner politicians in both parties realize that, the better for them -- and the country.

Recent months, and especially the past two weeks, have brought home to a steadily growing majority of Americans the truth that President Bush's government doesn't work. His policies are failing, his approach to leadership is detached and self-indulgent, his way of politics has produced a divided, angry and dysfunctional public square. We dare not go on like this.

The Bush Era did not begin when he took office, or even with the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It began on Sept. 14, 2001, when Bush declared at the World Trade Center site: "I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon." Bush was, indeed, skilled in identifying enemies and rallying a nation already disposed to action. He failed to realize after Sept. 11 that it was not we who were lucky to have him as a leader, but he who was lucky to be president of a great country that understood the importance of standing together in the face of a grave foreign threat. Very nearly all of us rallied behind him.

If Bush had understood that his central task was to forge national unity, as he seemed to shortly after Sept. 11, the country would never have become so polarized. Instead, Bush put patriotism to the service of narrowly ideological policies and an extreme partisanship. He pushed for more tax cuts for his wealthiest supporters and shamelessly used relatively modest details in the bill creating a Department of Homeland Security as partisan cudgels in the 2002 elections.

He invoked our national anger over terrorism to win support for a war in Iraq. But he failed to pay heed to those who warned that the United States would need many more troops and careful planning to see the job through. The president assumed things would turn out fine, on the basis of wildly optimistic assumptions. Careful policymaking and thinking through potential flaws in your approach are not his administration's strong suits.

And so the Bush Era ended definitively on Sept. 2, the day Bush first toured the Gulf Coast States after Hurricane Katrina. There was no magic moment with a bullhorn. The utter failure of federal relief efforts had by then penetrated the country's consciousness. Yesterday's resignation of FEMA Director Michael Brown put an exclamation point on the failure.

The source of Bush's political success was his claim that he could protect Americans. Leadership, strength and security were Bush's calling cards. Over the past two weeks, they were lost in the surging waters of New Orleans.

But the first intimations of the end of the Bush Era came months ago. The president's post-election fixation on privatizing part of Social Security showed how out of touch he was. The more Bush discussed this boutique idea cooked up in conservative think tanks and Wall Street imaginations, the less the public liked it. The situation in Iraq deteriorated. The glorious economy Bush kept touting turned out not to be glorious for many Americans. The Census Bureau's annual economic report, released in the midst of the Gulf disaster, found that an additional 4.1 million Americans had slipped into poverty between 2001 and 2004.

The breaking of the Bush spell opens the way for leaders of both parties to declare their independence from the recent past. It gives forces outside the White House the opportunity to shape a more appropriate national agenda -- for competence and innovation in rebuilding the Katrina region and for new approaches to the problems created over the past 4 1/2 years.

The federal budget, already a mess before Katrina, is now a laughable document. Those who call for yet more tax cuts risk sounding like robots droning automated talking points programmed inside them long ago. Katrina has forced the issue of deep poverty back onto the national agenda after a long absence. Finding a way forward in -- and eventually out of -- Iraq will require creativity from those not implicated in the administration's mistakes. And if ever the phrase "reinventing government" had relevance, it is now that we have observed the performance of a government that allows political hacks to push aside the professionals.

And what of Bush, who has more than three years left in his term? Paradoxically, his best hope lies in recognizing that the Bush Era, as he and we have known it, really is gone. He can decide to help us in the transition to what comes next. Or he can cling stubbornly to his past and thereby doom himself to frustrating irrelevance.

[LANMaster]

While sitting in the denti9sts chait this morning, I wastched a news conference with Jeb Bush.

He looked pretty Presidential if you ask me.

I'm sure he'd beat Hilly.

[Stoner]

His children reflect his abilities

[Stoner]

LOL!.......Ha ha ha ha ha ha .............

[poochee]

Originally Posted by LANMaster

While sitting in the denti9sts chait this morning, I wastched a news conference with Jeb Bush.

He looked pretty Presidential if you ask me.

I'm sure he'd beat Hilly.

[plschwartz]

It wont be Hillary It will be Dean.
Finally the dems will have a street fighter.
Jeb has the usual Bush dirty hands.
Besides I doubt there will be a Bush coat-tail.

[bassetman]

Originally Posted by LANMaster

While sitting in the denti9sts chait this morning, I wastched a news conference with Jeb Bush.

He looked pretty Presidential if you ask me.

I'm sure he'd beat Hilly.

ROFLMAO you think G W looks presidential!

[izme]

I hope it's the Era of no Republicans ever becoming President again!

People would have to be completely out of their minds to ever vote for one again!

Just watch the fallout a few years down the road, it will be mind boggling what the Republicans did to America! And absolutely shamefull

That's for sure! Just wait and see

Although some of us see it now!

[poochee]

bump

[linskyjack]

The first indictment is handed down against a Bush operative from the White House:

September 20, 2005
Ex-White House Aide Charged in Corruption Case
By PHILIP SHENON and ANNE E. KORNBLUT

WASHINGTON, Sept. 19 - A senior White House budget official who resigned abruptly last week was arrested Monday on charges of lying to investigators and obstructing a federal inquiry involving Jack Abramoff, the Republican lobbyist who has been under scrutiny by the Justice Department for more than a year.

The arrest of the official, David H. Safavian, head of procurement policy at the Office of Management and Budget, was the first to result from the wide-ranging corruption investigation of Mr. Abramoff, once among the most powerful and best-paid lobbyists in Washington and a close friend of Representative Tom DeLay, the House majority leader.

According to court papers, Mr. Safavian, 38, is accused of lying about assistance that he gave Mr. Abramoff in his earlier work at the General Services Administration, where he was chief of staff from 2002 to 2004, and about an expensive golf trip he took with the lobbyist to Scotland in August 2002.

Mr. Abramoff, a former lobbying partner of Mr. Safavian, was indicted last month in Florida on unrelated federal fraud charges. He is not identified by name in the court papers involving Mr. Safavian's arrest. But "Lobbyist A" in an F.B.I. affidavit could only be Mr. Abramoff based on descriptive details in the documents filed in the Federal District Court here.

The Justice Department said Mr. Safavian had been specifically charged with making false statements to investigators about his efforts at the General Services Administration in 2002 to help Mr. Abramoff acquire two large pieces of government-owned property in the Washington area, including the historic Old Post Office Building on Pennsylvania Avenue.

The department said Mr. Safavian had also lied to ethics officials at the agency, which manages federal property, when he sought approval to accept free transportation from Mr. Abramoff for the golf trip to Scotland that summer. According to court documents, Mr. Safavian told the ethics office that Mr. Abramoff had no business with the agency at the time, an assertion that was repeated in a separate interview this May with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Mr. DeLay, who has asked the House ethics committee to review his ties to Mr. Abramoff, has come under criticism from Congressional Democrats and ethics watchdog groups for taking a similar golf trip to Scotland with Mr. Abramoff in 2000, including rounds of golf on the fabled course at St. Andrews.

The Justice Department made no accusation in its court papers of any tie between Mr. DeLay and Mr. Safavian nor of any involvement by Mr. DeLay in Mr. Abramoff's effort to buy government property. A spokesman for Mr. Abramoff had no comment on the arrest of Mr. Safavian. Phone calls to Mr. Safavian's home in the Virginia suburbs of Washington were not returned.

The White House said in a statement that Mr. Safavian had resigned on Friday and that "we, of course, will cooperate fully with the Justice Department in this investigation." A spokesman said the White House would have no further comment on the arrest.

Mr. Safavian had recently been working on developing contracting policies for the multibillion-dollar relief effort after Hurricane Katrina.

The Justice Department did not reveal details of Mr. Safavian's arrest, including where it occurred. The department also did not say why the criminal charges were brought directly by prosecutors, rather than by the Washington grand jury investigating Mr. Abramoff. The Justice Department often bypasses a grand jury when a criminal case is brought together hurriedly or when there is fear that a defendant may try to flee.

The F.B.I. affidavit, which was dated Friday and made public on Monday, said that Mr. Safavian had provided extensive, secret assistance to Mr. Abramoff in 2002, when the lobbyist wanted help on behalf of a client to arrange a lease on favorable terms for the Old Post Office Building, which was controlled by the General Services Administration. The affidavit said the client was one of several Indian tribes that Mr. Abramoff has represented.

The court papers said Mr. Abramoff had also sought Mr. Safavian's help in buying 40 acres at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in the Maryland suburbs of Washington to be the new home of a Jewish children's school that Mr. Abramoff had founded. That property was also under the control of the General Services Administration.

Local real estate records suggest that neither property was acquired by Mr. Abramoff or his clients, despite his repeated requests for help in e-mail messages sent to a private account maintained by Mr. Safavian.

The Justice Department affidavit said that even as Mr. Safavian was trying to help Mr. Abramoff in acquiring the government property in 2002, he was eagerly planning his summer golf trip with the lobbyist to Scotland. The F.B.I. affidavit also suggested Mr. Abramoff's motivation in inviting Mr. Safavian was clear. In an e-mail message, a lobbyist colleagues asked: "Why dave? I like him but didn't know u did as much. Business angle?"

According to the court papers, Mr. Abramoff replied with another e-mail message: "Total business angle. He is new COS of GSA."

Like Mr. Abramoff, Mr. Safavian, a former Congressional aide, has extensive ties to prominent Republicans on Capitol Hill, throughout the executive branch and among the city's lobbying firms.

He helped start Janus-Merritt Strategies, a consulting firm, with Grover G. Norquist, the head of the conservative advocacy group Americans for Tax Reform and a close political ally of the Bush administration.

Mr. Safavian worked with Mr. Abramoff in the Washington lobbying offices of Preston Gates & Ellis, a Seattle-based firm. According to lobbying records, Mr. Safavian shared at least one client with Mr. Abramoff, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, and also represented Microsoft, the Port of Seattle and the Dredging Contractors of America.

His wife, Jennifer Safavian, is chief counsel for oversight and investigations on the House Government Reform Committee, which is responsible for overseeing government procurement and is, among other things, expected to conduct the Congressional investigation into missteps after Hurricane Katrina.

Both Mr. Safavian and his wife graduated from Detroit College of Law at Michigan State University. They have a daughter.

According to his former colleagues in the Bush administration and interviews he gave, Mr. Safavian considered encouraging "competitive sourcing" or outsourcing government work to private contractors to be a primary goal in his job at the Office of Management and Budget.

He did not oversee specific contracts, but instead managed overall guidelines for government purchasing, associates said. In an interview in June with Federal Times, a newspaper that focuses on the workings of the federal government, Mr. Safavian described his work for the office and said that "the best advice I've gotten was from my grandfather and that advice is that you've got to have ethics and integrity in everything you do, especially here in D.C."

Robert Pear contributed reporting for this article.

[Fidelista]

>f
Bob Dylan: The Times They Are A-Changin'

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.

[bassetman]

Great post !

[techno_lust]

It's not the end

It's not the beggining of the end

It's the end of the beggining...............


I live in Michigan and during the last election cycle it was a given that Kerry would win by a landslide and I pretty much bought into that and believed it myself. The reason we all had it so wrong was because we were looking at the situation from a local standpoint. We believed that the rest of the nation was suffering just as bad as this area which turned out not to be true at all.


There are a good number of american citizens that are prospering under the policys of the current administration. If like myself, you are not one of them it only means you are irrelevant and have been left behind to suckle on the poison remants of a soundly defeated socialist ideal that turned out to be not so ideal

I didn't vote for him in the second election but he won and will be president for the next three years. You are dreaming when you fantasize his defeat and humiliation.
Time to move on. My advice to you, get over it.

[valley]

Originally Posted by techno_lust

There are a good number of american citizens that are prospering under the policys of the current administration. If like myself, you are not one of them it only means you are irrelevant and have been left behind to suckle on the poison remants of a soundly defeated socialist ideal that turned out to be not so ideal

This is what I dont get. Since when is it the administrations fault that people arent prospering? I always believed that man is responsible for himself. It doesnt matter where you live or who you are...where there is a will, there's a way. I've heard stories of people who have pulled themselves out of abject poverty and have prospered by sheer determination.

Its true that sometimes the means just arent there but more often than not, it is a matter of choice and what a person is willing to do/give up to achieve their goal. And i'm talking about able-bodied men and women here and not about our handicapped, orphans and elderly (who should be the ones that are taken care of better than they are).

[linskyjack]

Transcendent stupidity. The assumption that if you don't like Bush you are somehow sufferring economically is ridculous (and of coarse illogical). With only 40% of Americans supporting this imbecile, you can't make the case that the rest are hurting economically. Fact is, in his own party, 7% of those polled thinks he is doing a poor job. When you have someone like Michelle Malkin, a shrill right wing shill, writing a column this morning essentially saying that the adminsitration has hired inexperienced hacks to run major government departments, you can only wonder why anyone would make such a ludicrous post. Oh, let me guess---a fanboy.