Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

With the cost being so high to fill up the gas tank, residents of major cities are now using public transportation.  With overcrowded trains and buses, it is often standing room only

The airline industry is losing billions of dollars as airlines are laying off thousands of employees with fares jumping 25 percent.  

While all this hardship was imposed on U.S. citizens, where was George Bush?

Bush revved up Air Force One and flew off to Europe for a whirlwind farewell tour to the major city capitals.  Bush's speeding motorcade, with the usual contingent of bodyguards and diplomatic spokespersons, didn't have to worry about the cost of gas - not when U.S. taxpayers were paying for the gas.

Big car manufacturers like General Motors and Ford never considered gas conservation when they built too many gas guzzling SUV's and trucks.  They see them standing unsold on lots now as gas prices cripple their sales.

It is glaringly apparent that McCain has enough problems with his faltering campaign without dredging up George Bush.  So for McCain, it was no doubt a plus that Bush went whizzing about Europe instead of tagging along on his campaign trail.

As for foreign affairs, Bush has also been an unmitigated disaster.  In his famous State of the Union Message he declared that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, threatening the citizens of the U.S.A.  He added that the U.S. had proof that Saddam was developing nuclear weapons.  

The congressional robots jumped to their feet, cheering George Bush on to the Iraq War.  The Congress had been lied to along with the rest of us.  Meanwhile the rest of the world watched!  

Was it oil greed or a real threat?  It didn't take long to find out that it was all a hoax.  No weapons of mass destruction were found.  No nuclear development was discovered.  But did these revelations invest Bush or Congress with an urge to apologize for such a hideous mistake?  

No way!

Bush now reinvented himself, suddenly transforming himself from the "shock and awe" Iraq War cheerleader to the Middle East deliverer.  He would bring freedom and democracy to Iraq, which would miraculously transform the entire Middle East into democratic nations.

With the death and destruction that followed, the entire world would soon realize what a monumental failure the Iraq War had become.  With 600,000 to a million Iraqis dead, 2 ½ million Iraqis fleeing to Jordan, Syria and Iran, over 4,600 U.S. service personnel coming back to the U.S. in coffins and over 55,000 returning to the U.S. wounded, how could Bush go on?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared that Bush was personally a nice man or words to that effect.  She declared that impeachment as "off the table" while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid ridiculed the idea, stating that we had an upcoming election in November 2008 and that concentration should be registered there.

A.B. (after Bush), and finally reality set in.  

The Taliban, which Ronald Reagan's policies helped bring to power, heralding one of the most extreme versions of Islam, is becoming far more difficult than many imagined to remove from Afghanistan.  

Bush wants to throw the Taliban out of power, but in Reagan's rush to throw the Russians out of Afghanistan, the U.S. supplied extremists with the latest high tech weapons, including Stinger Missiles with which to shoot down Russian planes.  

Now Taliban extremists are in possession of weapons the U.S. supplied and are using them to kill U.S. soldiers in quite a display of strength.  

In the meantime, current Iraq polls have revealed that 70 percent of Iraqis have declared that they want the U.S. to cease its occupation of Iraq and leave, but the U.S.A. refuses to respond to this demand.

The U.S. wants Iraqis to sign long term leases on 63 out of Iraq's 80 oil wells.  Many nations now recognize that oil was the real reason for the rush to war in Iraq.  

Since Bush has been the White House resident, both India and Egypt have obtained nuclear power.  

Could it be that Iran, recognizing that for years the U.S.A. supplied Saddam with weapons with which to kill Iranians, in the Iran-Iraq War, watching the U.S. rain down destruction on Iraq without any legitimate cause, its leadership believes that they must have nuclear power for self defense?

Before Bush there was a budget surplus left by Bill Clinton and the Democrats.  

After Bush the debt of the U.S.A. is almost $10 trillion, the greatest of any nation now or the entire history of the planet.  This is a debt greater than all the other debts of the U.S.A. since the founding of the nation.

The bond buying of China and the Saudis subsidizes the U.S.A., which before Bush a powerful economic superpower.

Now the U.S.A. is rapidly sinking in a quicksand of debt with wars raging in Afghanistan and Iraq.