The Collapse of the Administration Branch
President Bush approval rating is below 40% and sinking fast. Let’s summarize the issues.
- The Iraq war was launched on facts that were not true. Iraq had no WMD and was not involved with the terrorists. Iraq is rapidly moving to civil war. This has cost almost 2000 American lives, billions of dollar, and is a violation of the Powell Doctrine. We need to be out of there.
- Iran is moving quickly to be a nuclear power and market its nuclear technology to other countries.
- Gas prices continue to soar. The polls show that 74% think the President can do a lot to control these prices, 69% think President Bush has done little or nothing to control them.
- Hurricane Katrina was highly predictable. Bush’s political appointees had no experience in emergency preparations. Katrina ranks as the 7th deadliest natural disaster of the nation. But the last was in 1938 - the Great New England Hurricane. There was no excuse.
- Patrick Fitzgerald continues a probe into why the identity of a CIA officer was leaked to the press. Legally, this is considered treason and has a heavy fine and prison sentence. This would have been leaked from the Administration.
- Serious environmental problems exist that are being ignored by the Administration. Bush came in, to a large extent, on money from the oil industry. Administrative papers are edited to eliminate the relationship of pollution to the industry. Many scientist believe environmental damage is the cause of many things, including an increase in the number hurricanes and the fact that the hurricanes are stronger.
A large part of the problem results from the fact that President Bush lives in a bubble. He delegates responsibility downline for the visions he carries, and only hears information that supports his previous reached conclusions. For example, I believe he came into his first term with a decision to launch war in Iraq, and created the facts for it and marketed these facts - which were not true. Even now with Katrina, he says we didn’t know the levees would break. We did know, it’s just he chose to ignore this information. People who had it were afraid to give it to him.
Will Bush learn from this? I doubt it. He didn’t learn from Iraq. I see a LOT of political changes coming up in the next few years. The Emporer has no clothes.