Sleepycatz

Paper Moon

‘The song goes like this:

“It’’s a Barnum and Bailey world Just as phoney as it can be
But it wouldn”t be make believe If you’d only believe in me”

One can easily imagine figures from our current administration hoofing up and down the capital steps belting out this refrain. At every turn they seem to ask us to ignore questions and facts and simply to place our unwavering faith in them. The recent accounts by, former terrorism czar, Richard Clark seem underscored by those presented by, former treasury secretary, Paul O”Neil — and those accounts are seemingly backed up by the administration’’s own disparity between its words and actions. All together, this leads us to believe that this administration is at best uncoordinated and inept, and at worst mindfully deceitful. One need only look the record of this administration gain ample evidence of the latter.

When President Bush took office he presented his administration as one which would strive for bi-partisan consensus. Yet, he and his party have done more to divide our government, and the people, then any administration since the civil war. This President, for instance, saw 98% of his judicial appointments confirmed — a record in recent times; yet, he, and his party, presented their opponents as evildoers bent on holding hostage his nominees. In the end, Mr. Bush took the rare step to supersede the process and elevate two of his most controversial nominees to the court as recess appointments. This step infuriated many democrats, as well as some republicans, and drove even a greater wedge between the parties. Again during the recent vote on additions to Medicare, the president and his party took the unprecedented step of holding the roll call vote in the early hours of the morning (05:00 AM) and kept it open for over 3 hours — the normal vote is limited by rules to 20 minutes. During that time, congressman were pressured to change their votes from no to yes. According to one congressman, he was first offered a bribe — in the form of corporate campaign contributions — and then threatened if he didn”t change his vote. Throughout the debate the Bush administration assured representatives the total cost of the bill would not exceed $395B; yet, in his budget request, two months after passage, he placed the bill’’s cost at $530B. Once again, these actions alienated both democrats and republicans alike.\r\n\r\nThroughout his administration, Mr. Bush has presented himself publicly as a moderate environmentalist. This position is constantly belied by the actions of his administration. In December, for instance, without public or congressional review he authorized the rollback of mercury protections in the clean air and water acts. That same week, the EPA announced warnings to pregnant women and children to avoid consumption of too much canned tuna and other fish, as the level of mercury found in them is considered dangerous. There is no question that mercury is toxic to humans and wildlife — in fact there is little dispute as to the amount of mercury which may cause birth defects and learning disabilities; yet, this administration has seen fit to permit a greater release of it into out water and air supplies. Why? is the natural question. Critics site the campaign contributions made by power companies, who were large contributors to Mr. Bush’’s campaign. Mr. Bush says this will allow power producers to be more efficient and competitive. In either case, more probing investigation has been stalled by Mr. Bush and his party. Their response is simply “trust us”.

With the recent insights by Mr. Clark, the administration has sought to take this attitude of blind trust to a near laughable extreme. In order to rebuke the criticisms of the former terrorism czar, Mr. Bush and his administration has said on the same day that Mr. Clark was “out of the loop” and asked why he didn”t raise his concerns while on staff, as he was in every high level meeting about terrorism. At the same time they have attacked Mr. Clark as a partisan, and as a disgruntled employee. These same two accusations were hurled at Mr. O’Neil, after he criticized this administration. The irony, of course, is that both of these men were originally appointed by republican presidents, and our described, by those who know them, as extremely loyal men. Through both the O”Neil and Clark affairs the Bush administration has defended itself with the simple mantra of “our opponents are extremists, and irrational. Just trust us, and every thing will be fine”.

Within our founding principles is the idea that no one branch of government is ever to be completely trusted. This is the reason the framers crafted the divisions in the constitution the way they did. So that every branch of government would be answerable to each other, and the people. It seems that Mr. Bush feels as though he is answerable to no one, outside of perhaps his campaign contributors. For every criticism or question arising from the actions of his administration comes the refrain just believe in me.

This entry was posted by steve on Saturday, March 27th, 2004 at 9:21 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.