Adding up the Damage: Why November Matters

Yesterday, I quoted a well-known cable news figure as having said, "The list of things we could attach the word "-gate" to in the Bush administration is now 50 items long." I respectfully disagree - off the top of my head, I came up with 56 separate scandals.

This list is impartial, thrown together off the top of my head, which really says something about the Bush administration. It is no particular order - that would have taken too long, since my WiFi runs out at 10, and been beside the point anyway, which is to show the cumulative total of Bush's incompetence. Additionally, these are only scandals, not positions. This list takes on the Bush administration for his arrogance, incompetence, corruption, dishonesty, and disloyalty to the Constitution, not for their wrong positions or doofus moments. Thus, you'll see no GI bill, tax cuts for the rich, or SCHIP, and no pretzel choking, German backrubs, or Bushisms. Furthermore, this is just the administration, not the larger Republican Party. We're not talking about Bob Ney, or Duke Cunningham, or Don Young, or Tom DeLay (although his list would be just as long), or the Swift Boat vets, or the NRSC attacks on Max Cleland, or, or, or, or. So here's my list, and please add to it in the comments!

A H/T to randomnonviolence for also suggesting "Hugh's List of Bush Scandals," a list 368 items along, although one that contains not just shenanigans but issues, thus far broader than my own definition of scandal.

0.  

  1. Couldn't name Musharraf during the 2000 campaign
  2. The submarine/fishing boat crash (talk about the wayback machine!)
  3. Abandoning the ABM Treaty
  4. Cheney: "Reagan proved deficits don't matter"
  5. David Safavian's arrest
  6. Resisting setting up a  9/11 Commission or Iraq Study Group
  7. At first refusing to testify before the 9/11 Commission, then setting strict conditions on how to  testify.
  8. Arrogantly refuses to admit mistakes
  9. Didn't know gas was nearing $4 a gallon
  10. Paul O'Neill's accusation that Bush is disinterested in meetings
  11. Harry Reid's accusation that Bush treats Congressional leaders like children in meetings
  12. The smearing of Richard Clarke
  13. DuIlio and Kuo on the abuse of the faith-based initiatives
  14. Rumsfeld's ignoring and sidelining the Generals
  15. The nuclear warhead that flew across the country
  16. Conditions at Walter Reed
  17. White House connections to NH Phone jamming
  18. Signing Statements challenging 1100 laws
  19. Initially said American Indian affairs were a state issue
  20. Cheney's keeping his energy meetings a secret
  21. Iran NIE
  22. Abu Ghraib
  23. Guantanamo Bay
  24. Habeas corpus
  25. Warrantless wiretapping, illegal under FISA
  26. Antics at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
  27. Suggested blacks should want Social Security privatization because they die earlier

U.S. Attorney Scandal

  1. The actual firings
  2. Gonzalez's testimony
  3. The following subpoena

Valerie Plame Leak

  1. The leak itself
  2. Not firing the leaker as promised
  3. Scooter Libby Commutation
  4. Scott McClellan: I was lied to

Hurricane Katrina

  1. Poor preparation (tried to cut ACOE funding when more was needed to improve the levees)
  2. FEMA's response
  3. Bush's Inattention - "Heckuva job, Brownie!"
  4. Rebuilding New Orleans and Mississippi (the formaldehyde and more)

Dubai ports debacle

  1. The sale itself
  2. Breaking CFIUS law

Environmental censorship

  1. Cheney censoring the CDC
  2. Censoring the EPA
  3. Censoring NASA

Iraq

  1. As Richard Clarke and David Corn have both told us, the Bushies were looking for any excuse to invade Iraq, facts aside.
  2. The Cheney mindset: "We will be greeted as liberators."
  3. No plan for the postwar
  4. Niger yellow cake
  5. Cheney telling Bush they don't need Congressional authorization to launch a war
  6. Going it alone, without the UN
  7. Not letting the weapons inspectors finish their jobs
  8. No body armor for the troops
  9. Jessica Lynch
  10. Putting all the sacrifice on our troops and their communities, not on the country at large - "go shopping!" and giving up golf my eye.

Politically expedient flip-flops

  1. Opposing nation building, then plunging into Haiti and Iraq
  2. Opposing the creation of the DHS, then supporting it
  3. Supporting a cap on carbon emissions during the campaign, opposing it once in office

That's what I came up with. So I put it to you: what did I forget?

Have fun.



Display:


So I put it to you: what did I forget? (2.00 / 1)

Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's name in #44.

Also, shouldn't some note be made of his refusal to allow Executive Branch personnel to testify to Congress?  And Dick Cheney's claim (apparently honored) that he belongs to neither the Executive or Congressional Branch?

Thanks for the reminder about the fishing boat, I'd completely forgotten that one!


by Susan from 29 on Sun Jul 13, 2008 at 10:20:40 PM EST

Re: So I put it to you: what did I forget? (none / 0)

I knew O'Neill's name looked wrong, I just forgot to go back and look it up. Thanks for that. As for refusal to testify, that comes up in numbers 30 and 7, although I could have been more clear about that.


The Wayward Episcopalian
by Transplanted Texan on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 09:07:07 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: So I put it to you: what did I forget? (2.00 / 1)

I meant Paul O'Neill's report as portrayed in Ron Suskind's The Price of Loyalty, that the first principals meeting of the NSC, held on January 30, 2001 was used to discuss the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.  I didn't notice the spelling of his name, I just thought that one of the first to alert us to the danger of Bush & Co should be included with Richard Clarke and David Corn as those who tried to warn us about the Bush Iraqi Plan.


by Susan from 29 on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 10:25:18 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: So I put it to you: what did I forget? (none / 0)

Ah, I'd completely forgotten about that! I plan on reposting the list around Labor Day, and will include that update. Thanks!


The Wayward Episcopalian
by Transplanted Texan on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 01:18:10 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: So I put it to you: what did I forget? (none / 0)

Here's another one for your update, the Pat Tillman death cover-up:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5har2x 3C1pHAtchMse1gTn6lSOyNQD91TUO100
by Susan from 29 on Tue Jul 15, 2008 at 07:09:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Adding up the Damage: Why November Matters (2.00 / 1)

It's like nightmarish walk down some f*cked up memory lane. Except it all really happened.


www.thingsyoungerthanmccain.com
by LandStander on Sun Jul 13, 2008 at 10:29:52 PM EST

Re: Adding up the Damage: Why November Matters (2.00 / 1)

no bid contracts in Iraq
Election fraud
Destruction of Iraqi national treasures
Violation of the Geneva Convention
Harriet Miers nomination
ignoring FBI warnings pre 9/11
Commuting Scooter Libby's sentence
rejecting foreign aid post-Katrina
the No Fly List
expanding presidential power and establishing immunity through signing statements
Free Speech Zones

Sexism is real.
by grassrootsorganizer on Sun Jul 13, 2008 at 11:20:00 PM EST

or for short, (none / 0)

having a Republican as the President of the United States. I honestly think when Obama is inaugurated, he should implement martial law, outlaw the Republican Party, and then restore freedom.


by Lakrosse on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 02:08:29 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Adding up the Damage: Why November Matters (none / 0)

The signing statements, Katrina recovery, and Libby's sentence are on the list, and if I recall correctly, the Dems had Free Speech Zones as well. I might also suggest Miers was more of an issue than a scandal. Good points about the rest. How could I forget about the Iraq looting or the no-bid contracts? The guy gives me system overload!


The Wayward Episcopalian
by Transplanted Texan on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 09:09:01 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Adding up the Damage: Why November Matters (2.00 / 1)

Under Iraq, don't forget the Pat Tillman coverup.


by kenfair on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 03:43:46 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Adding up the Damage: Why November Matters (2.00 / 1)

"It would be difficult to identify a President who, facing major international and domestic crises, has failed in both as clearly as President Bush," concluded one respondent. "His domestic policies," another noted, "have had the cumulative effect of shoring up a semi-permanent aristocracy of capital that dwarfs the aristocracy of land against which the founding fathers rebelled; of encouraging a mindless retreat from science and rationalism; and of crippling the nation's economic base."

"George Bush has combined mediocrity with malevolent policies and has thus seriously damaged the welfare and standing of the United States," wrote one of the historians, echoing the assessments of many of his professional colleagues. "Bush does only two things well," said one of the most distinguished historians.  "He knows how to make the very rich very much richer, and he has an amazing talent for f**king up everything else he even approaches.  His administration has been the most reckless, dangerous, irresponsible, mendacious, arrogant, self-righteous, incompetent, and deeply corrupt one in all of American history."

http://hnn.us/articles/48916.html


Sexism is real.
by grassrootsorganizer on Sun Jul 13, 2008 at 11:25:04 PM EST

Re: Adding up the Damage: Why November Matters (2.00 / 1)

Stealing the presidency in 2000

The Patriot Act

Starting us on a path to war in Iran


The Moose is on the loose. "And I scream at the top of my lungs, what's going on?"
by Hollede on Sun Jul 13, 2008 at 11:33:27 PM EST

Re: Adding up the Damage: Why November Matters (2.00 / 1)

Expanding upon your point #27, Bush's shameful assertion why blacks should welcome Social Security privatization:

His entire effort to sell privatization of Social Security and most despicable of efforts to do so by visiting the Bureau of Public Debt on April 5, 2005 with an attendant and attentive press corps.

Bush never used the phrase "worthless IOU's", to describe the Social Security trust fund, but his implication was clear:

"There is no trust fund, just IOUs that I saw firsthand, that future generations will pay," Bush said after inspecting the storage site. "Imagine - the retirement security for future generations is sitting in a filing cabinet."

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/ 20050406/news_1n6socsec.html

The four drawer filing cabinet that resides at the Bureau of Public Debt reserved for the Social Security Administration contains file after file of printed lists of every U.S. Treasury bond purchased by the SSA that it is required by law to invest and not spend.

The SSA (Social Security Admin.) invests only in the safest of all financial instruments: U.S. Treasury bonds backed by the full faith, promise and good credit of the United States government.

For the president of the United States to imply that such investments are not trustworthy, and by extension, those same financial instruments sold everyday to private and institutional investors both foreign and domestic are equally untrustworthy, was an act of treason against the good name of the country he supposedly leads and a violation of his presidential oath.  


by RickWn on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 01:50:26 AM EST

Re: Adding up the Damage: Why November Matters (2.00 / 1)

Chemical weapons have a shelf life.  The chem weapons that bush talked about durring his 2003 state of the union speech, were unaccounted for post 1994, and they were probably made prior to the gulf war. This represents a significant lie of omission on bush/whoever was providing him the intel's part.


People say that your dreams are the only thing that save ya, come on baby in our dreams we can live on misbehavior- Arcade Fire
by HIsoldier on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 03:08:32 AM EST

Re: Adding up the Damage: Why November Matters (none / 0)

Forgot to add that chem weapons shelf life are measured in months or weeks...not years.


People say that your dreams are the only thing that save ya, come on baby in our dreams we can live on misbehavior- Arcade Fire
by HIsoldier on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 03:09:56 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Adding up the Damage: Why November Matters (2.00 / 1)

Meantime, I've thought of more:

Back door draft and extension of tours of duty while minimizing time at home for rest and retraining.

Failure to deploy reinforced humvees, forcing the troops to improvise in the field.

Refusal to act in the California energy crisis, allowing Enron's Ken Lay, and others, to manipulate the energy market and charge the state outrageously high energy costs which are still crippling the state's economy.


by Susan from 29 on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 10:36:38 AM EST


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