Harding Ancestors Have Cause to ReJoice!
I've just finished Rating the Presidents: A Ranking of U.S. Leaders. from the Great and Honorable to the Dishonest and Incompetent by William Ridings and Stuart McIver.
As most people know, Warren G. Harding (1921-23) has the unenviable dishonor of ranking lowest among all Presidents.
Well cheer up Harding fans! The spot at the bottom of the barrel is soon to be taken!
I've just finished Rating the Presidents: A Ranking of U.S. Leaders. from the Great and Honorable to the Dishonest and Incompetent by William Ridings and Stuart McIver.
As most people know, Warren G. Harding (1921-23) has the unenviable dishonor of ranking lowest among all Presidents.
Well cheer up Harding fans! The spot at the bottom of the barrel is soon to be taken!
Why the Republicans are going to lose big.
There is a reason George W. Bush didn't appear in person at the RNC Convention. Its the same reason McCain and Palin aren't saying his name very often. And it is the same reason McCain (a true war hero with an admirable Senate record) will lose to a junior senator half his age: George W. Bush's Presidency has been an abject failure. His failure resonates beyond political, geographical, and social lines.Bush ran in 2000 on the promise that he would unite us, not divide us. It is the sole campaign promise that he kept. He united us all right. He united us in hatred of George W. Bush. Everybody I know hates George W. Bush. I can walk into union halls and truck stops, college campuses and military bases, pawn shops and teacher's lounges, and be rest assured that my disparaging comments about George W. Bush will be met with approving nods. My mother hates Bush. My father hates Bush more than he hated Nixon (which was a lot, believe me). My apolitical brother hates Bush. My wife, sister-in-law, coworkers, students, professors and band mates hate George Bush. My 98 year-old grandmother, who was born during the Taft Administration and voted for Nader in 2000, hates Bush. I have friends in Ohio, Oregon and Colorado that hate Bush. I have uncles in Florida, Montana, and Saipan who have never voted anything but Republican who hate George Bush. He united us all right.
It is my understanding that President Bush is now reading biographies of Harry Truman, assuring himself that history will approve of the way he mishandled our country. But there are fundamental differences between Truman and George W. Bush, the most important being that Truman was right. Truman was right to drop the bomb. He was right to fight communism. He was right to green light the Berlin Airlift, and he was right to listen to George C. Marshall. Contrast this with everything George Bush did that was wrong: He ignored warnings of 9/11. He declared war on a country that didn't attack us based on doctored evidence. He let bin Laden escape with Afghan warlords by ignoring the urgent call for armed support from the CIA. He appointed Donald Rumsfeld, an incompetent fool, to oversee the war in Iraq and, when that didn't go well, he sought advice from a war criminal, Henry Kissinger. In one of the 2000 debates with Gore, George W. Bush praised Clinton's head of FEMA, James Lee Witt, for Witt's response to Hurricane Andrew. Bush liked Witt so much that he immediately replaced him as head of FEMA with a lackey who was forced to resign after numerous lawsuits were filed for mismanagement. We all know where that decision lead us: the death of our countrymen and women. That fact alone should be enough to make every American hate George Bush. But the list goes on....Walter Reed. Abu Gharib. Domestic Spying. Harriet Myers. Alberto Gonzales. No Child Left Behind. The 2000 "Election." The Bailout. Speaking of The Bailout, I was kinda hoping the Bush Administration would have one more screw-up before he leaves office, just to put the final nail in his parties' coffin. Then I got to thinking about what we could have done with this money, money most of us can't afford to give. With $850 billion we could: 1. Pay 1000 doctors $850,000 dollars a piece to provide health care to people in developing countries for one year. (They hate us right? I'm guessing this would be a big step in alleviating that hatred, thus making us safer.)
2. Pay 1,000,000 teachers (or social workers or librarians or cops or firefighters or soldiers or any of the other jobs we applaud with everything but our wallets.) $85,000 a year. This would more than double what most of the people in these positions make now.
3. Make 1,000,000 (a million!) $85,000 homes. There are about 300 million people in this country, about 1% of which are homeless. Providing 1,000,000 homes would mean that 1/3 of the homeless people in America wouldn't be homeless. (It would actually be far more than that, as a lot of these people are in family units and would live in the same house.)
George Bush's numbers are now lower than that of Richard Nixon's during the Watergate scandal. Speaking of Tricky Dick, I'd take Nixon in a New York Minute over Bush, wouldn't everyone?
Nixon was a manic, ranting, shiftless, bigoted liar who should have been in jail. So is George Bush, of course. But here's the difference: Nixon knew what he was doing. Nixon sought the Presidency for years. He had served as Vice President under Eisenhower. He was a shameless Congressman, and a politician from the core.
George Bush approached the most important job in the world like most people would approach a trip to Space Camp or a really intense game of Euchre: "Hey this will be a fun thing to do until I decide what to do with my life."
George Bush makes Nixon look honest. He makes Ford look graceful. He makes Carter look strong. He makes Reagan look smart. And he makes Clinton look moral. He made his father, a fourth-rate one term loser if there ever was one, look downright Lincolnesque.
There is a reason George W. Bush didn't appear in person at the RNC Convention. Its the same reason McCain and Palin aren't saying his name very often. And it is the same reason McCain (a true war hero with an admirable Senate record) will lose to a junior senator half his age: George W. Bush's Presidency has been an abject failure. His failure resonates beyond political, geographical, and social lines.Bush ran in 2000 on the promise that he would unite us, not divide us. It is the sole campaign promise that he kept. He united us all right. He united us in hatred of George W. Bush. Everybody I know hates George W. Bush. I can walk into union halls and truck stops, college campuses and military bases, pawn shops and teacher's lounges, and be rest assured that my disparaging comments about George W. Bush will be met with approving nods. My mother hates Bush. My father hates Bush more than he hated Nixon (which was a lot, believe me). My apolitical brother hates Bush. My wife, sister-in-law, coworkers, students, professors and band mates hate George Bush. My 98 year-old grandmother, who was born during the Taft Administration and voted for Nader in 2000, hates Bush. I have friends in Ohio, Oregon and Colorado that hate Bush. I have uncles in Florida, Montana, and Saipan who have never voted anything but Republican who hate George Bush. He united us all right.
It is my understanding that President Bush is now reading biographies of Harry Truman, assuring himself that history will approve of the way he mishandled our country. But there are fundamental differences between Truman and George W. Bush, the most important being that Truman was right. Truman was right to drop the bomb. He was right to fight communism. He was right to green light the Berlin Airlift, and he was right to listen to George C. Marshall. Contrast this with everything George Bush did that was wrong: He ignored warnings of 9/11. He declared war on a country that didn't attack us based on doctored evidence. He let bin Laden escape with Afghan warlords by ignoring the urgent call for armed support from the CIA. He appointed Donald Rumsfeld, an incompetent fool, to oversee the war in Iraq and, when that didn't go well, he sought advice from a war criminal, Henry Kissinger. In one of the 2000 debates with Gore, George W. Bush praised Clinton's head of FEMA, James Lee Witt, for Witt's response to Hurricane Andrew. Bush liked Witt so much that he immediately replaced him as head of FEMA with a lackey who was forced to resign after numerous lawsuits were filed for mismanagement. We all know where that decision lead us: the death of our countrymen and women. That fact alone should be enough to make every American hate George Bush. But the list goes on....Walter Reed. Abu Gharib. Domestic Spying. Harriet Myers. Alberto Gonzales. No Child Left Behind. The 2000 "Election." The Bailout. Speaking of The Bailout, I was kinda hoping the Bush Administration would have one more screw-up before he leaves office, just to put the final nail in his parties' coffin. Then I got to thinking about what we could have done with this money, money most of us can't afford to give. With $850 billion we could: 1. Pay 1000 doctors $850,000 dollars a piece to provide health care to people in developing countries for one year. (They hate us right? I'm guessing this would be a big step in alleviating that hatred, thus making us safer.)
2. Pay 1,000,000 teachers (or social workers or librarians or cops or firefighters or soldiers or any of the other jobs we applaud with everything but our wallets.) $85,000 a year. This would more than double what most of the people in these positions make now.
3. Make 1,000,000 (a million!) $85,000 homes. There are about 300 million people in this country, about 1% of which are homeless. Providing 1,000,000 homes would mean that 1/3 of the homeless people in America wouldn't be homeless. (It would actually be far more than that, as a lot of these people are in family units and would live in the same house.)
George Bush's numbers are now lower than that of Richard Nixon's during the Watergate scandal. Speaking of Tricky Dick, I'd take Nixon in a New York Minute over Bush, wouldn't everyone?
Nixon was a manic, ranting, shiftless, bigoted liar who should have been in jail. So is George Bush, of course. But here's the difference: Nixon knew what he was doing. Nixon sought the Presidency for years. He had served as Vice President under Eisenhower. He was a shameless Congressman, and a politician from the core.
George Bush approached the most important job in the world like most people would approach a trip to Space Camp or a really intense game of Euchre: "Hey this will be a fun thing to do until I decide what to do with my life."
George Bush makes Nixon look honest. He makes Ford look graceful. He makes Carter look strong. He makes Reagan look smart. And he makes Clinton look moral. He made his father, a fourth-rate one term loser if there ever was one, look downright Lincolnesque.
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