Right after the 9/11 attacks George Bush could do no wrong. Americans praised his actions in the days that followed the attacks that took the lives of 2,974. What happened?
A leader is only as good as his help. In Bush’s case he didn’t have the best help around. Think Progress listed the top 43 appointees that turned what could have been one of the best presidents of the United States into the worst. Here are some of those trophy case losers.
The right hand man: Dick Cheney. Before Cheney VP’s were in the dark public wise. Nice guys that were patted on the head and pretty much only on call if the Big Cheese died. Cheney changed all that. He liked the power and making his ideas known. His side gigs got feature play, we have all heard of Halliburton.
Plus this guy shot one of his best friends and got away with it.
With friends like that it’s best never to turn your back or hand over your arms.
The man of scandal Karl Rove comes in next with how to be a cruddy president. Name a scandal during the Bush terms and you can bet good ole Karl had a part of it. The deputy chief of staff helped get the federal finger in almost every agency of the federal government, leaving sticky crumbs that will take years to brush away.
With a Attorney General like Alberto Gonzales you better make sure to hide your phones. Gonzales is the ‘nice’ guy who went to former Attorney General Ashcroft’s hospital bed to get him to sign off on that fun little wiretapping program.
That lovely wiretapping program as we all know now was and is illegal.
Aren’t lawyers expected to know the law?
Speaking of John Ashcroft he’s not in the clear either. The Attorney General at the beginning of the slippery slope, Ashcroft gave the okay to use waterboarding to get detainees to shout out the ‘truth’ in the early days. He is also one of the architects of the Patriot Act. You know that little act that has taken away basic rights from the American people.
Donald Rumsfeld. Let’s see where to begin with this cabinet prize. There’s the weapons of mass destruction, that was a lie. There’s the ‘come on George, let’s play war in Iraq too!” Gee, that one went over so well. We’re still there, we’re still bringing coffins home and there’s still no real changes. Oh, yes there’s one. There’s a larger sentiment of dirty Americans worldwide.
Thanks Donald.
FEMA’s Michael Brown helped slide the Puppet down the slope in 2003. That year there was a little storm called Katrina. The former commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association showed just how little knowledge he had in coping with a crisis. Five and a half years later New Orleans is still in trouble, people are still living in toxic FEMA housing and celebs are holding funding drives for the area just like the 1980’s drives for Africa.
Paul Wolfowitz was Deputy Secretary of Defense from 2001 until 2005. He is one of the guys that pushed for Iraq to be invaded. He started that drive on September 15, 2001. He helped make the term weapons of mass destruction something that was on the tip of everyone’s tongue.
Wolfowitz eventually admitted that “for bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction,” as a justification for war, “because it was the one reason everyone [in the administration] could agree on.”
Have you heard of David Addington? He’s the leader of Bush’s legal team and Cheney’s cheif of staff. He backed good ole George on any illegal activity he could; wiretapping, waterboarding, warrantless surveillance.
Remember OJ’s dream team? He’s the opposite.
The EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson helped turn the United States over to big business when it came to environmental issues. He suppressed staff recommendations on global warming, mercury poisoning, lead paint, smog, pesticides and the like all in the name of the dollar sign.
We can’t forget the pretty girl in the mix, Condoleezza Rice. She is Bush’s national security adviser. She’s always loved that term WMD, so much so that she spouted it out to the media over and over without proof.
“we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”
Oh and the attacks on 9/11? She had been warned about them by the CIA but thought it was best to ignore those warnings.
There are more names that can be held responsible for part of Bush’s slide down. The thing is a man can’t hold others accountable for their own actions. George Bush will soon be leaving the Oval Office but his unwise choices will haunt the United States for decades.
In the end the toppling of this man lays in his own hands. He hand picked those who made horrible choices. He allowed for illegal acts to take place within his administration. He allowed the American public not to be informed of what was really going on.
George Bush can’t hide behind the men and women who sullied the name of the United States worldwide. And that is why Bush is the worst president to govern the United States of America in history.
Moments In Time 