Oct 20, 2008, 00:10

"The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men."-- Plato (427-347 b.c.)

"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." --Aesop (620–560 b.c.)

"When fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression." --H.L. Mencken (1880-1956), American journalist

"We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, 'Stay the course.' Stay the course? . . . I'll give you a sound bite: Throw all the bums out!" --Lee Iacocca, former CEO of Chrysler Corporation (book: Where Have All the Leaders Gone?)

Whoever is elected president in the coming November 4 American election will inherit a most miserable situation on nearly all fronts. This is because George W. Bush has been one of the worst presidents the U.S. has ever had, if not the worst. It is widely recognized that he was a below average politician who led his country on the wrong track, both domestically and internationally. Today, only a meager 9 percent of Americans dare to say that their country is moving in the right direction.

As a matter of fact, a very large majority of Americans -- both Democrats and Republicans, men and women, residents of cities and of rural areas, high school graduates and college-educated -- all say that the United States has been headed in the wrong direction under George W. Bush's stewardship. Bush's approval rating reflects the lack of confidence that Americans have in him and his administration. In fact, George W. Bush has recorded the lowest approval rating of any president in the 70-year history of the Gallup Poll. And, around the world, the United States has never had a leader who commands so little respect and confidence. Most people in the U.S. and abroad will find satisfaction in seeing his term come to an end.

This is a terrible indictment of the Bush administration that has presided over America's destinies for the last eight years. What is more disconcerting, this all came after George W. Bush awarded the presidential election in 2000, with fewer popular votes than Democratic candidate Al Gore, on a 5-4 decision of the Supreme Court. Therefore, this is an administration that had no widespread democratic mandate to do what it has done. And it has done a lot of things wrong. In fact, many people think this has been a morally bankrupt administration.

International disaster: An illegal and immoral war of aggression

At the center of this fiasco, is the fact that the Bush-Cheney administration and its neocon cohorts rushed to use the 9/11 attacks as a pretext to implement a preconceived pro-Israel and pro-oil plan in the Middle East. This led them to adopt a simplistic response to Islamist terrorism, barging into complex Middle East societies on elephant feet. But in the process, they have only succeeded in making matters worse and in encouraging more hatred against the U.S. and more terrorism.

Indeed, George W. Bush will be remembered above all as the man who launched an illegal and immoral war of aggression against another sovereign nation on false pretenses and forged documents, destroying in so doing the entire country of Iraq, and damaging perhaps irreparably the U.S. reputation in the world. As Scott McClellan, Bush's former press secretary (2003-2006), stated, Bush and his advisers in launching the Iraq War "confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candour and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then sustain public support during a time of war."

Bush's deception and lies about Iraq in order to initiate a war of aggression, an aggression that is a war crime under the Nuremberg standard established by the U.S., are well documented. Thus, historians will have no difficulty in establishing the fact that the United States, under Bush, acted as a lawless international aggressor. (...)

Excerpted from The Failed Presidency of George W. Bush.

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