Bush Defeats McCain…Again

by

Jim Hagedorn

(October 28, 2008)

Under normal circumstances America’s electorate would forcefully brush aside an inexperienced, liberal, elitist presidential candidate, especially one oozing with anti-American, black-activist and criminal connections.  But the stars have aligned for Senator Barack Obama, as the campaign spotlight’s most revealing rays remain refracted, focused upon the culminations of Grand Old Party liberalism and incompetence rather than the Illinois Senator’s socialist ideology and suspect personal relationships.

President George W. Bush has so botched stewardship of virtually every facet of government that voters are beyond disgusted, hell bent to continue the harsh Republican firings that began in 2006 – midterm election dismissals that led to the Democratic takeover of Congress.  This election’s dynamic is the most dire faced by Republicans since Watergate and on November 4th George W. Bush will make Senator John McCain a bookend loser.

The protracted Iraq war; disastrous commodity inflation; the brutal real estate and credit crisis; gross expansion of socialism/Federal spending/national debt; and disgusting levels of post-9/11 illegal alien immigration are the key Bush administration failures that have angered and demoralized Americans and destroyed the Republican Party.

IRAQ - A president and his party cannot prosecute a questionable, $700 billion, loss of 4,000 + servicemen war for as long as it took the Allies to secure victory in World War II and seriously believe the voters will dutifully reenlist election after election after election.

President Bush has had more than five years and full command of the globe’s most powerful and capable military to pacify a nation the geographical size of California, install a pro-West, anti-terrorist government (not necessarily a Jeffersonian democracy) and get the heck out.

Sadly, the Iraq initiative has morphed into little more than history’s largest and most expensive HUD rehabilitation project, with beleaguered U.S. taxpayers paying to remodel Iraq’s interior as part of an authentically Arab strategy to prop up the fragile government through acts of bribery.  Yet in spite of Uncle Sam’s blood and financial sacrifice, given the clientele, we can all but expect Iraq to reclaim its pre-war, cesspool condition mere nanoseconds after the Iraqi government emerges from the shadows of U.S. combat forces.

Setting aside the pro v. con arguments of positioning 175,000 ground troops in the hub of Islam and placing all bets on democracy as the end-all-and-be-all scheme to makeover carbon-dated governmental traditions, no citizen can be pleased with the overall management and to-date results of the Iraq war.

Our soldiers easily won the military portion of the Iraq equation and have performed their missions with honor and great courage.  But only the prescient of the prescient can sense exactly how or when Bush’s political strategy successfully end games.  The glorious hanging of Saddam Hussein notwithstanding, arguably and tragically the Iraq gambit’s most significant development has been the emergence of Iran as the region’s military and ideological power broker.

The mere mention of the Iraq War, no matter which candidate was right or wrong about the Surge Strategy or any other aspect of the conflict, remains a net-loser for Republicans.

INFLATION – Other than orchestrating an unpopular and prolonged war, almost nothing hurts the political ruling class as much as rampant inflation.  So, when a president oversees the doubling of food costs and tripling of oil prices, it only stands to reason that his party will be plowed under and drilled at the ballot box.

The dramatic jump in food and energy prices under George W. Bush is stinging consumers and business – wringing an extra $1 trillion out of household budgets for staple items that offer no added value.  Inflation is ripping through the economy, eating and burning up disposable income, stifling business and inflating product costs across-the-board.  This debacle is like some horrible Jimmy Carter flashback.

Even though liberal-Democrat environmental, tax and regulatory policies are much to blame for current food and energy problems, Republicans will be punished at the ballot box.  Why?  Because the Bush White House made absolutely no perceivable, serious, sustained and proactive effort to counter these destructive inflationary events before the public felt pocketbook pain.

Bush has been an abysmal failure on the energy issue.  Not one single nuclear power plant, gasoline refinery, oil shale extraction, off-shore oil exploration or meaningful alternative energy project was initiated during this administration.  And honestly, waiting until oil topped $140 per barrel and the presidential election clock struck T-Minus 100 days before withdrawing President Clinton’s environmental wacko executive order prohibiting outer-continental shelf drilling was not exactly the act of a profound visionary or Profile in Courage nominee.

Senator John McCain (who battles his own self-inflicted stupidity on off-shore and frozen tundra oil and gas exploration), VP candidate and genuine pro-energy explorer Governor Sarah Palin, as well as most Republican congressional candidates have been fighting back on the issue for months, but the sludge and Spam are going to hit the GOP’s proverbial fan on Election Day.

HOUSING INDUSTRY COLLAPSE – With consumers in a pinch to make day-to-day purchases, thank goodness millions of citizens have the ultimate safety net of home equity to fall back upon.  Oops, did another $5 trillion just disappear into thin air?

A president who campaigned for reelection in 2004 on the issue of expanding America’s “ownership society” and bragged of record home ownership - made possible via artificially low interest rates, lax mortgage practices and unbridled speculation during his presidency - cannot passively observe the bursting of the housing bubble and expect voters to figuratively relist the White House with Elephant Realty.

Let’s face it, a large share of economic activity during the Bush years was fueled by unsustainable consumer spending tied to skyrocketing housing values.  Americans used homes as ATMs, withdrawing equity to purchase cars, boats, vacation properties, fund remodeling projects and finance massive credit card debt that offered lifestyles of luxury.

It’s true that bleeding heart politicians paved the way for the housing industry’s collapse by browbeating lenders to make loans to unqualified clients and enabling government sponsored enterprises to horde risky mortgages.  But the massive foreclosures; lost jobs and reduced wages; bank and brokerage house failures; stock market correction; massive taxpayer-funded bailouts; declining consumer spending; explosion of private and public debt; suffocating credit tightening and numerous other interconnected headaches associated with America’s rapid economic crash represent an ill-timed, devastating collapsing ”house of cards” for Republican candidates.

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT EXPANSION - Added to these exponentially exploding debacles is the Bush administration’s legacy of expanding government and throwing money at problems.  Bush turned his back on Ronald Reagan’s concept of limited government and embraced more spending and Federal bureaucrat meddling at every trying moment.  For taxpayers and advocates of fiscal discipline, Bush’s compassionate conservatism turned out to be neither.

The following is a political math quiz.  How much does 41 plus 43 equal?  That’s right, minus $6,000,000,000,000!  Even though former President George H. W. Bush and his son have led the United States for roughly five percent of the Nation’s history they have rather incredibly accounted for more than sixty percent of our national debt.

The current Bush administration spent $5 trillion more than was fleeced from the taxpayers and doubled the national debt.  Bush policies dramatically expanded the scope of Federal government involvement and spending, especially by expanding the already broke Medicare program (prescription drug benefit); primary education (No Child Left Behind); foreign aid ($50 billion for African AIDS prevention and another $50 for Iraq reconstruction, as examples); natural disasters (the Katrina bungling and Bush’s reactionary “whatever it takes” comment that cost Federal taxpayers more than $100 billion); and $1.5 trillion (and counting) in socialist, anti-capitalist bailout, after bailout, after bailout.

The Bush administration’s answer to every problem and political obstacle is to throw money, placate (rather than fight) liberals and create even larger lasting burdens.  On spending and the appropriate role of government, Bush’s liberalism and incompetence have blurred the differences between the parties and all but nullified conservative arguments against budget busting appropriations and new Federal programs for the duration of the 2008 campaign.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION - If ever the U.S. government had cause to secure our Nation’s borders and make life miserable on those who employ illegal workers, such reason materialized the moment pilots flying missions for the “religion of peace” destroyed the Twin Towers and smashed into the Pentagon.

Certainly one of the more effective ways to defend America from Islamists who want to kill Americans is to prevent them from entering the United States.  Yet, incredibly, President Bush all but set up a Welcome Wagon North of the Rio Grande and granted countless, unchecked millions unfettered access to America.

President Bush has demagogued the immigration issue at every offering.  When run through a special device to filter BS, the typical Bush argument promoting illegal Hispanic migration reads as follows:

I support open borders and encourage my pals in the corrupt Mexican government to continue doing what they do best, nothing, to stem the flow of illegal trespassers, violent criminals, coyotes and drug smugglers into the United States.  You see, Americans refuse to perform certain tough jobs – they refuse to accept six dollars for performing an hour’s work that under true market conditions would pay $15 or $20.  So my buddies with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are pushing my administration to suppress wages and subsidize agriculture, meat packers and home builders by supplying cheap illegal laborers.

I’m partnering with Senators Ted Kennedy, John McCain and other misguided liberals and greedy bastards to offer this short-sighted policy even though the Hispanic laborers will not be able to afford health care and auto insurance, thus consumers and taxpayers will be burdened with these costs, not to mention those related to educating Spanish speaking immigrant children and paying private tuition to avoid public schools overwhelmed with crime and low-to-no expectations.  I welcome these tresspassers in spite of the fact that mixed in with the laborers will be gang members, drug smugglers, murderers, drunk drivers, identify thieves and aspiring terrorists who will undoubtedly terrorize, maim and kill our people.  But I am a spendthrift who wants so desperately to look good by acting as though I am a man of deep compassion…for everyone, that is, except the U.S. taxpayer.

President Bush was so intent to encourage the migration of cheap labor from Mexico that he left America’s back door wide open even after the 9/11 murders.  In other words, as Bush was sending decent young soldiers to Iraq and Afghanistan to fight and die to keep terrorists from harming the United States, he was simultaneously enabling the same brand of terrorists to waltz into California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

Bush’s idiotic, liberal and lawless immigration policies even contributed directly to the real estate industry’s overheating and multi-trillion dollar collapse.  One of the reasons the housing bubble grew so big and burst so forcefully is because millions of illegal aliens were hurridely building new homes for aggressive developers and salivating home buyers and speculators.  Had America’s labor pool been less diluted with illegal low-wage workers, new home construction would have progressed at a slower pace and perhaps millions of Americans could have avoided the pain and despair of deep debt or foreclosure.

Bush’s intentional failure to secure our borders and enforce key tenets of U.S. immigration law is a treasonous disgrace that has harmed and will harm our Country in countless ways.  Congressional Republicans should have stood up to their president and threatened full-fledged oversight hearings and impeachment proceedings to force meaningful action.  As it stands, Bush and Republican Senators like John McCain have made it all but impossible for rank-n-file Republicans to raise this powerful issue in the 2008 campaign.

NOVEMBER 4th through JANUARY 20, 2013 - In eight short years George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party.  This election’s wave of anti-Bush, anti-Republican discontent is an enormous unforced error that has been building since President Bush’s narrow 2004 reelection.  Republicans are bracing themselves for the political equivalent of a 100-year storm.  Perhaps a once in a lifetime leader like Ronald Reagan could have bucked the overwhelming odds and squeaked out victory.  Perhaps.

As if the damage President Bush has inflicted upon the Nation and the GOP isn’t enough, his parting gift is the election of the most leftist president in history who will conspire with huge Democrat House and Senate majorities to undo all that has made America great.  

This election’s silver lining is that Democrats will overplay their hands, impose liberalism at its very worst, enrage the public and enable Republicans to retool and charge back in 2010 and 2012.  Gerald Ford’s loss to Jimmy Carter in 1976 led to Ronald Reagan, the restoration of America and the end of Soviet communism.  And Bill Clinton’s 1992 beating of Bush 41 set the stage for the first Republican Speaker of the House in 44 years, a balanced budget and work for welfare legislation.

Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana is the most logical young leader to reorganize the conservative movement, rebuild the Republican Party and recapture the White House.  Governor Jindal is a bright, competent executive who defines issues in terms people understand, persuasively articulates conservative solutions and passionately defends traditional values.

### USA ###

Posted on October 28th, 2008 by Mr. Conservative
Filed under: The Masterpiece Analysis Collection