The Democat's FAILURE OF NERVE allowed the Repub. super-trifecta of politics & power, from 2002 to present...
Terrific editorial by Paul Loeb over at HuffPost... BUT!
Substitute "DEMOCRATS" for "Gerald Ford" and you get THE REAL accurate snapshot review of today's balance of power, in a very succinct nutshell. Remember: the Democrats ONLY won the majority in the House, and a squeaky "one heart-attack away from losing it" majority in the Senate; only because the Bush administration and Rethuglican Party were SO_BLATANTLY CORRUPT, INCOMPETENT, and monumentally scornful of American citizens (not to mention Iraqi war victims) in the past 5 years.
We mean, for jimmy's sake, President Bush gave decadent Roman EMPEROR NERO a run for the money in the "fiddle while Rome burns" department, Bush not only IGNORING the category 5 hurricane bearing down on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in August of 2005, but attending REPUBLICAN_PHOTO-OP_FUNDRAISERS where he
a.) literally ate cake (John McCain's birthday cake) and
b.) strummed guitar... ON CAMERA, as New Orleans residents too poor to flee their homes before the hurricane DROWNED when the _FEDERALLY BUILT and MAINTAINED dikes FAILED from constant hurricane rains!
As if THAT wasn't bad enough, Mr. Bush's pick for the nation's multibillion dollar FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY was a.... was an executive whose previous job was running Arabian horse shows, a job he was FIRED from by disgruntled horsemen!
As if that wasn't bad enough, the emergency agency was AWOL at the New Orleans Superdome emergency shelter... while national network news trucks DROVE UP to the Superdome UNIMPEDED! As if THAT wasn't bad enough, the FEMA incompetent administrators TURNED AWAY Walmart donated water trucks, as seniors and vulnerable storm survivors DIED from thirst, poor sanitation, and lack of medication in the shelter turned hellish morgue!
On all of the above, the BEST explanation for Mr. Bush's ABJECT FAILURES to LEAD a quick and thorough recovery was that he was INCOMPETENT and corrupt - more concerned with REPUBLICAN FUNDRAISING than with the welfare of American citizens and taxpayers who paid into the federal tax base that pays FEMA's salaries and operating budget.
BUT THERE IS A MORE SINISTER EXPLANATION as to how New Orleans disaster recovery could be so terribly botched: Mr. Bush and his hard-core right-wing supporters see the disaster as AN OPPORTUNITY to ETHNICALLY CLEANSE New Orleans, the city, of its Black, Democratic voting majority.
Which brings us back to Mr. Loeb's article. Here is the money quote:
<< Dealing with such fundamental threats to our democracy isn't pleasant. Sometimes the public conversations and disagreements are discomforting. Our country would be stronger, I believe, if we'd come to grips with the lessons of Nixon, Iran-Contra, Jeb Bush's Florida disenfranchisements, and the Swift Boat lies of 2004. I believe Gerald Ford was an honorable man and that he'd have rejected taking power through such dubious methods. But we're still paying for his failure to let the full ugly truths about Nixon be publicly displayed, just as we're still paying for the failure of so many to speak out with their better judgment and question this administration on Iraq, both before and after the war started. In both cases Ford could have helped--and didn't. >>
As we have said, REPLACE "Gerald Ford" with "_DEMOCRATS_" and we get to the heart of the matter >
<< Dealing with FUNDAMENTAL THREATS to our democracy ISN'T PLEASANT. Sometimes the public conversations and disagreements are discomforting. Our country would be stronger, I believe, IF WE HAD COME TO GRIPS WITH THE LESSONS OF NIXON, IRAN-CONTRA, Jeb Bush's FLORIDA DISENFRANCHISEMENTS, and the SWIFT-BOAT LIES [LIARS] of 2004. I believe _THE DEMOCRATS were_ honorable [men], and that [they] would have rejected taking power through such dubious methods. BUT WE ARE STILL PAYING for the FAILURE of _SO MANY TO SPEAK OUT_ with their better judgments and QUESTION this administration on Iraq, both before and after the war started. In both cases, FORD [DEMOCRATS} could have helped [DONE SOMETHING!] - - and didn't."
LOOK HOW PATHETIC this assessment is! The DEMOCRATS _COULD HAVE_ asked MORE QUESTIONS, and SPOKEN OUT, both before and after the Bush administration's fraudulent march to war in 2003... by they REFUSED TO DO SO in any meaningful way (like sustaining a FILIBUSTER).
The DEMOCRATS of the Senate COULD HAVE CONFRONTED the Republican VOTE THEFT of 2004 (ILLEGAL DISENFRANCHISEMENT of LEGAL voters; i.e., STEALING VOTES from American citizens!); BUT the damn Democrats REFUSED TO DO SO!
The Democrats COULD have VOCALLY, PUBLICLY, and PASSIONATELY STOOD UP for Bush administration CRITICS, from Ambassador Joe Wilson to General Eric Shinseki to Colleen Rowley to Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill (to mention only a few of dozens of outspoken critics and whistleblowers) BUT REFUSED TO DO SO, Dem. 2000 Vice Presidential nominee JOE LIEBERMAN leading the charge to EMBRACE ALL THINGS BUSH.
BECAUSE the Democratic "leadership" FOLLOWED THE PATHETIC, (not to say treacherous) LEAD of Joe Lieberman, in 2006 Paul Loeb says it was the OCTOGENARIAN President Gerald Ford who should have stood up to the Bush administration's lies and deceptions to war.
Mr. Loeb, your article is MOSTLY correct in identifying the turning points that ENABLED the Bush admin. march to war.
But IF it was _Gerald Ford's_ RESPONSIBILITY to LEAD the OPPOSITION to the war, then ENTIRE SWATHS of the Democratic House and Senate should HAND THEIR PAYCHECKS OVER to the Gerald Ford charity trusts.
Pa-thetic, then, that the larger portion of the American population has practically NO REPRESENTATION at CONFRONTING the atrocious, corrupt, incompetent, and even murderous agenda of the George Bush and Dick Cheney administration.
(Much less with all the CONVICTED Republican felons who were closely aligned with the Bush White House, MUCH LESS the charges of OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE, PERJURY to FBI investigators, and "OUTING" an entire CIA operation from within the Bush White House, the Scooter Libby trial set to start soon.)
==============================================
Gerald Ford's Failure of Nerve
by Paul Loeb
Jan. 2, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-loeb/gerald-fords-failure-of-_b_37664.html
Compared with Nixon and the Republicans who followed him, Gerald Ford looks like the embodiment of Main Street decency and prudence. Ford's judgment seems even better when we learn that he told Bob Woodward that the Iraq war was "a big mistake," concluding, "I just don't think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security." Ford's words should give strength to all of us who've questioned the war and were attacked as unpatriotic in the process.
They reflect well on his common-sense willingness to acknowledge discomforting truths. But because he'd told Woodward to keep the interview private until after his death, they don't represent courage, but in fact a failure of nerve.
Think of the impact had Ford spoken out, on the record, to question the war in July 2004, when he conducted the interview with Woodward. Or acknowledged that he was "dumbfounded" when Bush initiated his domestic surveillance program. Had Ford publicly questioned the war, it would have opened up room for others to dissent, across political lines, at a time when the administration and its media allies were calling dissenters "allies of terrorism" for speaking up. It would have made possible a real discussion about the cost of our actions and the options available, when media gatekeepers were largely still insisting that the war was justified and saying it was being won. Had Ford voiced his reservations aloud, it might even have shifted the 2004 elections, at least in some of the Senate races that Democrats lost by the smallest of margins after being baited for not falling in line. Ford might well have taken some political heat for raising his reservations, but as a Republican ex-president he'd have been hard to attack, and any challenges would have let him elaborate further on his principles and conclusions.
Instead Ford responded with silence, echoing those whom Hannah Arendt, in her book Eichman in Jerusalem, called "inner immigrants," good Germans who claimed to have always abhorred Nazi actions but publicly said nothing. I'm not equating Bush's regime and the Third Reich, but in a time of profound crisis people have a responsibility to speak out. If you have the podium of a former Republican president but bury your deepest apprehensions about the current Republican administration, you're doing America a disservice. That's also true for the rest of us, whatever our visibility. The more we know things are wrong and stay silent, the more we allow destructive actions to prevail.
I suspect Ford stayed silent because he didn't want conflict. From all accounts he was a decent man who believed in compromise politics over slash and burn. So why create a firestorm if he didn't have to? The same avoidance of controversy may have fed Ford's decision to pardon Richard Nixon, as Ford talked of wanting to avoid "polarization," "ugly passions," and "years of bitter controversy and divisive national debate." Yet Nixon gained and regained office through spearheading an approach of "positive polarization" based on demonizing those who disagreed with him--an approach developed still further by key Republican strategists like Lee Atwater and Karl Rove. Ford's pardon allowed America to evade seriously grappling with the destructive implications of this approach. It removed a chance to unequivocally reject the premise that, as Nixon said in May 1977, "When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal." The pardon created precedent and encouragement for further abuses, like Bush Senior pardoning his own defense secretary, Caspar Weinberger, 12 days before a scheduled perjury trial in which Weinberger was likely to implicate Bush in Iran-Contra. Or the illegal surveillance of ordinary citizens undertaken by both the Reagan administration and the current Bush regime. By pardoning Nixon, Ford removed the chance for our nation to learn from the most profoundly destructive actions of the Nixon administration, and avoid even skating close to their edge in the future.
Dealing with such fundamental threats to our democracy isn't pleasant. Sometimes the public conversations and disagreements are discomforting. Our country would be stronger, I believe, if we'd come to grips with the lessons of Nixon, Iran-Contra, Jeb Bush's Florida disenfranchisements, and the Swift Boat lies of 2004. I believe Gerald Ford was an honorable man and that he'd have rejected taking power through such dubious methods. But we're still paying for his failure to let the full ugly truths about Nixon be publicly displayed, just as we're still paying for the failure of so many to speak out with their better judgment and question this administration on Iraq, both before and after the war started. In both cases Ford could have helped--and didn't.
Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org To receive his monthly articles email sympa@lists.onenw.org with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles
Substitute "DEMOCRATS" for "Gerald Ford" and you get THE REAL accurate snapshot review of today's balance of power, in a very succinct nutshell. Remember: the Democrats ONLY won the majority in the House, and a squeaky "one heart-attack away from losing it" majority in the Senate; only because the Bush administration and Rethuglican Party were SO_BLATANTLY CORRUPT, INCOMPETENT, and monumentally scornful of American citizens (not to mention Iraqi war victims) in the past 5 years.
We mean, for jimmy's sake, President Bush gave decadent Roman EMPEROR NERO a run for the money in the "fiddle while Rome burns" department, Bush not only IGNORING the category 5 hurricane bearing down on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in August of 2005, but attending REPUBLICAN_PHOTO-OP_FUNDRAISERS where he
a.) literally ate cake (John McCain's birthday cake) and
b.) strummed guitar... ON CAMERA, as New Orleans residents too poor to flee their homes before the hurricane DROWNED when the _FEDERALLY BUILT and MAINTAINED dikes FAILED from constant hurricane rains!
As if THAT wasn't bad enough, Mr. Bush's pick for the nation's multibillion dollar FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY was a.... was an executive whose previous job was running Arabian horse shows, a job he was FIRED from by disgruntled horsemen!
As if that wasn't bad enough, the emergency agency was AWOL at the New Orleans Superdome emergency shelter... while national network news trucks DROVE UP to the Superdome UNIMPEDED! As if THAT wasn't bad enough, the FEMA incompetent administrators TURNED AWAY Walmart donated water trucks, as seniors and vulnerable storm survivors DIED from thirst, poor sanitation, and lack of medication in the shelter turned hellish morgue!
On all of the above, the BEST explanation for Mr. Bush's ABJECT FAILURES to LEAD a quick and thorough recovery was that he was INCOMPETENT and corrupt - more concerned with REPUBLICAN FUNDRAISING than with the welfare of American citizens and taxpayers who paid into the federal tax base that pays FEMA's salaries and operating budget.
BUT THERE IS A MORE SINISTER EXPLANATION as to how New Orleans disaster recovery could be so terribly botched: Mr. Bush and his hard-core right-wing supporters see the disaster as AN OPPORTUNITY to ETHNICALLY CLEANSE New Orleans, the city, of its Black, Democratic voting majority.
Which brings us back to Mr. Loeb's article. Here is the money quote:
<< Dealing with such fundamental threats to our democracy isn't pleasant. Sometimes the public conversations and disagreements are discomforting. Our country would be stronger, I believe, if we'd come to grips with the lessons of Nixon, Iran-Contra, Jeb Bush's Florida disenfranchisements, and the Swift Boat lies of 2004. I believe Gerald Ford was an honorable man and that he'd have rejected taking power through such dubious methods. But we're still paying for his failure to let the full ugly truths about Nixon be publicly displayed, just as we're still paying for the failure of so many to speak out with their better judgment and question this administration on Iraq, both before and after the war started. In both cases Ford could have helped--and didn't. >>
As we have said, REPLACE "Gerald Ford" with "_DEMOCRATS_" and we get to the heart of the matter >
<< Dealing with FUNDAMENTAL THREATS to our democracy ISN'T PLEASANT. Sometimes the public conversations and disagreements are discomforting. Our country would be stronger, I believe, IF WE HAD COME TO GRIPS WITH THE LESSONS OF NIXON, IRAN-CONTRA, Jeb Bush's FLORIDA DISENFRANCHISEMENTS, and the SWIFT-BOAT LIES [LIARS] of 2004. I believe _THE DEMOCRATS were_ honorable [men], and that [they] would have rejected taking power through such dubious methods. BUT WE ARE STILL PAYING for the FAILURE of _SO MANY TO SPEAK OUT_ with their better judgments and QUESTION this administration on Iraq, both before and after the war started. In both cases, FORD [DEMOCRATS} could have helped [DONE SOMETHING!] - - and didn't."
LOOK HOW PATHETIC this assessment is! The DEMOCRATS _COULD HAVE_ asked MORE QUESTIONS, and SPOKEN OUT, both before and after the Bush administration's fraudulent march to war in 2003... by they REFUSED TO DO SO in any meaningful way (like sustaining a FILIBUSTER).
The DEMOCRATS of the Senate COULD HAVE CONFRONTED the Republican VOTE THEFT of 2004 (ILLEGAL DISENFRANCHISEMENT of LEGAL voters; i.e., STEALING VOTES from American citizens!); BUT the damn Democrats REFUSED TO DO SO!
The Democrats COULD have VOCALLY, PUBLICLY, and PASSIONATELY STOOD UP for Bush administration CRITICS, from Ambassador Joe Wilson to General Eric Shinseki to Colleen Rowley to Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill (to mention only a few of dozens of outspoken critics and whistleblowers) BUT REFUSED TO DO SO, Dem. 2000 Vice Presidential nominee JOE LIEBERMAN leading the charge to EMBRACE ALL THINGS BUSH.
BECAUSE the Democratic "leadership" FOLLOWED THE PATHETIC, (not to say treacherous) LEAD of Joe Lieberman, in 2006 Paul Loeb says it was the OCTOGENARIAN President Gerald Ford who should have stood up to the Bush administration's lies and deceptions to war.
Mr. Loeb, your article is MOSTLY correct in identifying the turning points that ENABLED the Bush admin. march to war.
But IF it was _Gerald Ford's_ RESPONSIBILITY to LEAD the OPPOSITION to the war, then ENTIRE SWATHS of the Democratic House and Senate should HAND THEIR PAYCHECKS OVER to the Gerald Ford charity trusts.
Pa-thetic, then, that the larger portion of the American population has practically NO REPRESENTATION at CONFRONTING the atrocious, corrupt, incompetent, and even murderous agenda of the George Bush and Dick Cheney administration.
(Much less with all the CONVICTED Republican felons who were closely aligned with the Bush White House, MUCH LESS the charges of OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE, PERJURY to FBI investigators, and "OUTING" an entire CIA operation from within the Bush White House, the Scooter Libby trial set to start soon.)
==============================================
Gerald Ford's Failure of Nerve
by Paul Loeb
Jan. 2, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-loeb/gerald-fords-failure-of-_b_37664.html
Compared with Nixon and the Republicans who followed him, Gerald Ford looks like the embodiment of Main Street decency and prudence. Ford's judgment seems even better when we learn that he told Bob Woodward that the Iraq war was "a big mistake," concluding, "I just don't think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security." Ford's words should give strength to all of us who've questioned the war and were attacked as unpatriotic in the process.
They reflect well on his common-sense willingness to acknowledge discomforting truths. But because he'd told Woodward to keep the interview private until after his death, they don't represent courage, but in fact a failure of nerve.
Think of the impact had Ford spoken out, on the record, to question the war in July 2004, when he conducted the interview with Woodward. Or acknowledged that he was "dumbfounded" when Bush initiated his domestic surveillance program. Had Ford publicly questioned the war, it would have opened up room for others to dissent, across political lines, at a time when the administration and its media allies were calling dissenters "allies of terrorism" for speaking up. It would have made possible a real discussion about the cost of our actions and the options available, when media gatekeepers were largely still insisting that the war was justified and saying it was being won. Had Ford voiced his reservations aloud, it might even have shifted the 2004 elections, at least in some of the Senate races that Democrats lost by the smallest of margins after being baited for not falling in line. Ford might well have taken some political heat for raising his reservations, but as a Republican ex-president he'd have been hard to attack, and any challenges would have let him elaborate further on his principles and conclusions.
Instead Ford responded with silence, echoing those whom Hannah Arendt, in her book Eichman in Jerusalem, called "inner immigrants," good Germans who claimed to have always abhorred Nazi actions but publicly said nothing. I'm not equating Bush's regime and the Third Reich, but in a time of profound crisis people have a responsibility to speak out. If you have the podium of a former Republican president but bury your deepest apprehensions about the current Republican administration, you're doing America a disservice. That's also true for the rest of us, whatever our visibility. The more we know things are wrong and stay silent, the more we allow destructive actions to prevail.
I suspect Ford stayed silent because he didn't want conflict. From all accounts he was a decent man who believed in compromise politics over slash and burn. So why create a firestorm if he didn't have to? The same avoidance of controversy may have fed Ford's decision to pardon Richard Nixon, as Ford talked of wanting to avoid "polarization," "ugly passions," and "years of bitter controversy and divisive national debate." Yet Nixon gained and regained office through spearheading an approach of "positive polarization" based on demonizing those who disagreed with him--an approach developed still further by key Republican strategists like Lee Atwater and Karl Rove. Ford's pardon allowed America to evade seriously grappling with the destructive implications of this approach. It removed a chance to unequivocally reject the premise that, as Nixon said in May 1977, "When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal." The pardon created precedent and encouragement for further abuses, like Bush Senior pardoning his own defense secretary, Caspar Weinberger, 12 days before a scheduled perjury trial in which Weinberger was likely to implicate Bush in Iran-Contra. Or the illegal surveillance of ordinary citizens undertaken by both the Reagan administration and the current Bush regime. By pardoning Nixon, Ford removed the chance for our nation to learn from the most profoundly destructive actions of the Nixon administration, and avoid even skating close to their edge in the future.
Dealing with such fundamental threats to our democracy isn't pleasant. Sometimes the public conversations and disagreements are discomforting. Our country would be stronger, I believe, if we'd come to grips with the lessons of Nixon, Iran-Contra, Jeb Bush's Florida disenfranchisements, and the Swift Boat lies of 2004. I believe Gerald Ford was an honorable man and that he'd have rejected taking power through such dubious methods. But we're still paying for his failure to let the full ugly truths about Nixon be publicly displayed, just as we're still paying for the failure of so many to speak out with their better judgment and question this administration on Iraq, both before and after the war started. In both cases Ford could have helped--and didn't.
Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org To receive his monthly articles email sympa@lists.onenw.org with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles
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