Chimpy Anniversary

September 11th changed everything.

It made, for a time, Dear Leader have a purpose rather than his usual and more common shiftlessness.

Unfortunately, his purpose was a fucked up one.

Oh sure, he did the necessary stuff, like go into Afghanistan. No matter what some Bush fallating idiots say, its not like anyone else would have NOT gone into Afghanistan.

It is quite possible, however, that someone else besides Bush (and I'm not talking just Al Gore or Democrats here, there are undoubtedly numerous Republicans too) would have managed to successfully invade and capture Bin Laden, as well as establish a better, stronger government than we have now.

Which brings us to the real disaster.

Iraq. Iraq is the legacy of giving clearly dangerous and overstretched policy ideas the benefit of the doubt because of an unrelated action. FDR didn't invade Argentina because of Pearl Harbor; Truman didn't get so mad at North Korea that he invaded South Africa; Wilson didn't launch an invasion into India to get back at the Kaiser; Lincoln rejected Seward's advice to invade Mexico (Seward was apparently the Paul Wolfowitz of Antebellum America). But because of a whack-job ideology, because of false hubris, coupled with the tacit browbeating of a media that bought everything hook-line-and-sinker (whether because they agreed or got excited about how it would help subscriptions or ratings) here we are three years after the bomb Iraq drumbeat began having accomplished little but death, destruction, and incredible Halliburton profits.

We have also seen the return in force of the shiftless, slothful President. I believe the dawn of the return to form occurred about May 1, 2003.

Obviously one of the things we often criticized Reagan for was detachment and laziness. But Reagan at least knew why he believed what he did, and operated within the parameters (albeit damn close to their edge) of the accepted policy debate of the previous two generations. Despite the bombast, Reagan's foreign policy was little more than a continuation of Carters, Fords, Nixons, Johnsons, Kennedys, Eisenhowers, and Trumans before him. There were tweaks and changes here and there, but by and large little difference. And, after 40 plus years, that policy was successful -- obviously not because of Reagan any more than his predessors.

But it took Bush II to really turn American Foreign Policy into both covert and overt imperialism. And it has failed on nearly every count. We have a chaotic Afghanistan and Iraq, the former slightly better off, the latter far, far worse off than it was under a wretched dictator. In 2004 the GOP lambasted Democrats saying "we are better off without Saddam in power" forcing them to admit it or look like pussies in their classic "CAPO" style.

Well, actually, the world is a worse place now. There I said it, and it is the plain truth.

And now the domestic side of Bush's failures after 9/11 are brought home in the negligence shown during the drowning of a great American city. All of the money spent on Homeland Security has shown that if Al Qaeda dynamited New Orleans levee system, the Bush Administration could not have have had, collectively had their collective thumbs up their asses any more than they did when Katrina did the work. Where the fuck has that money gone? It will likely cost as much to rebuild New Orleans as the Iraq invasion cost. And guess what, we don't have the money for one of those damn things.

So today when remembering 9/11 (as for example the FoxNews Network will treat like the "new Easter") remember the man who has manage to bungle the whole situation up.