W's Farewell-More Great Moments in Disappointment

by Tom Yamaguchi

Breaking news-Bush now admits he has made some mistakes during his presidency. We understand, George. We've made a couple, too: 2000 and 2004. But that is another story.

It may be too early to judge if Bush is the worst President in history. He is clearly the most disappointing in my lifetime, even more disappointing than Jimmy Carter. I voted for Jimmy Carter. What was I thinking? Oh that's right; I was getting my news from Rolling Stone and taking advice from Hunter S. Thompson. What was I thinking?

Can we say anything positive about the presidency of George W. Bush? He did raise money to fight the AIDS epidemic in Africa. I am glad Bush and the Republicans are taking the AIDS epidemic seriously. Too bad they weren't so motivated when the epidemic started while Reagan was president in the 1980's. We could have saved a lot of money and lot of lives. Reagan did not say the word AIDS in public until the middle of his second term. 

Bush may be right about keeping us safe from more terrorist attacks, but we have no way of verifying that. He says he was not afraid to make the tough decisions, but what about making tough decisions on climate change? The impact of global warming is a greater threat to our safety than Al Qaida. Failure to ratify the Kyoto Treaty is on Bush's list accomplishments. "I guess I could have been popular by accepting Kyoto, which I felt was a flawed treaty," he said at his final press conference, "and proposed something different and more constructive." Instead, the Senate ended up not ratifying any treaty. Frustrated cities and states have committed themselves to achieving the goals set by Kyoto while the federal government has done nothing. Bush's EPA was more interested in fighting states from using clean air laws to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

Bush was elected in 2000 with the high hopes of being a compassionate conservative. He acknowledged that half the country had voted against him. He promised to reach across the aisle as he had done as Texas Governor. One thing I didn't hear him say during the 2000 campaign was "Oh, and if elected, I will go to war with Iraq and oust Saddam Hussein." If he did, I missed that speech. He may want us to believe the war was a reaction to 9/11. All the evidence, including the Downing Street Memo, show the Bush people were setting us up for the war as soon as they got into office. Lyndon Johnson's vision of a Great Society was derailed by the Vietnam War. To his defense, Johnson got stuck with a war he inherited from Eisenhower and Kennedy. Bush was derailed by a war he started.

All presidents disappoint us, and Obama will be no exception. So far, the disappointments have been nothing to get too worked up about. Rick Warren is a bad choice, but he will be out of the picture soon enough. The nominee for Treasury Secretary has to explain why he didn't pay his income taxes. Bush's Defense Secretary is keeping his job after being responsible for keeping our troops in Iraq and preventing detainees in Guantanamo Bay from getting due process. The nominee for Surgeon General is not a supporter of universal health care and seems to be in bed with the major drug companies. We are sure to see bigger disappointments. 

According to the St. Petersburg Times, creator of the Truth-O-Meter, Obama made 510 promises in his campaign. The Truth-O-Meter evaluated the accuracy of the candidates' campaign advertising. Now the paper will be evaluating Obama's campaign promises with the Obameter. The Obameter will track how many of those promises the new president will keep and how many he will break. The web site, http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises, notes that Obama asks us to hold him accountable and replies, "OK, we will."

When we do find ourselves getting really upset with Obama, we can try saying this: "President John McCain." That should help ease the pain a bit.

Welcome To The Inhoguration

Finally our long national nightmare is over. Here's hoping that we don't have a new one, but things don't look good.

First of all the new president has fucked up a lot. Come on, Rick Warren for christ sake! What a slap in the face to gays everywhere who campaigned for Obama to have this future Jerry Falwell give the invocation. To appease the gays a few days ago he asked an Episcopalian bishop Gene Robinson who is gay to give the invocation, but not at the inhoguration but at the Sunday kickoff event.  Obama just doesn't get it.   He says he wants to be inclusive.  Then why not invite the Ku Klux Klan  or the American Nazi Party?  Warren is an immoral fuck who shouldn't be allowed within 10 miles of this event let alone on the dias. As for being inclusive, for 8 goddamn years they didn't include us. Fuck 'em, it's our turn.  Obama wants to compromise.  Nothing good ever comes out of compromise except watered down ideas. 

Then there is the Bill Richardson gaffe.  He had to step down from being Commerce Secretary due to an investigation that is going on about possible improprieties on his part.  Then there was his Treasury Secretary to be Timothy Geithner who it seems forgot to pay some $30,000 in taxes and has an undocumented alien working for him.   All this from a guy who will oversee the IRS.   How about Julius Genachowski his choice for FCC Commisioner who was an old pal from law school who was once an FCC attorney.  Smell like cronyism doesn't it? If these actions were made by a Republican the liberals would have a "hissy fit".

Now comes the biggest oversight of all.  I believe we are in a recession if not a downright depression that is effecting everyone. Then why the fuck are we spending over $150 million dollars on the inhoguration?   Sure $45 million is in private funds, but still, what kind of example of austerity does this send?   Obama says he wants recognize these financial times so he asked that no flowers be bought for the 10...count 'em 10 inhogural balls.   Wow does that ever send a message of modest behavior and change.

If he really wanted to send a message of change and make a point that these are tough times, he could have just done the whole swearing in thing inside The White House and televised it.  His hero Franklin D. Roosevelt did that in 1942 when there was a war on and said it would be in bad taste to lavish any extravagance on the event. The speech was short and the event small.

So tonight inside people in their tux and gowns will be feting on wine an pheasant in our nation's capitol while outside Americans go hungry and wonder how they will survive this financial Apocalypse. It is sad to say that this man, who so many are putting their  faith in, is kicking off his presidency in such an elitist way.

The sad part is that he doesn't even see it.

Kicking A Man When He's Dead

It's a holiday so here is a rerun of one of my favorites

This article appeared as one of my columns for Hustler Magazine and was edited by Bruce David.  Of all the columns I have done so far, this one is my favorite and I thought I would share it with you.

A few months ago an article of mine appeared in Hustler magazine called “The Political Cage Match” in which I discussed the appalling coverage by the news networks of the campaign for the presidency. I especially picked on NBC whose coverage was so terrible that I was compelled to rip each and everyone of their sleazy news team a new asshole. But I saved my biggest salvo for Tim Russert a man who embodied everything that has been egregious about this year’s election coverage. As luck would have it old Tim died just about day and date with that issue coming out. Did I feel bad? Did I try and buy up all the known copies of that issue? No! In fact I felt no remorse about my critique. The coverage of his death that followed only made me more resolute in my feelings as it went into overkill.

Constantly for seven straight days they hammered away at his passing. Look, I’m not so hard hearted as to not understand that the passing of a close associate, especially one that came so suddenly did warrant some on the air tributes but this went on for a week.

It was as though NBC News was sitting Shiva for a gentile. Sitting Shiva for all you non-Jews out there is ritual in which the immediate family goes back to the home and (if you’re really orthodox) sit on hard benches for seven days while friends come by and bring food and drink for them. I work about a block away from their New York News Center and was almost compelled to walk over there with a box of knishes it was getting so morbid. It’s a toss up as to which is in worse taste, what I am writing now or the way they handled the whole thing.

All the tributes told us what a great guy he was. There were remembrances about what a great father he was. Proof of that was his son Luke who seemed like a well mannered and decent individual of great bearing, but who wound up spending more screen time that week than any NBC newsman. After a while it seemed like he was auditioning for his father’s job. Don’t worry if you liked him, I’m sure this won’t be the last we’ll see of him.

There were constant mentions of what a “workaholic” he was, sometimes working as much as 14 hours or more a day. My question is, when did he have enough time to be a great husband and father? Didn’t he realize the besides depriving his family he was setting himself up for the heart event that removed him from their lives completely?

By the way, I should note that a few weeks later Tony Snow, the former press secretary and host on Fox news died. In many ways he was more important than Tim, but the media played this one out after just a weekend and that was it. Maybe Fox does have some taste after all.

Sure it was sad that Tim had to go at the age of 58. It is far too young for anyone to die. But so is 18 or 21 or even 34 and those are ages that our men and women are being slaughtered at in the war in Iraq. So many soldiers died so young and all because of the likes of Tim Russert.

It was “Timid Tim” after all who was part of the press helping George Bush beat the drums for war by believing every press handout from the White House without question. As Washington bureau chief for NBC he made major editorial decisions and allowed the “Bushies” to get away with wholesale murder not by action but by inaction. He blithely allowed the run up to the war to be reported without asking questions.

The press should be our ombudsmen. We don’t have access to power and the truth but they do and we invest in them the responsibility to do what we cannot. The value of a strong and vigilant press is that they do the snooping for us and attempt to sort fact from fiction.

So whom am I supposed to feel sorry for? Tim at 58 who dropped dead while recording the opening for “Meet The Press” at the air-conditioned NBC studios in Washington DC or the soldier who died younger than he should have lying in a ditch somewhere in the blazing heat of the Middle East. It’s got to be the soldier who found himself in a hellhole because Tim didn’t do his job.

Mind you, I’m not callous. I feel sorry for Tim’s family who never again will have the fleeting glance of seeing him in a blur going out the door to work at dawn and then a quick peek when he arrived home at 10:00 at night exhausted. Most of all I feel sad for Tim Russert who left this “mortal coil” with blood on his conscience because he failed in his duty as a journalist to ferret out the truth.

Some Sunday Fun Video

Girlfriend and I go to brunch with Michael Billy and his significant other Matt.