{"id":2825,"date":"2009-01-16T19:22:29","date_gmt":"2009-01-17T00:22:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=2825"},"modified":"2009-01-16T22:37:49","modified_gmt":"2009-01-17T03:37:49","slug":"indelible-wounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2009\/01\/16\/indelible-wounds\/","title":{"rendered":"indelible wounds…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I’m trying to end my "Bush Period." I’m resentful about how much of my own time this misbegotten Administration has taken from my own life. I’ve been used to scanning the paper in the morning and watching the nightly news. But these guys are always on my mind. It shouldn’t be that way. But that aside, I was thinking what parts of this last eight year am I going to be haunted by.<\/p>\n

On the top of my list is [as it always has been] the re-election of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney in 2004. That was inexcusable and speaks poorly of the American people. There’s that old saying [that Bush couldn’t say right], "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." On a bunch of grounds, it shouldn’t have happened. They were in a rigid mindset that needed to be re-evaluated in every dimension, something they could not do. It was collective madness to let them keep doing what they were doing. That re-election was an indelible mark on our record. We can’t change the past, but I can, by God, complain about it forever [and will]. I occasionally hope that they tampered with the Ohio vote and that we find out about it. It wouldn’t change our reality, but it might help me forgive the electorate. By 2004, the men and women on the street should’ve known better.<\/p>\n

The second haunting problem for me is the degradation  of the American Media. I don’t believe that there’s anything like the "Liberal Bias" in the Media that has been claimed, but even if it’s true, we could’ve done something about that instead of adding the likes of Fox News and Talk Radio. They used their charge of Liberal Bias in the Media to justify  an alternative that was ONLY a biased media. The result has been a dumbing down of American political dialog. Americans should’ve known better. The only thing that will get me over this complaint is that the Right-Wing hate Media becomes obsolete [unlikely].<\/p>\n

The third part goes with the first. I’ve lived as if our Constitution is something like what religious people feel about the Bible, or the Torah, or Qur’an. I had no illusion that it was divinely inspired. It’s a document written by specific men with a lot of struggling. All the better, I’ve alway thought. It meant to me that mere mortals could do a good job if they put their minds to it. To see it cast aside was disillusioning to me. I didn’t really know that could happen. I don’t so much mind that we’ve fallen in the eyes of the world. We’ve had "the big head" and a dose of humility will do us good. But for our Constitution to be so fragile will haunt me.<\/p>\n

Finally, I’ll never get over the feeling that this financial crisis did not have to happen. It was caused by people who went out of their way to facilitate it. The same old saying applies ["Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."]. We did this once when our economy was young and the Industrial Revolution was in its prime. We learned our lesson, or should have, and paid for it with a ton of suffering. We even put things in place to prevent a recurrence. And the same Party that got us there last time went out of its way to remove our safeguards and let it happen again. That’s a crime, and no matter how it comes out, it just didn’t have to happen.<\/p>\n

I know we’re going to have to look back and deal with the last Administration. I’m perfectly happy for Congress and the DoJ to do that instead of the President. It’s not his job, so I disagree with the critics that want him to focus on the Bush Administration. I want him to focus on the Obama Administration. We’ve got plenty of people who can look back. I want Obama to look where he’s going. But the 2004 re-election, the disarray of the Media, the fragility of our Constitution, and the suffering from this financial crisis will be with me, I think, to the end.<\/div>\n
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10:30 PM Addendum<\/strong><\/font>: I thought of another one [that should’ve been number one]. I’ll not be getting over the fact that anyone would employ someone like Karl Rove in the political process. I include with him the Segrettis and Atwaters of the world – the people who would trivialize the entire political process with "dirty tricks." They’ve been there in Nixon’s Campaign [Segretti], in Reagan’s and Bush I’s Campaigns [Atwater], and in Bush II’s Campaigns [Rove]. There are lots of others who don’t show like they have. America’s made it over two hundred years. We’ll never make it to three hundred if this tradition isn’t brought to an end. I see my leaving this one out as a sign of how hard it is for us to take in how much this has become a part of our political life. <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m trying to end my "Bush Period." I’m resentful about how much of my own time this misbegotten Administration has taken from my own life. I’ve been used to scanning the paper in the morning and watching the nightly news. But these guys are always on my mind. It shouldn’t be that way. But that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2825\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}