The Lunacy of ‘Bush Democracy’
After six years and seven months of George Bush’s authoritarian, if not tyrannical rule, revelations of delusions and lunacy are hardly shocking. The Washington Post published a piece today expounding on George Bush’s hypocritical view and “advocacy” of democracy that just further confirms his incompetence, delusional state of mind, ignorance, and zealotry.
Upon taking office in 2001, George Bush and unitary executive Dick Cheney, began the systematic corruption and dismantling of, wherever possible, the United States Constitution and the principles of democracy that have defined our country for more than 220 years. But that wasn’t enough - something was lacking.
After thoroughly reading “My Pet Goat” and four years of on-the-job training as President of the United States, Mr. Bush apparently decided learning something about democracy may fill the void. After reelection in 2004, the Decider read a manifesto, “The Case for Democracy” by Soviet refusenik Natan Sharanskyof, and consequently had an epiphany.
Bush summonsed Sharanskyof to the Oval Office for a bit of private tutoring and nanoseconds later, a new democracy was in the making - the Bush Democracy.
Literally declaring himself a dissident under the oppressive regime of the Bureaucracy of the United States, George Bush, the Enlightened Decider knew he must propagate His Ideology around the world, but He needed help, especially since it required the most troublesome task of all for the Enlightened Decider, speeches.
Ensuring adherence to the Enlightened Decider’s Principles of Deception, the usual suspects — State Department professionals and other respected professionals — were summarily dismissed for consideration and consultation because Bush Democracy’s “sweeping rhetoric might have generated objections from the professional diplomats at the State Department.” Furthermore, Bush Democracy included “an ideological underpinning to the ‘war on terror’ beyond hunting al-Qaeda.” Bush knew this was a job for the most skilled and untainted practitioners of democracy: the Enlightened Decider’s speechwriter, Karl Rove, Dan Bartlett and a few other like-minded luminaries.
With the advent of Bush Democracy, it was just a matter of time before Mount Rushmore would be scrapped and newly adorned with the busts of the Enlightened Decider and Team Bush Democracy.
Void of relics of the past — Habeus Corpus, the Fourth Estate, institutional checks and balances, rooted in organic growth from the People, etc. –Bush Democracy was ready for her maiden voyage. Sealed in Axis of Evil rhetoric and protective packaging consisting of bunker-busting nuclear bombs, and Hellfire and Cruise missiles, Bush Democracy was carefully loaded for shipment on 50-caliber gun barrels.
Bush Democracy’s debutante ball would be held on the steps of the United States Capitol. There she would waltz with the Enlightened Decider, displaying profound arrogance and the colorful new cache of political capital pinned carefully on her gown, as He delivered His second Inaugural Speech.
The timing could not have been better. The Enlightened Decider had unequivocal proof Bush Democracy worked. The evidence went beyond the standard clinical double-blind laboratory studies. Beta testing was part of yesteryear. The recent purple thumb elections in Iraq gave undeniable proof Bush Democracy was a profound success. Purple thumbs raised high from millions of burkas had been broadcast around the world. What could be better proof? Even Dick Cheney said it was undeniable evidence.
The world watched and listened as the Enlightened Decider and Bush Democracy waltzed at the Cotillion held on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, but they did not see a Leader and Uniter waltzing with Cinderella. Instead they saw the pedestrian redneck from Texas and his hook-up who was the bastard child of some nerd commonly referred to as Turd Blossom.
George Bush’s chicken salad was rapidly turning into chicken…well, let’s just say there began to be a stench.
Bush and his team tried to demonstrate their commitment. The president met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Slovakia for a tense discussion about the Kremlin’s crackdown on dissent. And when Egypt arrested opposition leader Ayman Nour, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice canceled a trip to Cairo. Two weeks later, Egypt released Nour.
The most serious test came in May, when Uzbekistan, a U.S. ally, massacred hundreds of protesters in the town of Andijan. The Pentagon, which maintained a base in Uzbekistan, resisted making a strenuous protest, but even the restrained criticism provoked Uzbekistan enough to expel U.S. troops. It was the first tangible price paid for the focus on freedom.
But it was all ad hoc. “There was no blueprint here,” said Joshua Muravchik, an American Enterprise Institute scholar who serves on Rice’s democracy advisory panel. “No one knew how to do this. People at the State Department felt they were groping in the dark.”
Bush’s implementation of global democracy was proving to be rotten to the core. The repugnant odor of hydrogen sulfide permeated the air.
And so the Arab Spring proved short-lived both in Washington and abroad. By August came the pushback, as Russian officials warned authoritarian governments around the world that Bush wanted to foment revolutions as in Ukraine and Georgia. Nongovernmental organizations promoting civil society were harassed and even kicked out.
[...] In a conference room at State Department headquarters, Rice and national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley sat down with aides that winter to consider a pressing question: Should Palestinian parliamentary elections scheduled for January 2006 be canceled?
Israeli leaders, including Tzipi Livni, now the foreign minister, had implored Bush advisers to not let the vote proceed. Hamas, deemed a terrorist group by the United States, could easily win, they warned. Even Sharansky, the president’s apostle, urged the Americans to postpone the vote, arguing that democracy is about building institutions and civil society, not just holding elections.
But Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the Americans that his Fatah party needed the vote for credibility and it had to include his opposition. Rice and Hadley heeded his wishes. “We didn’t think that postponing the elections would have solved any problems,” said Philip D. Zelikow, who was Rice’s counselor at the time and attended the meeting. “You would have been conceding Fatah’s illegitimacy.”
It was, they thought, a test of Bush’s democracy agenda. What was more important, the principle or the outcome? The elections went forward and Hamas won big. Now Bush was stuck with an avowed enemy of Israel governing the Palestinian territories. And critics saw it as proof that the president’s democracy agenda was dangerously naïve. “They were saying, ‘We told you so,’ ” recalled Thomas Carothers, director of the democracy project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Whatever the antithesis of the Midas touch is, George Bush has it. Furthermore it bears all the properties a of pandemic disease with Dick Cheney serving as it’s virtual Typhoid Mary.
Less than two months later, Vice President Cheney went to Lithuania to deliver the toughest U.S. indictment of Putin’s leadership. But the next day, Cheney flew to oil-rich Kazakhstan and embraced its autocratic leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev, with not a word of criticism. The juxtaposition made the talk of democracy look phony and provided ammunition to the Kremlin.
Another test came the same month. Bush was regularly meeting with dissidents from around the world, and he was set to host several Chinese religious rights activists. But Clark T. Randt Jr., a Bush friend serving as ambassador to China, “threw a fit,” an official said, warning it would damage relations with Beijing. Bush aides compromised by moving the meeting from the Oval Office to the White House residence. (A spokeswoman said Randt was concerned that one particular invitee “was inappropriate.”)
By fall, the compromises grew more serious. When tanks rolled through Bangkok in a military coup overthrowing Thailand’s elected prime minister, Bush was at the United Nations delivering a speech on democracy. But Bush mustered no outrage on behalf of the ousted Thai leader and left town without seeing him, even though he was also at the United Nations. The National Security Council pushed for a stronger response, but the State Department and the office of the vice president resisted. “OVP has this little-girl crush on strongmen,” said an official on the losing side.
In the end, Bush suspended $24 million in military aid only to watch China replace it. By May, the U.S. Navy was conducting exercises with the Thai military. And yesterday, the Thai military pushed through a new constitution limiting the role of elected officials once civilian rule is restored.
Since we are all pretty well aware of the outstanding progress we are experiencing with the implementation of Bush Democracy in Iraq, I’ll refrain from adding that to the pile.
I believe it is quite safe to draw a simple conclusion. George Bush and Dick Cheney have raped democracy at home, so why should there be any expectation the results would be different beyond the borders of the greatest democracy in the history of the world?
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