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Utter Incompetents
I just finished reading Tom Oliphant's book, "Utter Incompetents", a chronicle of the entire first 7 years of the Bush administration. Oliphant believes that Bush was a very good governor of Texas, but gives no information to support that belief, and he believes that Bush really wanted to do what was best for the country as president, again with no information to support the belief.
These beliefs are behind the title of the book - Oliphant's conclusion is that Bush and his cohorts were simply utterly incompetent at their jobs. The book takes all of the major events of the past 7 years and points out the gross incompetence that got us where we are today.
Dick Cheney comes in for almost as much criticism as Bush, and is acknowledged to be the real power behind Bush's presidency.
What is missing in the book is any consideration of my theory, that Bush was pushed forward for the office with malice aforethought, by the money men behind the Republican party. Cheney was there to keep Bush in line. And, the primary, defining objective of that administration was to transfer as much wealth as is humanly possible to the money men behind the party. I can understand everything done by Bush and his administration if that theory is correct.
The book is very readable - I read it cover to cover in three sittings, never once bored or distracted. Many of the horrendous acts of the administration tend to get lost to my memory, replaced by the horror of the Iraq invasion. After reading this book I have no doubt that GWBush has been and continues to be the worst president our country has ever been cursed to have. January can't get here too soon.
Comments (5)
I share belief in your theory - have from the very beginning.
Remember early in the '00 primary campaign, when Bu$h met in complete secrecy with the bigwigs in the rw movement?? That totally set off my bullshit detector and I knew we were all going to be truly fucked before he/they were through.
Then again, I also pissed off alot of people in my circle upon declaring, even as it was happening, that the events of 911 were not exactly as they appeared. Nor as was being crammed down our throat as media narrative.
July 24, 2008 5:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oliphant discusses the "energy policy" meetings that Cheney had with undisclosed participants, noting that those meetings were largely among oil company people, but he doesn't take the next step of concluding that the meetings purpose was to fatten their bank accounts. When I heard about those meetings was when I decided that private money making was a primary goal of Bush's.
I also remember too well how Bush was actually recruited to run for President, late in the election cycle, and immediately had millions and millions of dollars donated to him. Another sign that he was hand picked for a reason by people with much more money than patriotism.
July 24, 2008 7:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Vaughn,
I share your theory as well. They were quite competent in bankrupting our government, turning it inside out for the profit of the business sector and rewarding their cronies.
The GOP hasn't been interested in governing for quite a while, they merely want to profit from having the controls and to keep the democrats from power.
July 24, 2008 8:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hello,
I also agree. Very few others grasp this idea. Recall that anecdote of the Texas aides who in 1998 rushed to tell the Gov. Bush the news that he was ahead, and Bush's response was, ahead in what? And what it was, was early presidential polling of republican insiders
July 25, 2008 3:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the heads up on this book, Vaughn. I think your theory is exactly right. There can be little reason to believe that Bush would have been elected on merit. One thing though, I think this is a very competent group of people - they did exactly what they said they were going to do - strangle the government and destroy as much as possible of the "welfare" state. (And what I mean by welfare is the state regulating, legislating and providing worker protection.)
July 25, 2008 10:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
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