the incredible shrinking president . . .

(10 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

don’t get me wrong. i’m happiest when he’s not around. but i gotta ask: just where the fuck has George W. Bush been?  As the United States of America, under his watch, teeters on the brink of a depression greater than the Great Depression, Bush reveals himself not only as incredibly unqualified to be president, but as a coward.

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This New York Times piece casts Bush as a bit player in the unfolding financial markets crash. The headline’s use of the word “emerges” captures a man desperate to stay out of sight, except when trying to maintain the façade of business as usual.


Bush (finally) Emerges After Days of Financial Crisis

It was brief, two minutes. His brow was furrowed, and his words were careful: “The American people can be sure we will continue to act to strengthen and stabilize our financial markets and improve investor confidence.” Then, having imparted no specifics, he once again slipped out of sight.

In the increasingly surreal world of the White House, the appearance was a sign that all pretense of normalcy is gone. All week long, with Wall Street engulfed by what analysts are calling the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, President Bush had mostly stayed out of sight, except when trying to maintain the façade of business as usual.

New York Times, 18 September 2008

In this next piece, according to White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, the Bush black out over Wall Street’s upheaval is (are you ready for this?) believe it or not, when policy makers actually need to, like, work on making some policy.”

Bush Absent on Financial Crisis as Paulson Leads

As Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke confronted the collapse of Lehman Brothers Inc., the sale of Merrill Lynch & Co., the biggest stock market drop in seven years, and a government takeover of American International Group Inc., the president has been conspicuous by his absence.

“It’s George W. Who?” said Fred Greenstein, a presidential historian at Princeton University in New Jersey.

“The country is facing an economic 9/11,” said Leon Panetta, former chief of staff for President Bill Clinton… “You can’t just leave it to the secretary of the Treasury.”

Well, to be fair, Bush did address the crisis first thing on Monday. All in a economical 160 words . . .

Bush on 15 September 2008; “Good morning. I’m pleased to be here with my friend, the President of Ghana, John Kufuor of Ghana. We just had a very good discussion and before I summarize it I do want to say a word about the U.S. economy.

I know Americans are concerned about the adjustments that are taking place in our financial markets. At the White House and throughout my administration, we’re focused on them — and we’re working to reduce disruptions and minimize the impact of these financial market developments on the broader economy.

I’ve been in close touch with Secretary Paulson throughout this weekend and this morning. I appreciate the work the Treasury Department, and the Federal Reserve, and the Securities and Exchange Commission, and major financial institutions here and around the world are doing to promote stability in the financial systems.

As policymakers, we’re focused on the health of the financial system as a whole. In the short run, adjustments in the financial markets can be painful — both for the people concerned about their investments, and for the employees of the affected firms. In the long run, I’m confident that our capital markets are flexible and resilient, and can deal with these adjustments.

I admire President Kufuor, and the reason I do is because he has shown the world that democracy can flourish… blah  blah blah blah blah

Heh. And we’re not the only ones noticing the absence of America’s president. This, from “JapanToday”:

Bush scraps comments on financial crisis

“…Bush was scheduled to make comments to a pool of reporters after huddling with a key financial working group led by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson…??Yet after the session began, the White House told the press to never mind. Spokesman Tony Fratto said only: “We decided it would be best to limit public comment about markets today.” He declined to offer any explanation about why limiting Bush comment would be best, or why on this particular day.??”

“??Bush’s sudden no-comment came on a day when the turmoil on Wall Street came to seize the presidential campaign.”

Now this I find ironic. A spot-on assessment (from July) of Bush’s inability to understand the depth of the coming crisis from (wait, here it comes) THE WORLD SOCIALIST WEB SITE. Yeah. As the glib, the informed, the hacks call this “socialism” and then there’s Paul Krugman calling the Treasury Secretary Comrade Paulson. Anyway. . .

Bush on the financial crisis: “Wall Street got drunk”

“The incident … reveals Bush’s extremely limited understanding of the financial crisis shaking the US and his own administration. He glibly presents it as a temporary aberration, attributable to an intoxication with “fancy financial instruments.” This not only vastly underestimates the depth of the crisis, it ignores the deep-rooted tendencies in US capitalism that have led the financial industry to adopt exotic and outright fraudulent ways of packaging its products, and the role of successive administrations, including his own, in facilitating such reckless forms of speculation.

This last installment isn’t Bush. It is our fearless, fleckless Senators and Congressmen/women telling us how

this is about saving our economy

While Bush is under wraps now, one has to ask where these dolts were hiding when all the pillaging of assets was happening. Because somebody, somewhere in our government was AWOL or missing in action. Perhaps we’ll find another Lynndie England to blame for this mess. Maybe it will be the American public’s fault for not throwing in Social Security. Oh wait. Maybe the bail out money is being borrowed from that fund. Does anybody really know what is going on?

I find it beyond belief that everything that is happening has been written and discussed for over a year now in the left blogosphere, at sites like Docudharma and Daily Kos. There is no hindsight here. We knew it was coming. I really want to know. What the fuck have these politicians been thinking? And doing?

Today, Bush is asking for Congress to pass an emergency “rescue package” to cover the financial markets boatload of “distressed assets.” Yeah. Just to add insult to injury, they try to jerk us around with another stupid fucking term… distressed assets my ass. It is bad debt… there are no assets. It is my opinion they are stealing more of our tax dollars to cover what is NOT there and trying to fool us by giving “nothing” a name like “distressed asset.”

fuck! we aren’t the one who should be paying for this mess.

52 comments

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    • pfiore8 on September 19, 2008 at 22:40
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    x posted at daily kos

    • Edger on September 19, 2008 at 22:47

    to be able to hold this off till after they got McCain installed, since they have no one they can bomb or invade over it.

    (Yes, it’s a flippant comment, but only somewhat…)

  1. Yeah. Just to add insult to injury, they try to jerk us around with another stupid fucking term… distressed assets my ass. It is bad debt… there are no assets.

    Nail, you’ve just been hammered by my friend p…

    🙂

    Running off to work in a couple minutes…wish I could comment further.  Maybe I will tonight!

  2. …though you are hopefully asleep now and won’t see this for another six to eight hours soonest…you were right yesterday, and I was wrong.

    The US just committed a trillion dollars to a financial bailout, at the cost of every conceivable social service and social good to which tax dollars might be applied.  I cannot see how this is different from the austerity measures we imposed on latin america; financial risk, bank rescues, and credit rating are everything (even in the face of unpayable debt) and the poor have to suck it up — at any price — to make that goal.  All that remains is collecting the money, over several generations.  

    I guess…America did set it’s national priorities, and spent the money.  On McMansions, the spectacle of wealth, and the illusion of getting one over on the other guy.

    Bah.

  3. of the Illuminati for he has served the purpose well.  They (all politicians) serve only the worst parasitic interests of parasitic corporatism or rather the worst interests of GLOBAL parasitic capitalism.  But.

    Even as Bush “sinks” into oblivion marketing experts are dutifully using the discontent with eight years of asshole as backlash and reactionary sentiment to justify four years of Obama to push forth the most destructive memes of the Kumbaya “left”.  Both of these assholian globalistic memes are going to make daily hot showers unaffordable to you personally within the next two years.  Exception Pfiore8, you are in Europe and as such get to survive far longer than us, in the future depopulated nature preserve.

  4. Did you notice how swiftly “Katrina” victims were dealt with and how swiftly they received monies to “rebuild?”  How swiftly “homeowners” were dealt with and received help?  How swiftly “Gustav” and “Ike” victims have been dealt with in order to recuperate?  

    But, let it not be said that when one major financial institution or another is in trouble, the “boys” are right there — at our taxpayer expense.  They do find a remedy when it pertains to THEIR interests, do they not?  And, swiftly!

    And, in reality, it is all a “bandaid” at our expense.  The bandaid is not great enough and the Americans are “bankrupt.”

    The example of GREED and POWER that we have seen is incomparable to anything we’ve ever seen before — and we have seen it before.

    I’ve posted this elsewhere, but I think it appertains here, as well!

    Here are some snipits from one of the most lucid of articles I’ve read concerning this whole financial crisis.

    Fixing Wall Street Won’t Fix Our Economy

    What’s really at play here is persistent poverty and Wall Street seeking to make a dime off the poor, while Washington looks the other way.

    Sure, the CEOs and hedge fund managers were greedy. There’s no question that wealth and the pursuit thereof led to the sub-prime fiasco and the decline of Lehman Brothers, AIG, Merrill Lynch and more. But what’s really at play here is persistent poverty and Wall Street seeking to make a dime off the poor, consequences be damned, while Washington looks the other way. . . .

    We could have averted the current financial crisis by creating affordable housing and good jobs, strengthening public education and providing health care and child care for all families, to help hardworking Americans thrive in the middle class instead of being pushed into poverty. We could have averted this crisis if we really cared about all families owning their own homes and created nationwide programs including affordable loans. (Even subsidized loans in the first place would have cost taxpayers less than what we’re now spending bailing out Wall Street.) We could have averted this crisis if we put the needs of the majority of American families ahead of the needs of a small minority of greedy investors.  

    Now, 8,000 American families a day face foreclosure. But instead of prioritizing poor and even middle class families who are increasingly struggling, our government is spending billions and billions to bail out the Wall Street firms that created this crisis. Instead, we should be spending our taxpayer money to help the families who were taken advantage of in the “anything goes” unregulated financial system that years of misguided never-really-did-trickle-down economic policy created. These families need the government to help re-adjust their mortgages and cover bridge payments to avoid foreclosure. . . .

    (emphasis mine)

    Worth reading and I think captures the “guts” of whole disgusting scenario.

  5. …the pirates are coming…Be scared.  Be  ver, ver scared…

  6. “Tu parle tres bien Francais . . .”  Tu fais des blagues aussi, je vois!  Mais, merci, comme meme.  (Aussi, pour moi, c’est un plaisir (meme avec mes defauts)!

    Donc, tu demands et j’ai essayer trouver la response a te question en vers les taches des accents sur le keyboard.  Quand t’ecris au “Word” tu peus utiliser le “ALT” key avec des numbres — ici, un chart avec tout ALT + clefs.  ALT codes.

    Mais pour le HTML, c’est different, il faut utilser des autres “codes” et voila, ici, tu te trouves le chart pour les “codes” HTML.  Special Characters  Tu dois est assez content avec tout me recherche au subjet!  😉

    “Malheure a ceaux qui essai de les effrayer.”  Exactement car la peur leurs inhibee des les expressions naturel!

    Mais, dans cette payee, ce n’est pas facile pour suivez en esprit (toujours).

    A toi! http://planetsmilies.net/person-smiley-1136.gif

     

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