SPEAKING OUT:Rogue President
http://www.baltimorechronicle.com/2006/110206CARMICHAEL.html
by MICHAEL CARMICHAEL

While America has suffered through rogue presidencies in its past-
Pierce, Polk, Buchanan, Grant, McKinley, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover,
Nixon and Reagan-it has never suffered quite as horribly; quite as
tragically; quite as fatefully or quite as expensively as it is now
suffering under the presidency of George W. Bush.
OCTOBER 25, 2006--The president seems confused. After making a curious
remark observing that the war in Iraq was placing a strain on the
psyche of America, President Bush has become the primary focus of
concerns about a strained psyche.

Last week, the president uttered more than one oracular pronouncement.
First he acquiesced to the analogy that has been on everyone's lips
since well before the launch of the Iraq War-Does Iraq resemble
Vietnam? In an interview with George Stephanopoulos, President Bush
agreed that the Ramadan offensive in Iraq smacks of the Tet offensive
of 1968.

Later, in another interview, President Bush stunned America with his
pronouncement that he had never said that the US would "stay the
course" in Iraq. After recovering several verbatim transcripts of the
president's use of the exact phraseology that he now believes he
never uttered, American pundits are puzzled by this expanding enigma
enveloping the president's personal discourse. What will he say next?

That question was answered today, when President Bush addressed a small
group at the White House with fifteen minutes of remarks during which
he admitted he was now "dissatisfied" with American progress in
Iraq. Apparently, the President is dissatisfied that no weapons of mass
destruction (WMDs) were discovered in Iraq. The loss of nearly 3,000
American lives and the disturbing growth in the insurgency now appear
to be factors adding to the president's dissatisfaction.

From that point in his White House talk, the President veered off into

a rambling statement that quite simply defies definition. President
Bush said that he would stay in Iraq until the "job is done" and
"we cannot allow our dissatisfaction to turn into disillusionment
about our purpose in this war," followed by an order aimed at the
American people to disbelieve what he described as "enemy
propaganda." From that mystifying turn of phrase, President Bush
assured his audience in the White House, "I know the American people
understand the stakes in Iraq. They want to win. They will support the
war as long as they see a clear path to victory."

Why is the president allowed to blather on and on about facts that fly
in the face of reality?

From this melange of mystification, it is now perfectly clear that

President Bush has not read the newspapers for the past seven
days-neither is he aware of the latest polls from America's
heartland. The American people have lost confidence in his rogue
presidency. Now, two out of three Americans believe that his presidency
is a rapidly mushrooming disaster. By a two-to-one margin, American
voters believe that the Democrats are better suited to deal with
national security issues and terrorism than the Republicans. Why has
nobody in the White House told the President that his policies in
general-and his war in particular-are now unacceptable to the
American people? Why is the president allowed to blather on and on
about facts that fly in the face of reality?

America is a young nation, but an aging democracy. While America has
suffered through rogue presidencies in its past- Pierce, Polk,
Buchanan, Grant, McKinley, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Nixon and
Reagan-it has never suffered quite as horribly; quite as tragically;
quite as fatefully or quite as expensively as it is now suffering under
the presidency of George W. Bush.

This conundrum affects President Bush most of all. From the
president's perspective, the world appears to be distorted as if he
is witnessing events through a macabre prism twisting and contorting
reality into a nightmarish illusion that defies his admittedly meagre
powers to discern the true state of things.

Other commentators have written that President Bush and his family have
taken every wrong fork in the path of American history since they came
to power through the career of his grandfather, Prescott Bush. The
wrong-headed attack on American history continued in a stark line
through the career of President Bush's father, George Herbert Walker
Bush. But, in a sort of exponential surge of destiny, the honour of
distorting American history into a lamentable caricature of its worst
nightmares fell to the current President Bush.

Viewing this unravelling travesty, the elder generation of Bush
loyalists have taken the extreme measure of stepping into the breech to
seize the helm of the American ship of state to pilot her to safer,
saner and hopefully more placid waters. Last week, the Bush family
consigliore, James Baker, leaked a story about the findings of the Iraq
Study Group. In their opinion, the war in Iraq is an unmitigated
disaster, and a new policy is needed to extricate America from the
quagmire. The presidential state of denial, diagnosed by Robert
Woodward, must be broken by the facing of certain home truths-America
must leave Iraq.

That this story was leaked when it was-ie. two weeks before a crucial
election-reveals the deep concerns of the Republican seniority over
what appeared to be nothing less than a Bush-Cheney plan to launch
World War W-by attacking Iran in the final days prior to the dreaded
midterm elections in America.

When North Korea exploded her atomic device, that option-a new world
war-could no longer be categorized as a rational alternative. While
Bush and Cheney were prepared to wage one of their pre-emptive wars on
Iran, they could not be allowed to take that step in the aftermath of
North Korea going nuclear.

The equations of political algebra and diplomatic calculus had to be
re-calibrated with the new factor of a nuclear regime in
Pyongyang-and the embarrassing fact of the sweaty and itchy index
finger of Kim Jong-Il now twitching and jerking on a nuclear trigger of
his very own.

When Kim Jong-Il hit the streets of Dodge City to face off against
George W. Bush, George W. Bush and his backers decided it was time to
get out of Dodge.

Thanks to the policy of President Bush, post-Saddam Iraq is now being
described as the "most hellish place on earth." Thanks to the
policy of President Bush, nearly three-thousand American soldiers have
lost their lives in the sands of Iraq. Thanks to the policy of
President Bush, the American people have invested the better part of
one trillion dollars into creating the hell of Zalmay Khalilzad's
Iraq. Thanks to the policy of President Bush we now know that the
Interim Government of Ayad Allawi embezzled over eight hundred million
dollars during their relatively short time in office.

The polls in America predict a stunning change of power in the halls of
Congress. Democrats are poised to return to the majority in the House
of Representatives and to make gains in the Senate.

According to reports in Europe, the Office for Security and Cooperation
in Europe is keenly interested in the allegations of e-voting and
election fraud in Bush's America.
With Karl Rove's hand poised over the election-stealing electronic
voting machines fabricated by Republican corporations, the Office for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)-the world's pre-eminent
authority on the fairness of elections-have announced their mission
to supervise the American midterm elections. According to reports in
Europe, the OSCE is keenly interested in the allegations of e-voting
and election fraud in Bush's America.

Now that the Dow Jones Industrials are hovering circa 10% above the
level when Bush took office, Rove is calling it an economic
miracle-but consider that in the same period of time under Clinton,
the Dow Jones average had risen over 200%.
To distract the voters, Rove has launched a campaign to sell America on
the vibrancy reported to have broken out in the US economy. Now that
the Dow Jones Industrials are hovering circa 10% above the level when
Bush took office, Rove is calling it an economic miracle. In the same
period of time under Clinton, the Dow Jones average had risen over
200%-a spectacular achievement that underpinned the success and
historical supremacy of the Clinton presidency. Now that 6.6 million
jobs have been created in the same period of time as it took Bill
Clinton's administration to create over 9 million jobs, Rove is
attempting to sell the US economy to the voters as a triumph for Bush
and the Republicans. Pity him-for Rove has little choice, now that
Iraq has gone pear-shaped.

Bad as the situation in Iraq actually is, that does not mean that Bush
and Rove will not try to brand their retreat as a victory. In their
terms, a military defeat is always a victory as long as they were in
command.

The walls are closing in on the presidency of George Walker Bush. His
old enemy, Gerhard Schroeder, has just launched his book decrying the
Bush presidency. Schroeder reported that meetings with President Bush
bordered on the impossible as Bush's sanctimonious staff repeatedly
assured his guests that the president was a "god-fearing" man.
Needless to say, Shroeder records that it was difficult to do business,
to meet or to negotiate with such a head of state, one that clearly
fancied himself to be a divine right monarch straight out of the pages
of medieval history rather than the head of the world's sole
superpower.

International speculation presumes that the Bushes have taken the
advice of their family's consigliores to maintain a bolt-hole
hideaway-in this case, a huge ranch in Paraguay-just in case of the
eruption of problematic or discomforting political developments in
their homeland.
Given the rapidly multiplying constellation of crises and criticisms
hitting his presidency in its metaphorical face, President Bush has
taken the extraordinary step of investing in a tract of private real
estate. For the past week, the international press has been spellbound
by reports that Jenna Bush, the president's daughter, has negotiated
a real estate transaction in upper Paraguay for a huge ranch even by
Texas standards. Now international speculation presumes that the Bushes
have taken the advice of their family's consigliores to maintain a
bolt-hole hideaway just in case of the eruption of problematic or
discomforting political developments in their homeland.

From my undergraduate history of the Cold War, I seem to recall that

after the Allied victory in World War Two, the northern reaches of
Paraguay provided a haven for Nazi war criminals-including Dr. Josef
Mengele. A rogue Nazi, a rogue president-a remote refuge for rogues
in the mists of Paraguay - is that a coincidence-or not?
Michael Carmichael is a historian and author based in Oxford, England,
UK. He is the founder and chief executive officer of
planetarymovement.org. This article is republished in the Baltimore
Chronicle with permission of the author. The complete illustrated and
referenced article "Death of a Presidency" by Michael Carmichael is
online here.

REFERENCES:
Bush drops 'stay the course' slogan as political mood sours -
Takeover could come in a year, but more troops may go to Bagdhad, says
US general
Bush admits dissatisfaction with Iraq situation
Bush faces calamity as swing voters flock to the Democrats
War effect chills the hearts of Republican Middle America - Will Ohio
go Democrat?
US poll shows 58% believe Iraq was a mistake
US in Iraq: We're out of here - America signals dramatic shift in
strategy, saying Iraq will assume responsibility for security in '12
to 18 months'
US soldier to voice Iraq conflict opposition
We have turned Iraq into the most hellish place on Earth
Patrick Cockburn: From 'mission accomplished' to mission impossible
for the Iraqis
Iraq: the people have their say. And it's bad news for Tony Blair -
72 per cent predict that Iraq will descend into civil war if British
and American troops withdraw - 61 per cent believe Britain's
experience in Iraq makes them less likely to support military
intervention - 72 per cent say that Tony Blair's support for George
Bush calls into question his political judgement - 62 per cent believe
that British troops should be withdrawn from Iraq as soon as possible -
72 per cent believe that the war in Iraq is unwinnable
Iraq war could be judged a disaster, Beckett admits
Iraq: voters want British troops home by end of year - Fresh pressure
on Blair as public back calls for early withdrawal
'Government stole $800m'
Iraq mayhem triggers hunt for exit strategy in US and UK / Foreign
Office urges talks with Syria and Iran, as militia seize city left by
British
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veterans push for end to interventionist approach
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leaders in Downing St today - Former envoy warns that 'only bad
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Disarm the militias and take control - White House issues demands to
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Move reflects US frustration
'Arrogant' US has failed, says spin doctor
The week the war unravelled: Bush to have crisis meeting with generals
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Britain now No 1 al-Qaida target - anti-terror chiefs
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Schröder settles old scores with Merkel and 'God-fearing' Bush
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