President Bush: The Flying, Fickle Finger of Fate Points at YOU!!!

My recollection is that President Bush is a previous recipient of the famous/infamous Flying, Fickle Finger of Fate. If not, he should have been (more than once). As I have previously said over the past two years and more, and I have always said Prsident Bush is no conservative (Rush Liimbaugh belatedly jumping on this bandwagon, as he has belatedly followed my lead on many things--probably without knowing I exist), President Bush might well be regarded as a leftist mole in the Republican Party. Certainly, he has done more over hte past 4 years to help the Democratic Party, and destroy the Republican Party, than any other single person. And I said all of this before {resident Bush became then first U.S. President to really push socialism on this country--after already proving himself a Big Government central planner.


President Bush has set back the conservative cause a generation (unless Obama rescues it), and he has perhaps totally destroyed the Republican Party forever (ditto).


Don't take just my word for it. President Bush is this week's recipient of this blog's Flyling, Fickle Finger of Fate--this blog's unauthorized reincarnation of the old Laugh In "award" for conspicuous stupidity/evil that came to light in the previous week. President Bush was the hands down, unchallenged recipient of the "Finger" this week, represented by the statuette of an INDEX finger pointing. President Bush gets the nod this weekend the old fashioned way: He earned it by bailing out General Motors and Chrysler after the otherwise hopeless Republicans in the U.S. Senate finally developed enough cojones to stand up to the Democrats/socialists on the issue. And President Bush made one of the worst "explanatory" speeches ever made by an American President to explain this indefensible action. Even politically, the action made no sense, as it totally undermined both conservatives and Republicans one last time (WHY, OF WHY, DID PRESIDENT BUSH JUST NOT GO AWAY, AS REQUESTED BY THIS BLOG)--making a farce of the Congressional "debate" on the issue. Why have a "debate", when the President was going to do it by central planning fiat anyway (as the Democrats had wanted to start with). It reminds you of the farce of the debate over Paulson's 700 billion dollar Wall Street bailout, which caused panic in our entire financial system while turning out to be at total farce. The supposed "well thought out" "plan" of buying up distressed assets was never even implemented, in favor of the socialist government "purchase" of ownership interests in American financial institutions that actually took place (without ever being debated in Congress). Congress gave Paulson a blank check, which is what Paulson wanted (the whole "debate" about not giving him a blank check being a total and complete farce). Dick Cheney (no conservative either--sorry if this is a revelation to you) had the nerve to criticize Congress for being willing to let the automakers collapse, thereby "forcing" President Bush to step in as Cummunist/central planner-in-chief. Dick Cheney gets honorable mention from this week's pointing "Finger" for this atrocious statement alone.


But I promised to let you see how this is not just me talking. So here is the mail I got from my borther--the c9-owner of a trucking company not being bailed out who does not understand why General Motors deserves more consideration than he is getting. This is the email:


"Let's say that you are in financial trouble and you go to a bank to get somemoney. Your story is simple. I am going broke. I won't have enough cashto operate in two months. I don't have a plan on how to fix it, but if youwould just give me some money I am sure I can come up with one pretty quick.And then of course the bank says, here is a whole bunch of money and I willgive you even more in a couple of months. But if you don't come up with aplan, you have to pay the money back immediately. Yeah, right!!!!! They would laugh you out of the building. But what doesBush do? He actually went with this ridiculous sequence of events. Ifthere was ever any question on who the worst president in the last centurywas I think you have to point straight at Bush. Jimmy Carter is a pikercompared to Bush. This just puts the icing on the cake."


Believe it or not, I have consistently defended President Bush to my brother--jot the tupid things President Bush has done to sabotage conservatives and the Republican Party over the past 4 years, but against the assertion that President Bush is the worst President in the last 100 years or more. I have stated, and still believe (with less and less assurance) that President Bush is only the fourth worst President in my lifetime, with an overall performance better than LBJ (Vietnam and the disastrous War on Poverty), Carter (he of 15% inflation and 20% interest rates) and Nixon (price controls and Watergate). Do you realize that, even as of today, no Democratic President has imposed peacetime price controls, as nominal Republican Nixon did? This was an obvious precursor of President Bush: the first American President to directly implement socialims in this country. Again, President Bush is a nominal Repubican, which is why the Republican Party is a dead party walking. Yes, the Republicans in Congress--especiallly the "establishment" ones in the Senate--helped, but the willingness of President Bush to undermine non-Communist (slight overstatement for dramatic effect) Republicans (on this vote) by implementing the automaker bailout that they blocked indicates just how much President Bush is to blame for the death of the Republican Party (and the exile of conservatives into the Wilderness). President Bush has definitely been the worst President for the Republican Party since Herbert Hoover. I don't really believe, with my brother, that he has actually been a worse President than Hoover (who was the wrong man for the wrong time, even though he was one of the smartest, seemingly most capable men ever elected President). Again, it is telling that my brother, who is conservative but not in the ideological way I have been ever since Goldwater, is willing to condemn President Bush more harshly than I am. The man (Bush) has been an absolute disaster for conservatives, and for the Republican Party.


Need more? Well here is the reply email (to the above email from my brother--sent to me and to Tony) from "Three Line" Tony. "Three Line" was so nicknamed, by me, because he has criticized this blog, and my emails, for violating today's unwritten law that no one reads, or should be expected to read, past three lines in any modern communication. You have to admit the man has a point (if you review the verbose entries of this blog, including this one). I digress. Here is "Three Line's" email (only a few lines beyond three):


"I noticed the incredible point that you make. We will loan you money, but if you don't get your S**T together, we will demand it back....like they are going to be able to pay it back. Bush made the following comment, I kid you not. "I am abandoning free market principals to save our free market system". I will have to ask the elder Bush and Mrs. Bush...Was he dropped on his head when he was little?
"

Although Tony is conservative, and has "promised" (threatened?) to start a conservative blog consisting of entires limited to three lines, he was not previousl the kind of doctrinaire conservative that I might be consedered--certainly not an arguer of conservative prniciples from college (New Mexico State University) to law school (University of Texas at Austion, where no one admitted being conservative in the Nixon/Vietnam War era) to the present. Even in the army (1969-1971), I had a conservative letter opposing the Fariness Doctrine, as well as one opposing the lies of the left on the abortion issue, published in the (even then) leftist Denver Post (while I was stationed at Ft. Carson). Even so, I am less harsh toward President Bush than both my brother and Tony--even though I have actively engaged in the ideological wars longer, and more consistently, than they have. This shows just how badly President Bush has sabotaged the Republican Party--so badly that it should not survive, and will not unless Obama revives it. Even with Obama, it will take a true conservative leader to raise the Republican Party from the ashes.


I don't believe President Bush is a stupid man, although I believe he is hard headed, with tunnel vision and no real conservative instincts (although his references to God seem to me to be more heartfelt and sincere than Obama's). Yet, this auto bailout "defense" made by President Bush, referred to by both my brother and Tony, contains at least three of the most stupid statements ever made by a U.S. President, and is one of the most stupid actions ever made by a U.S. President. The three incredibly stupid, indefensible statements are as follows:

1: The loan is conditioned upon the automakers showing that they can run viable businesses by March of 2009, or they will have to immediately pay back the money.

2. (if you have stopped laughing, or crying, at the absurdity of 1): We have to abandon market principles in order to save our market system.

3 (if you have stopped laughing/crying at both 1 and 2): The UAW is required to give wage concessions by January 1,2010 so that GM/American wage costs are the same as foreign companies in the U.S. (lol). Editor's note: Obama is not required to, and will not, enforce this "requirement". If he wanted to, the Democratic Congress would not let him.


Yes, as with the Paulson bailout money, this is a "blank check". The biggest implied stupidity here is Bush's assertion that it is not. Look at AIG. We loaned them 85 billion dollars. Then we raised the loan to about 127 billion. Why is that? It is because once we made it clear that we did not believe that we could let AIG go under, AIG had a blank check. There was no way Paulson and Bush were going to admit that they made a mistake by bailing out AIG by then letting AIG go under.


The same is true of the automakers, even though Paulson and Bush will no longer be around (Thank God!!!). Are Obama and Congress going to pull the plug on the automakers in March? Don't be silly. Once we have committed to their survival, no politician will want to take responsibility for letting them go under. We may get more posturing--more "requirements. But we will move heaven and Earth, and put in virtually unlimited resources, to avoid letting them collapse. Further, now that the pressure is off, the UAW (union) will never make any substantial concessions (even though necessary to save the companies in the end, despite the almost unlimited taxpayer money, simply because taxpayer loans do not help GM sell products at a profit). In the end, especially under Democrats, we will take over GM completely rather than really lower the bom on the UAW, or let GM go under. President Bush has made this all inevitable. It may have been inevitable anyway, but at least Republicans could have said: "we told you so." President Bush, as he has done for four years and more, has made it impossible for Republicans to stand for any principle at all. President Bush has shown, except on foreign policy, that he is a man without principle--or perhaps that he fundamentally has the "principles" of a leftist central planner ("No Child Left Behind", Medicare Drug Benefit Plan, Wall Street Bailout, Auto Bailout, etc.). President Bush has effectively made it impossible for Republicans to stand for anything domestically, and it has killed the Republican Party.


Enter my brother, again. He keeps up with transportation stuff. It is his business. He notes that the UAW came out with a statement that it will be willing to make concessions beginning in 2012. First, as my brother says, the UAW has no intention of following through, in any real way, in 2012. That is just words, like the common tactic of promising spending cuts, or more "efficient" government that saves all kinds of money. It never happens, while the disastrous growth of government continues. Promises for the future mean absolutely nothing, which makes President Bush's stupid "conditions" for the future so very, very stupid (like his father breaking his pledge of "no new taxes" for spending cuts that were never going to happen).


Prediction: General Motors does not survive until 2012 (probably not until 2010). The President Bush bailout has made the ultimate demise of GM more certain (right now Chapter 11 might have saved GM, if the UAW had been forced to let GM organize to meet foreign competition).


Award ceremony (as usual, a virtual ceremony, without graphics, taking place entirely in the imagination, which is why I recommend you visualize Dick Martin presenting the statuette of the Finger on the old "Laugh In" as a visual aid, even though Martin is obviously not connected with this award):


Imagine Dick Martin thrusting the statuette of the pointing Finger at the camera and saying: "President Bush, this is for you. You deserve it, as no other Republican has deserved it more since Herbert Hoover (if then). Your actions have done more to advance socialism, and undermine conservatism, in this country more than any leftist who ever lived, definitely including Karl Marx, Lenin, and every Communist who ever lived.
"

Return next week to see if the Finger again points at a recipient so derserving.