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Friday,
April 23, 2004 |
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A
last chance to impart politics
Editor
in Chief Brandon Ortiz
is a senior news-editorial journalism major from Fort
Worth
It
is a custom here at the Skiff for graduating editors to
write a column thanking everyone who has helped them and
impart some words of wisdom to the young’uns.
There are so many people for me to thank that I’m
not going to list them all — I’m too afraid
of leaving somebody out. But you know who you are, and
I sincerely thank you.
With that out of the way, I will now devote the rest of
this space to explaining why George W. Bush is quite possibly
the worst president in American history.
Conservatives often wonder why liberals hate Bush so viscerally.
I wonder how any rational person could not hate Bush.
The hardest part about making the case for Bush’s
incompetence in limited space is choosing what arguments
to leave out. (His rank dishonesty is fodder for another
column.) This president has an uncanny gift for being
monumentally — and arrogantly — wrong on nearly
every issue. The old cliché that even a broken
clock is right twice a day doesn’t hold true for
this president.
I’m not going to beat you over the head with the
same-old Democratic charges (which are true) of how Bush
has: Squandered the largest surplus in history and pursued
a fiscally irresponsible economic policy; wasted the enormous
good will this nation received after 9/11, spit on our
allies and misled — some would say lied — to
the nation so he could take us to war with a country that
was not an immediate threat; exploited a national tragedy
for his personal political gain; broken his promise and
under-funded his own signature education initiative; attempted
to privatize Medicare — which, along with Social
Security, is responsible for keeping millions of senior
citizens out of poverty — with Trojan horse “reform;”
raided the Social Security and Medicare trust funds to
pay for tax cuts for the ultra wealthy that failed to
create a single job (Bush will be the only president since
Herbert Hoover to preside over net job loss); turned over
the Environmental Protection Agency to the polluters and
is gutting clean air laws; ignored the Constitution and
eroded our civil liberties through the Patriot Act; supported
taking away overtime pay from an estimated eight million
workers — including police, firemen and first responders
— before recently backtracking under political pressure.
The list goes on and on. Most of you have heard these
arguments before, and if you’re not already swayed
by them, then I doubt I’ll change your mind by repeating
them.
I’m also not going to point out a few things you
may not know:
• At a time of (unnecessary) war, when soldiers are
fighting bravely without the manpower they need (because
this president thinks coalition-building is a sign of
weakness), the president has proposed what is essentially
a cut in health care spending for veterans and eliminating
540 full-time jobs in the Veterans Benefits Administration,
which handles disability and pension claims from former
soldiers.
What a great way to reward those who were willing to die
for our country — make them pay more for health care
and undermine the agency that handles their pension claims.
How patriotic.
• Chemical plants and nuclear plants are the most
dangerous targets for terrorist attack. The EPA has identified
more than 100 chemical facilities where an attack could
kill more than one million people.
Let me repeat that: One million people could die if terrorists
were to attack one of these chemical plants.
So it seems only logical for the government to impose
strict regulations on the chemical industry and take steps
to protect chemical plants. But the chemical lobby doesn’t
think so — so neither does Bush and the GOP.
Bush — our patriotic “war president” —
will do whatever it takes to win the war on terror —
as long as it doesn’t inconvenience Big Business.
Oops, I’m out of space. But this is only the tip
of the iceberg.
I’m not sure if the nation could survive another
four years of Bush. |
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