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Wayne Besen
PO Box 25491
Brooklyn, NY 11202
I tip my hat to President George W. Bush. This was probably the best week of his presidency. First, there was a seemingly successful election in Iraq - and he didn't even have to send in Katherine Harris.
Second, the president did a masterful job tricking the American people into thinking that Social Security is in dire straights. He has clearly taken the initiative and set the agenda on his sneaky plan to slowly dismantle the New Deal.
Finally, Bush's State of the Union speech was terrific. He was calm, poised, confident and even flirted with moments of eloquence. Take it from a genuine Bush detractor, this was the best speech of his life.
Furthermore, the handpicked guests in the audience were so moving that they almost upstaged Bush. It was touching when Janet and William Norwood fought back tears, as the audience applauded the tragic loss of their son Byron, who was killed in Iraq. Equally dramatic was a weeping Safia Taleb al-Suhail, who voted in Iraq's elections in remembrance of her father who was whacked by Saddam Hussein's thugs.
Perhaps it was a bit over-the-top and a tad goofy to see the stuff-shirt bureaucrats in the crowd, chronically jabbing their purple, ink stained fingers in the air, in a staged show of solidarity with Iraqi voters. These suits looked like out of shape and out of synch John Travolta clones trying to do a Saturday Night Fever dance in the middle of Bush's speech.
I predict that Bush's poll numbers will get a significant boost this week. The approval rating on the war in Iraq will also get a bump. I think we will look back and see this week as the pinnacle of Bush's presidency.
How so?
At this moment, Bush and Rove clearly have the upper hand in the public relations war. The president has the political capital (not to mention the actual Capitol is in Republican hands) to push through a lot of his agenda. If he fails, many of his core constituencies will sour on his presidency.
And what if he succeeds?
If Bush gets what he wants, his policies better work as well as his PR. Bush has taken unusually bold steps and for this he will go down as great or a goat. He has committed himself to undermining Social Security, redistributing tax money to the wealthy, embraced deficit spending, liberally used military force to secure his murky objectives, plans to cut vital programs in the coming weeks and has taken a wrecking ball to church/state separation.
Let's face it. If on Bush's watch Iraq becomes a successful democracy, the Palestinians and Israelis make peace, the economy soars and evangelicals use the faith-based programs to improve peoples' lives, Bush will look brilliant.
However, if there is a civil war in Iraq, the Mid East peace process tanks, more wars break out (Iran, Syria, North Korea etc.), the economy sputters under the weight of debt and America's Religious Right becomes a legitimate threat to a free and decent society, then Bush will go down as one of the worst presidents ever.
I, along with countless others, have been outspoken against his policies. I firmly believe it is downhill from here. So, I hope Bush enjoys his moment of triumph. We know he is good at spin. Now it is time to find if there is substance behind his alarming ideas. While the State of the Union is mere words, we won't know the real state of our union until the smoke clears from Bush's radical, draconian policies.
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