Good job, bad job, it’s all relative. When George W. Bush told Michael Brown he was doing a “heckuva job” after Hurricane Katrina, he wasn’t wrong, from his own perspective. When you’re as horribly, mind-numbingly incompetent as Bush, mere terrible incompetence looks like dazzling success.
Brownie does a “heckuva job,” and Bushie leaves “a helluva mess“:
Former Secretary of State James Baker, one of the most ardent Bush family loyalists, is heading up a commission to review our policy in Iraq. According to the BBC, Baker was “visibly upset” during a recent visit to Iraq, calling the country “a helluva mess.”
But Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld insist we’re making progress. There are many ways to measure progress. This chart, from Think Progress, shows one of them:
In Sept. 2003, President Bush promised that he would help Iraqis “restore basic services, such as electricity and water, and to build new schools, roads, and medical clinics. This effort is essential to the stability of those nations, and therefore, to our own security.”
But three years later, electricity levels in Baghdad are at an all-time low. Residents of Baghdad are receiving just 2.4 hours of electricity this month, compared to an average of 16-24 hours of electricity before the U.S. invasion.
We can hope that when Baker’s Iraq Study Group gives its recommendations — after the elections, of course — that our policies in Iraq will finally change in ways that help the Iraqi people and salvage America’s wrecked reputation all around the world.
Sure, Bush has never shown a willingness to heed good advice. He doesn’t want advice even from his own father. But this time — after the election, when the voters no longer have the power to object — this time will be different, right?
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