Friday, December 30, 2005
Krugman says goodbye to '05
Heck of a Job, Bushie
By PAUL KRUGMAN
A year ago, everyone expected President Bush to get his way on Social
Security. Pundits warned Democrats that they were making a big
political mistake by opposing plans to divert payroll taxes into
private accounts. A year ago, everyone thought Congress would make
Mr. Bush's tax cuts permanent, in spite of projections showing that
doing so would lead to budget deficits as far as the eye can see. But
Congress hasn't acted, and most of the cuts are still scheduled to
expire by the end of 2010.
A year ago, Mr. Bush made many Americans feel safe, because they
believed that he would be decisive and effective in an emergency. But
Mr. Bush was apparently oblivious to the first major domestic
emergency since 9/11. According to Newsweek, aides to Mr. Bush
finally decided, days after Hurricane Katrina struck, that they had
to show him a DVD of TV newscasts to get him to appreciate the
seriousness of the situation.
A year ago, before ''Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job'' became a
national punch line, the rising tide of cronyism in government
agencies and the rapid replacement of competent professionals with
unqualified political appointees attracted hardly any national
attention.
A year ago, hardly anyone outside Washington had heard of Jack
Abramoff, and Tom DeLay's position as House majority leader seemed
unassailable.
A year ago, Dick Cheney, who repeatedly cited discredited evidence
linking Saddam to 9/11, and promised that invading Americans would be
welcomed as liberators -- although he hadn't yet declared that the
Iraq insurgency was in its ''last throes'' -- was widely admired for
his ''gravitas.''
A year ago, Howard Dean -- who was among the very few prominent
figures to question Colin Powell's prewar presentation to the United
Nations, and who warned, while hawks were still celebrating the fall
of Baghdad, that the occupation of Iraq would be much more difficult
than the initial invasion -- was considered flaky and unsound.
A year ago, it was clear that before the Iraq war, the administration
suppressed information suggesting that Iraq was not, in fact, trying
to build nuclear weapons. Yet few people in Washington or in the news
media were willing to say that the nation was deliberately misled
into war until polls showed that most Americans already believed it.
A year ago, the Washington establishment treated Ayad Allawi as if he
were Nelson Mandela. Mr. Allawi's triumphant tour of Washington, back
in September 2004, provided a crucial boost to the Bush-Cheney
campaign. So did his claim that the insurgents were ''desperate.''
But Mr. Allawi turned out to be another Ahmad Chalabi, a hero of
Washington conference rooms and cocktail parties who had few
supporters where it mattered, in Iraq.
A year ago, when everyone respectable agreed that we must ''stay the
course,'' only a handful of war critics suggested that the U.S.
presence in Iraq might be making the violence worse, not better. It
would have been hard to imagine the top U.S. commander in Iraq
saying, as Gen. George Casey recently did, that a smaller foreign
force is better ''because it doesn't feed the notion of occupation.''
A year ago, Mr. Bush hadn't yet openly reneged on Scott McClellan's
2003 pledge that ''if anyone in this administration was involved'' in
the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity, that person ''would no
longer be in this administration.'' Of course, some suspect that Mr.
Bush has always known who was involved.
A year ago, we didn't know that Mr. Bush was lying, or at least being
deceptive, when he said at an April 2004 event promoting the Patriot
Act that ''a wiretap requires a court order. When we're talking about
chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order
before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to
understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are
in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our
homeland, because we value the Constitution.''
A year ago, most Americans thought Mr. Bush was honest.
A year ago, we didn't know for sure that almost all the politicians
and pundits who thundered, during the Lewinsky affair, that even the
president isn't above the law have changed their minds. But now we
know when it comes to presidents who break the law, it's O.K. if
you're a Republican.
By PAUL KRUGMAN
A year ago, everyone expected President Bush to get his way on Social
Security. Pundits warned Democrats that they were making a big
political mistake by opposing plans to divert payroll taxes into
private accounts. A year ago, everyone thought Congress would make
Mr. Bush's tax cuts permanent, in spite of projections showing that
doing so would lead to budget deficits as far as the eye can see. But
Congress hasn't acted, and most of the cuts are still scheduled to
expire by the end of 2010.
A year ago, Mr. Bush made many Americans feel safe, because they
believed that he would be decisive and effective in an emergency. But
Mr. Bush was apparently oblivious to the first major domestic
emergency since 9/11. According to Newsweek, aides to Mr. Bush
finally decided, days after Hurricane Katrina struck, that they had
to show him a DVD of TV newscasts to get him to appreciate the
seriousness of the situation.
A year ago, before ''Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job'' became a
national punch line, the rising tide of cronyism in government
agencies and the rapid replacement of competent professionals with
unqualified political appointees attracted hardly any national
attention.
A year ago, hardly anyone outside Washington had heard of Jack
Abramoff, and Tom DeLay's position as House majority leader seemed
unassailable.
A year ago, Dick Cheney, who repeatedly cited discredited evidence
linking Saddam to 9/11, and promised that invading Americans would be
welcomed as liberators -- although he hadn't yet declared that the
Iraq insurgency was in its ''last throes'' -- was widely admired for
his ''gravitas.''
A year ago, Howard Dean -- who was among the very few prominent
figures to question Colin Powell's prewar presentation to the United
Nations, and who warned, while hawks were still celebrating the fall
of Baghdad, that the occupation of Iraq would be much more difficult
than the initial invasion -- was considered flaky and unsound.
A year ago, it was clear that before the Iraq war, the administration
suppressed information suggesting that Iraq was not, in fact, trying
to build nuclear weapons. Yet few people in Washington or in the news
media were willing to say that the nation was deliberately misled
into war until polls showed that most Americans already believed it.
A year ago, the Washington establishment treated Ayad Allawi as if he
were Nelson Mandela. Mr. Allawi's triumphant tour of Washington, back
in September 2004, provided a crucial boost to the Bush-Cheney
campaign. So did his claim that the insurgents were ''desperate.''
But Mr. Allawi turned out to be another Ahmad Chalabi, a hero of
Washington conference rooms and cocktail parties who had few
supporters where it mattered, in Iraq.
A year ago, when everyone respectable agreed that we must ''stay the
course,'' only a handful of war critics suggested that the U.S.
presence in Iraq might be making the violence worse, not better. It
would have been hard to imagine the top U.S. commander in Iraq
saying, as Gen. George Casey recently did, that a smaller foreign
force is better ''because it doesn't feed the notion of occupation.''
A year ago, Mr. Bush hadn't yet openly reneged on Scott McClellan's
2003 pledge that ''if anyone in this administration was involved'' in
the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity, that person ''would no
longer be in this administration.'' Of course, some suspect that Mr.
Bush has always known who was involved.
A year ago, we didn't know that Mr. Bush was lying, or at least being
deceptive, when he said at an April 2004 event promoting the Patriot
Act that ''a wiretap requires a court order. When we're talking about
chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order
before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to
understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are
in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our
homeland, because we value the Constitution.''
A year ago, most Americans thought Mr. Bush was honest.
A year ago, we didn't know for sure that almost all the politicians
and pundits who thundered, during the Lewinsky affair, that even the
president isn't above the law have changed their minds. But now we
know when it comes to presidents who break the law, it's O.K. if
you're a Republican.
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