Society Issues Talk

Harry Hope · Guest

From The Evening Bulletin, 3/8/07:
http://www.thebulletin.us/site/news.cfm?newsid=18054456&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=576361&rfi=6

By: Chris Freind, The Bulletin

So what was the final nail in the coffin of George W. Bush's legacy?

Was it the conviction of Scooter Libby relating to the Valerie Plame
case?

Was it the election of a Democratic Congress, now challenging the
president at every turn, including how the Iraq War should be
executed?

No.

Unfortunately, the reason centers around the Walter Reed Army Medical
Center, the first stop for many American servicemen returning home
with war-related injuries.

It is a place where one assumed our heroes would be given the best,
state-of-the-art medical treatment and rehabilitation available.

Instead, Walter Reed was just uncovered as being a hospital of
deplorable conditions, a place where soldiers had to endure a filthy,
unsanitary environment, rampant drug use and sub-par medical care.

It was a scene reminiscent of many Vietnam-era VA hospitals, one that
people thought they would never see again given how much America had
progressed since that time.

It was a shock to the nation, and a humiliating embarrassment in front
of the rest of the world.

Consequently, the general in charge of Walter Reed was fired, and was
followed a day later by the resignation of the secretary of the Army.

Way too little, way too late.

Just when you thought that the Bush administration had exhausted
itself of all of incomprehensible actions, and that its leaders
couldn't get any more incompetent, along comes the Walter Reed fiasco.

Whether the president is operating in his own insular world, or
whether his advisors are too scared or too inept to properly counsel
him, the result has the same damning effect on the administration's
credibility.

It is one thing to make the decision to go to war and then to
prosecute said war in a wildly inefficient, ineffective and bumbling
manner.

A war, mind you, with no stated definition of victory and no clear
objectives for how to achieve "democracy," let alone how to deal with
a strengthening insurgency and impending civil war.

What makes this a mortal sin is the fact that this country failed to
provide the best facilities in the world to the men and women who
sacrificed everything to do their incredibly difficult job.

How could the president not make absolutely sure that our military
hospitals were in top working order?

How could the generals he commanded not provide everything that these
facilities needed, immediately and without red tape?

Whether it was additional equipment, technology or personnel, places
like Walter Reed should have been free of any and all bureaucracy and
budget issues, without exception.

It is the least we could have done for our troops, and the least that
they should have expected in case of injury.

The fallout is that an unpopular war just lost one of the last
remaining segments of support.

The president's governing effectiveness, already marginalized because
of his lame-duck status and an opposition Congress, was reduced to
near nil.

The Democrats gained more ammunition in their quest to retake the
White House and strengthen their control of Congress, and that much of
the world mocks America again for its arrogance in telling others how
to live, yet can't seem to take care of its own people, especially its
soldiers.

The president's legacy - and, to a large extent, that of his father's
- will continue to take a tremendous hit, with no foreseeable manner
in which to reverse that trend.

It is said that history looks upon leaders more kindly as time passes.

In this case, it may be a long wait.

_______________________________________________

Support our troops, eh?

Harry

ccr · Guest

Nah, just another sordid example of Bush's one talent: To totally screw up
anything he's supposed to be in charge of.

The final nail has yet to be struck.

--
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of
fighting a foreign enemy." James Madison

"Harry Hope" <rivrvu@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
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