Life After George
Both houses of Congress are about to send a bill to defy George Bush and approve legislation calling for US troops to begin withdrawing from Iraq by October 1.
Mr Bush has promised to veto the bill, setting the stage for full-blown confrontation between the Republican White House and the Democratic-controlled Congress.
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Bush has promised to veto this bill and no doubt he will. There are consequences to that, that he doesn’t seem to be considering. He’s had ample opportunity to negotiate with Congress on the matter of troop withdrawal and the timing of it but has refused to do so. In fact he’s treated his own party members as well as Congress as a whole as if they were also players in the “Axis of Evil”, by utterly ignoring them. He’s thoroughly alienated his own party by his decisions and “The Decider” may well be on the verge of his last important decision.
Assuming the bill passes, which looks like a safe assumption, and he vetoes it, it will come up for vote again. If it receives enough votes to override his veto, it will become law and our military will start leaving Iraq beginning in October.
A veto override of this magnitude will embolden Congress to send in more such bills limiting or reversing Bush’s various controversial actions during his presidency, and there will be more vetos and more veto overrides.
The primary consequence of a veto override vote will be the virtual end of the Bush presidency. Considering that George Bush Jr. is the worst president in the history of the United States, it can’t come too soon for me. While he has persued his goal of owning Iraq, our borders have been left utterly unprotected and the border guards who have taken action against drug smugglers have been sent to prison by his appointed Federal prosecutors under his instructions. This has resulted in at least 25 million, now, illegal aliens flooding into our country and trashing our welfare and school systems and dramatically increasing our crime rate, with rape and murder being very prominent crimes.
Along with all the illegal Hispanics has come an influx of trained terrorists who are now waiting their instructions to attack us from within.
Over 3,300 of our military personnel are now dead and many more are mutilated. Our treasury has been emptied. Our manufacturing has dwindled to nearly nothing. Our debt to China is enormous as well as our trade deficit. The price of gasoline has skyrocketed. Our infrastructure, our bridges, roads, buildings, are in decline, New Orleans is still a disaster area when it could have been prevented from ever happening, we need new schools all over America.
The war itself has gone poorly, with little or no advance planning, no foresight, no real goal of winning it. Wars are won only with all-out commitment, something this one has never had.
This disaster is the George Bush Presidential Legacy to us and to America. Right or wrong, I pray for a veto override. I don’t think my country can survive much more of George.
April 25th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
They are all just playing politics now. Both sides are giving until next year before troops would be pulled out, Bush know this. Even al-Sadr has given the troops a year. I hate politics. The war has gone poorly and much of that is Bush’s fault. I’m looking forward to a new president, too bad we have to wait until 2008
April 25th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
> Right or wrong, I pray for a veto override
To whom are you praying, because I suspect your prayers won’t be answered. Do your unanswered prayers affect your belief in your particular diety?
Getting 2/3 of each chamber is virtually impossible, so we’ll be going through this process one more time – at least.
April 25th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Figure of speech, Mitch. As for “impossible”, you’re downplaying the great antipathy the Republican party now feels toward Boy George. They’re damned tired of being crossed, ignored and stepped on by this guy and a lot of them want to give him a good, hard slap. Like overriding his veto.
Besides, they know that the American public wants this war to end and the Dems are stealing all the thunder on this issue. Each Republican who votes to override can claim that as a feather in their bonnet at election time. That’s going to be a big issue when the next election rolls around, and they know it. They may even claim the override was a Republican idea, it wouldn’t be the first lie politicians ever told.
No. Not even close to impossible.
April 25th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
Not even close to reality. “Impossible” may be too strong a work, but better reflects reality than most other words.
April 25th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
So right. While his instincts seemed ok, in the practicalities Bush has totally destroyed the great regard many of us, me included, had for the US. It is probably not putting it too strongly to say that if we are seriously pressed as to which is currently the greater threat to the world, the US or Islam, there is no easy answer.
The Christian right attitudes peddled by Bush and the sort of extreme f*-everyone else American Republicanism peddled by many (including that complete arse at Rottweiler) is preferable, just, but threat is not primarily about the repulsiveness of the creed but the capacity of its followers to impose it and currently Muslims are a pretty backward and ineffectual bunch.
Just like Blair, on the immigration issue, Bush seems to have put the narrow interests of the short termist business lobbiests ahead of the citizens who pay his wages. I note the US is falling rather rapidly down the wealth league. How much of this is due to immigration of Mexicans I wonder? Just possibly the politically correct might consider that the wealth of a nation might conceivably be a measure of the quality of its citizens?
April 25th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
Good points, Xoggoth and you prove that not living in the US has nothing to do with seeing what’s going on. In fact I suspect that those like you living in Europe and elsewhere may have a clearer perspective than we do. A matter of not being able to see the forest for the trees.
As for your opinion, Mitch, can you back it up? As I have mine? We’re all entitled to our opinions tho it helps to have cogent reasons for them if we want them looked at seriously.
April 26th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Just watch the votes after GWB veto’s the bill – just not going to happen. But then – this is a future occurrence – McConnell and McCain will filibuster in the Senate if necessary. Overriding any veto is difficult -check the legislative record for veto overrides, and you’ll see that it fails more often than not
April 26th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
Of course that’s true, the majority of veto override votes fail. I just don’t think this one will. This is the issue that got all those democrats elected, after all, and now we see a whole lot of republicans on board along with them.
You may be right, but then I might be too and my vote is for me. Wait until after the vote though. Then one of us can say “I told you so”.
April 26th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
Senate Passes Withdrawal Bill
51-46
Long way from 67
April 26th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
Wait…
See that fat lady? I think she may be getting ready to sing…
April 27th, 2007 at 12:54 am
Don’t hold your breath. Besides, that fat lady – she’s a guy
April 27th, 2007 at 1:13 am
LOL, no, Rosie O’Donnell just looks like a guy.
April 27th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Rosie looks like a mutated pig – and that’s being unfair to pigs. Anyhow, get ready for Round 2 on this issue after the veto is upheld
April 27th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
Very well-written, man. As usual.
Boy George.
the Dems are stealing all the thunder
Yeah, i love poet. And I like an elegant text. That’s why this site is my favoutite. As an amateur writer, I admire the professionals.
April 27th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
Thanks, Ernesto. That’s high praise.
Hey, when are you going to get another blog going?
April 29th, 2007 at 11:52 pm
Well, if I get alive this Autumm, I may republish my anti-Islam dossies blogs INFERNO and DYSTOPIA in a new server, with updated contains. Fingers crossed. Let’s pray.
Until there, my main effort is not be dead… I’m “low profile” these days.
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Pinch hitting for Reality, Reid Pelosi. RP has no at bats for veto overrides, however coaching reports indicate that given their general weaknesses in recognizing reality when it hits them, this first at bat is likely to result in a strikeout. Stay tuned.
May 2nd, 2007 at 10:41 pm
Fox News reports that the House failed to override a veto of the legislation that had included a timetable for troop withdrawal.
“Yer Out!!!”
The Fat Lady has sung
“Game over Man”
“It’s Over Johnny”
May 2nd, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Unfortunately, no prize was allotted.
May 3rd, 2007 at 3:24 am
True, but the score is GWB – 1:House Dems – 0. Now, if only he’d veto all the bills that are pork and insist upon single issue bills. One can only dream. In any event, keep up the good work on your blog.
May 3rd, 2007 at 6:34 am
Thank you kindly. By the way, unless that’s a distant echo, I do believe the fat lady is still yodeling in the wings. As I expected, and predicted, there are some rather pissed off Republicans who are preparing to change their stance on Iraq.
The scuttlebutt is that there’s a new bill in the offing that requires Iraq to meet benchmarks or else Petraeus has to start pulling out the troops, and “they” (whoever the Hell “they” is, it’s deeper than the mystery of the Pyramids) think the bill will have veto-proof votes. So the drum-roll is still thrumming away, waiting for the final bow and curtain on this act.
May 3rd, 2007 at 12:29 pm
It is true that Iraq has to start pulling its own weight, but like Germany, Japan, and Korea, I suspect we will have a permanent presence in the region for many years to come.
Now, if we could just rid ourselve of the House of Saud, and develop Royal Dutch Shell’s patent on oil extraction from shale.