Accross the pond, an article in the Daily Mail details how Tony Blair feels let down by Bush. In essence, Blair pushed the WH to take up the road map for peace, in exchange, the U.K. backed U.S. foreign ploicy in nearly every regard. Now Mr. Blair feels Bush has "let him down Badly".
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/...
The alliance between George Bush and Tony Blair is in danger after it was revealed that the Prime Minister believes the President has 'let him down badly' over the Middle East crisis.
A senior Downing Street source said that, privately, Mr Blair broadly agrees with John Prescott, who said Mr Bush's record on the issue was 'crap'.
The source said: "We all feel badly let down by Bush. We thought we had persuaded him to take the Israel-Palestine situation seriously, but we were wrong. How can anyone have faith in a man of such low intellect?"
How indeed?
Tony, (may I call you Tony?) join the club. We here in the U.S. have been asking ourselves the same questions. How can we as a nation put our faith and trust in a man that let us down badly. We think most of his initiatives are "crap". How has he let us down you ask, hmmmm.....let us count the ways.
Maybe it was the unseemly way that the election was stolen, and all those hired GOP guns masquerading as concerned citizens that decended on florida to obstruct the recount.
Maybe it was the very first week in office when the new administration accused the outgoing clinton administration of vandalism. Among other things, popping off the W's on the WH keyboards. I suppose they wanted us to think that Clinton and his ilk were childish and mean spirited. I remember reading months later after an investigation initiated by Bob Barr (of all people), that NO VANDALISM TOOK PLACE. Yes you read that right. The new team made it up, LIED about petty vandalism. Who ended up looking childish and mean spirited? George and his team. I guess Bob Barr was out of the loop on that one. He didn't get the memo that said, this is made up "crap". Boy, did George and his cronies look foolish when the media trumpeted this vicious little white lie....ooops. I guess they thought the revelation that the new administration LIED about such chilishness was not news. I remember reading it buried on the back pages somewhere. Memo to MSM: red flag, red flag, blinking hot red flag.
Maybe it was the loosening of all kinds of environmental safeguards put in place to protect the public. You know, they said it was ok for our kids to drink water with unsafe levels of mercury and arsenic, for our skies to be poisened with industrial pollution, in direct violation of the clean air act. Our forests came under attack from logging interests and developers unheard of for decades.
Maybe it's the disingenuous labeling of their legislation. I mean, who labels a bill to promote the logging and destruction of our forests, the healthy forests initiative? The same goes for the clear skies initiative. You must have guessed by now that that bill would increase the levels of pollution in the air. We were let down.
Maybe it's the way the administration misrepresented one of our worst national tragedies, 9-11, to engage the US in an unnecessary war against a country that had nothing to do with 9-11. Of course, you guessed it again, they said Iraq did have something to do with 9-11. Again they LIED, Directly and to our faces, repeatedly. We were let down.
Maybe it's the way they talk tough about supporting our troops, but when you look at the details, they actually cut many necessary safeguards for them, from medical to financial, and then some. I guess they LIED again. They let us down.
Maybe it's the way seniors were promised a drug benefit and what they got was the shaft. Seniors crying -literally-at the pharmicist, because thier life saving medications were not on the approved drug list. Months of govt red tape, confusing application process, unstaffed help lines, hundreds of plans to choose from, not to benefit the seniors, but to benefit thier corporate cronies bottom line. Their message, hey granny deal with it. We were let down.
Maybe it was George's personal response to hurricane Katrina. He was on a conference call with all the weather big wigs at the National Hurricane center, FEMA, all were saying "this is the big one", "we are concerned that the levee won't hold". George does not ask one question. All must be well in George world. The hurricane hits and George hits the road, strumming a new "geetar", and going to birthday parties while thousands of our citizens die because of incompetence. Old ladies dying of heat stroke and people penned up like animals without rescue, George is unconcerned though. When he finally does respond it's too little too late, with the statement, no one could have anticipated the breach of the levees. We were let down.
Maybe it's the torture perpetrated by our government. We have been taught that the US doen not torture. We as citizens expect more from our country. We expect our govt to abide by its treaties. We were let down.
Maybe it's the fact that we as US citizens have learned that our govt. has been spying on us illegally. Maybe it's the reaction to a federal judge that ruled the spying is illegal that gets us so mad. George comes out with the statement that the judge does not understand the nature of the world we live in today. Yes, we expect the President to abide by his nation's laws. Hundreds of which have been broken. I guess you could say we've been let down.
Tony, I could go on all day. So, you see, George has been making a career of letting people down. Really, it's what he does best. If I could point to a talent that he possesses, THAT would be it, (oh, and turning things into crap, that too). You are not in a very exclusive club. I think many of the other countries feel let down as well.
You do have my sympathies though. You must learn how to turn the page. The citizens here in the US are learning that particular talent as well.