I finished reading Bushwacked on the plane ride back from Auckland to LA. The book was a very fast and very good read. The book is a sequel to Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush. Ivins and Dubose focus on the first 3 years of the Bush administration, primarily using his history in Texas as a basis to explain his policies and actions as President. The book has a great mix of anecdotes and history mixed with the right amount of humor to keep things moving along.

It really is a credit to them that they can be funny because the book could be pretty depressing. From conservative activist judges who ignore any sane interpretation of the law to industry lobbyists who are now regulating their former industries, it can be a pretty daunting list. If they weren’t funny, I’m not sure I could’ve finished the book. Trust me, they’re funny (and the couple sitting next to me on the plane probably figured that out too).

The most important thing, however, is that I learned quite a bit from this book. That’s saying something considering I’ve read a lot about this administration and their policies. Most of what I learned came in the form of specific examples of corruption within the administration, specific details of program failures in Texas that Bush is trying to implement nationally (while touting them as successes), and results of FOIA requests instead of broad allegations. It’s worth giving a read before you head out to the polls in November.

Why it matters

During the Super Bowl party someone came up to me and asked me how things were going, aside from me being angry about Bush. They meant it as a joke, but it stuck with me the rest of the evening. I hate the idea that people just see me as angry for its own sake. I’ve been thinking about this for a while and something in the book gave me a perfect example to explain how I feel. There’s a section in the book that I want to highlight:

Following September 11 the administration appeared to reverse much of its earlier policy. … The whole world was with us. WE ARE ALL AMERICANS NOW was the headline in France’s Le Monde on September 12. French citizens covered the American Embassy in Paris with flowers, often accompanied by touching notes with references to World Wars I and II. … For the first time, NATO invoked Article V of its charter, committing all members to side with the United States under attack. … France, Germany, Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Canada, Spain, Norway, Albania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, and Romania all sent troops to Afghanistan and helped pay for the war there. (pp253-254)

As I read the Le Monde headline, I actually choked up. I’m not kidding, nor am I really embarrassed to admit it. It brought back to the surface the horror of that day and the realization that we had a moment then, one of those once in a lifetime moments where the world was united. I get choked up because I love this country, I appreciate what it stands for, and I recognize the opportunities that it has afforded me and my family. I get choked up because it makes me so sad to think of what this President and what this administration did with that opportunity. They took it and they flushed it down the toilet. Instead we ended up with Freedom Fries and the set of lies that took us into Iraq, lost us significant favor around the world, all for a war that seems to have been foisted on the people of the United States for false reasons.

I just ordered Richard Clarke’s new book, Against All Enemies: Inside the White House’s War on Terror. If you didn’t know Clarke was the counter-terrorism czar under Clinton and then Bush. He’s been involved in government since the Reagan administration, at least. Al Franken wrote about him in Lies when describing Operation Ignore, Franken’s name for the Bush de-emphasis of terrorism during the first 8 months of their administration (we all know what happened in the 9th month).

Well, Congress is now asking former Clinton officials to testify in front of Congress to shed light on the transition between Clinton and Bush. Clarke is one of those officials. Here’s a preview of what he might say to Congress. This is from tonight’s TV interview on 60 minutes (to publicize his book):

After the president returned to the White House on Sept. 11, he and his top advisers, including Clarke, began holding meetings about how to respond and retaliate. As Clarke writes in his book, he expected the administration to focus its military response on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. He says he was surprised that the talk quickly turned to Iraq.

“Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq,” Clarke said to Stahl. “And we all said … no, no. Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb Afghanistan. And Rumsfeld said there aren’t any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq. I said, ‘Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it.

“Initially, I thought when he said, ‘There aren’t enough targets in– in Afghanistan,’ I thought he was joking.

“I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection, but the CIA was sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting there saying we’ve looked at this issue for years. For years we’ve looked and there’s just no connection.”

Clarke says he and CIA Director George Tenet told that to Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

You can get more on Clarke at Atrios and at Josh Marshall’s TPM.

So, why am I angry? Because this administration lies and cheats more than any other administration in recent history. I’m angry because this country stood at a fork in the road. We could’ve taken steps to cement peace and go after terrorism with meaningful policies and speed. Instead, we got the Axis of Evil, Freedom Fries, the Patriot Act, and Bush’s Excellent Iraq Adventure.