As always: http://www.110stories.us
And your thought for the day, by way of Ronald Reagan: Are you better off today than you were four years ago?
Is our country safer? Are we prepared for another attack? Have we stopped funding our enemies by being energy independent? Is our financial house in order, or are we spending ourself into debt? Are we all pulling together, or are rich folks getting huge tax cuts while spending is slashed on essential programs? Are we ready to be serious, or are we going to keep letting underqualified clowns and hacks lead us into one disaster after another?
And what are you prepared to do about it?
UPDATE:
Say what you will about the sad, conservative, privatized, small government, small morals response of this Bush Administration to the catastrophic human disaster that is Hurricane Katrina and its long, terrible aftermath. It is very bad.
But it is not the greatest failing of the Bush presidency.
The greatest failing of the Bush presidency is the timid Federal response to the events of September 11, 2001 in New York, and Washington, and Pennsylvania.
Yes, timid.
For all the rhetoric, for all the political hay made with the phrase “9/11” – although I suspect Katrina has ended its evident effectiveness forever – for all the manly posturing, the bullhorns, the stately music and the photo opps, we have failed. And by we, I mean the national government we placed in power and indeed, reelected on the promise of security.
Because Osama bin Laden is at liberty. And he has been for four long years: a span of time longer than that between the attack on Pearl Harbor and the surrender of Imperial Japan on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Harbor. The political and moral will to kill or capture (and then kill, frankly) the 9/11 mastermind has dried up along with the crocodile tears shed by politicians who see those terrible attacks as mere political opportunity.
As the commander of chief of the United States military, the most powerful instrument of statecraft in the world, George W. Bush as failed in the central mission of a nation attacked.
Failed miserably, with oak leaf clusters for incompetence and timidity. The CEO President outsourced the killing of bin Laden to feuding tribes in medieval Afghanistan. According to the stunning account in today’s New York Times Magazine by Mary Ann Weaver, the Administration allowed just 36 Special Forces troops anywhere near the caves of Tora Bora where they knew – they knew! – Osama bin Laden and his closest aides were holed up in the early winter of 2001.
You want to weep on this clear blue September Sunday, four years later, as the names of the dead are once again read on every channel in New York City, read this:
The view prevailing among senior American military leaders was that overwhelming air power, suitcases full of cash and surrogate militias could win the war. The intricacies of Afghan tribal life appeared to elude everyone.
George Bush had the opportunity to lead his army against Osama bin Laden, and kill him. He did not choose to do so. Instead he used 9/11 as a poor excuse to attack Iraq, to our national detriment.
In short, the President shied at the fence, shirked his duty, displaying a brand of Neo-Conservative perfidy to be witnessed by the world.
(Via Tom Watson.)