WHAT WE KNOW about Bush Administration deux after a little over one week:
- You shouldn’t boycott the “W” hotel chain just because it uses the same initial.
- The guy’s got all Reagan’s weaknesses (oversimplified worldviews, lack of strategic thinking, general wussiness toward big-money hustlers) without any of Reagan’s strengths (the abilities to give a stirring speech and wear a good suit).
- Clinton was an apologetic champion for corporate raiders, consolidators, questionable financiers, and environmental rapiers. Bush fils will continue these same destructive policies, just without the apologies.
- That “bipartisan,” “building,” and “unity” talk was just talk. But you knew that already.
- He’s not a religious-right idealogue, but he willingly goes through a rote routine of pandering to them: Sticking it to Planned Parenthood; shafting public schools in order to shunt govt. $$ to private schools; letting John Ashcroft play the Bad Cop far-right hothead (and possibly sacrificing the guy in the Senate confirmations).
I predict: He’ll see how much stink these actions raise; then, if they raise sufficient stink, he’ll pretend to be reluctantly disappointed as he backs off from the positions he’s now pretending to uphold.
- He was more passionate about becoming President than about actually doing anything thereafter.
He’s a dealmaker, the kind of business tycoon who accomplishes power-building transactions, then lets others sort out the resulting operations. (Except he’s generally gotten along in business (and Texas statehouse politics) because of his name, and let other guys do even the dealmaking details.)
He’ll play out his term as an affable head of state, kowtowing to whatever national agenda Federal Reserve head Alan Greenspan pushes–just like Clinton eventually did.
- “Liberal” media? Bah! The NY Times did just a thorough job of deliberately ignoring the inauguration protests as the Fox News Channel did.
NEXT: What’s wrong with Playboy isn’t what feminists think is wrong with it.
IN OTHER NEWS: If you haven’t noticed, I’ve cut out about a third of the clutter around the left and right sides of this page. If anyone still has trouble loading the site properly, please let me know.
ELSEWHERE:
- Exactly a year ago in these virtual pages, almost, I joked about ex-radical intellectuals raking in big bucks for their now-conservative views. According to the academic journal Lingua Franca, this trend may be reversing (found by Robot Wisdom)….
