February 1, 2008

Richard Clarke on Bush's legacy

Bush legacy: Setting a standard in fear-mongering | Philadelphia Inquirer | 02/01/2008: "In order to defeat the violent Islamist extremists who do not believe in human rights, we need not give up the civil liberties, constitutional rights and protections that generations of Americans fought to achieve. We do not need to create Big Brother. With the administration's attempts to erode FISA's legal standing as the exclusive means by which our government can conduct electronic surveillance of U.S. persons on U.S. soil, this is unfortunately the path the president is taking us down.

So it is no surprise that in one of Bush's last acts of relevance, he once again played the fear card. While he has failed in spreading democracy, stemming global terrorism, and leaving the country better off than when he took power, he did achieve one thing: successfully perpetuating fear for political gain.

Sadly, it may be one of the only achievements of his presidency."

9 comments:

ANewAnglican@gmail.com said...

Who would have thought that the host of American Bandstand could be so eloquent on foreign policy?

But seriously, this is a good post. Have you read Clarke's book Against All Enemies yet? Highly recommended.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, Against All Enemies has a good beat and you can dance to it.

Streak said...

disco sucks.

ANewAnglican@gmail.com said...

Disco rules. Am I going to have to bust out ABBA's greatest hits again to prove it?

Streak said...

I guess it depends on which point you want to prove.

Ninjanun said...

I think his point is that "YOU can dance; YOU can da-hance!"

ANewAnglican@gmail.com said...

Nicely done, Ninjanun!

Bootleg Blogger said...

"Can you hear the drums, Fernando?" Anyone have any idea what that one was about?

I know lots of ABBA songs, or should I say, a line or two from alot of ABBA songs thanks to the K-Tel ABBA commercial years ago. Of course, that was pre-TV Remote when you had to actually leave the commercial on rather than surf around it.
Later-BB

Bootleg Blogger said...

"he did achieve one thing: successfully perpetuating fear for political gain."

I'm thinking this is one of the appeals that the Obama campaign has carried- the hope and anti-fear card. Perhaps Americans are hungry for someone in leadership who isn't scared, or at least isn't trying to make us scared.
BB