LEFT OF THE RIGHT: President Bush’s Last News Conference... “Sometimes You Have (Misunderestimated) Me”

In the last news conference President George W. Bush held as president he did not disappoint those who have come to relish the mutilation of the English language that has come to be one of the trade mark quirks that define our outgoing President. Who could ever forget words like "strategery" or "hispanically" and "subliminable." And of course "nucular" which has been mispronounced by many politicians. But what many do not know is that the 43rd president actually pronounced the word nuclear as "nucular" on purpose. That's right, despite the resignation by his vocal coach, GW mispronounced the word purposefully because he thought it made him sound folksy. His vocal coach said it made him sound like an idiot.

But the most revealing thing about this last news conference was that George W. Bush is as delusional today as he was the day he took office. Remember phrases like "compassionate conservative" and "I'm a uniter not a divider." Oh, by the way "uniter" isn't a word either. Turned out that they were just words because if he did have any actual intention of being these things, he failed miserably.

Our outgoing president still believes that his foreign policy was correct and states emphatically that he has no regrets. While acknowledging that being wrong about the existence of WMD's in Iraq was disappointing he still clings to the idea that by introducing democracy to the region the result will be more stable, western friendly governments in the Middle East. Bush calls it "introducing" democracy, but the people of that region are more likely to refer to it as having it shoved down their throats at gunpoint. I wonder if Bush 43 has ever contemplated the fact that a democratic country WAS established in the Middle East way back in 1948 and the most significant result has been pretty much a constant state of war in that region ever since. And that when we established a democratic government in Iraq the region had become even more violent and unstable.

Another delusion Bush revealed was when he was defending the Federal governments role in the aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans. He chided critics who called the governments response to that disaster slow by reminding everyone that "30,000 people were plucked off roofs the next day." Well, I'm not sure about the 30,000 figure, but does it not occur to him that maybe, just maybe those folks should have been evacuated "before" that hurricane hit. Apparently he does not remember that those with means were gone long before the storm hit. That those who had to be "plucked" from their roofs were there because they were poor and had no way to escape because the "government" was in reactive mode instead of proactive mode.

Another of Bush's delusions has to do with his tax cuts. In the news conference he defended the cuts claiming the economy would be in worse shape if they had not been made. To this correspondent it is very sad that the Republicans simply cannot be honest about their obsession with tax cuts. They pay lip service to the idea that tax cuts are beneficial to the economy in general, but their true motivation is the ideology that taxes represent a redistribution of wealth. And to the political Right, that amounts to theft.

But Bush's most significant delusion had to do with a question posed about why he thought many of his critics were so passionate about their opposition. In his answer Bush cited that he had met with many who opposed his policies but were civil about it. He did acknowledge that "some" were angry, but he could not answer as to why. Mr. soon to be ex-President, do you think that perhaps sending over 4,000 of our citizens to die in an ideological war might have angered a few? Or perhaps the fact that you've bankrupt our moral reputation internationally and set the causes of environmental protection and human rights back by decades could have angered a few? The bottom line is that the outgoing president doesn't get it. He didn't get it when he came into office and he doesn't get it now. Being stupid is not a virtue regardless of how folksy it is.

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Devin Barber, Politics Correspondent

Devin's column, "Left Of The Right" published weekly or more to Gather Essentials: Politics is a Blue Collar Democrats take on current political news.

Devin was raised by proud Roosevelt Democrats. Being the son of parents counted among the throng of Americans displaced by the Great Depression has given Devin a deep rooted passion for causes dealing with the poor and the working class.

You can find all of Devin's columns at http://gather.com/leftoftheright

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