Friday, May 30, 2003

A list by Brad DeLong from an essay on why Mickey Kaus and Bush are wrong


The Semi-Daily Journal --

1 Why didn't the Bush administration take steps to break up manipulation of prices in the energy market in 2001?
2 Why didn't the Bush administration move more quickly and effectively to punish miscreants and restore confidence when it became clear that lots of people who worked for George W. Bush's friend "Kenny Boy" and lots of others were faking their corporate accounts?
3 Why did the Bush administration impose a steel tariff?
4 Why did the Bush administration push for a farm bill that reversed the progress toward agricultural subsidy reform that Newt Gingrich (in one of his few good deeds) and others had accomplished in the 1990s?
5 Why is Afghanistan such a mess today, and the Bush administration so unwilling to "do nation building" in Afghanistan?
6 Why were Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction not where the Bush administration believed them to be?
7 Why did we attack Iraq without sufficient forces to rapidly search for and secure weapons of mass destruction (if any) before they were carried off by bandits and others who might want to sell them to Al Qaeda?
8 Why did we attack Iraq without the forces or a plan to keep civil order in the country?
9 Why have we gone to such pains to annoy and alienate every single one of our allies? I mean, when the President of Mexico won't take a call from the President of the United States, something is very wrong.
10 Why does Ariel Sharon feel that he can blow off every U.S. request designed to make the "roadmap for peace" more than a scrap of paper?
11 Why has there been next to no progress on the Doha Round?
12 Why do developing countries find that their access to the pharmaceuticals they need is still largely blocked?

Now none of these are cases in which the Bush administration's view of the national interest and national welfare of the United States is different from mine. These are all cases in which we agree on what would be good. All of these are cases in which the incompetence of the Bush administration is truly breathtaking. And its failure to prepare to deal with a liquidity trap is one more powerful and important reason why this particular bunch of bums should never have been elected, and should be thrown out as quickly as possible.

Check the great comments to this a s well.

No comments: