Bush Is Leaving Office--and Taking the ESA with Him
Published November 20, 2008 @ 06:26AM PT
You're enormously unpopular, at home and abroad; your successor is widely adored, at home and perhaps even more abroad; and you have just a couple short months left to cement your legacy. What to do? What to do? Well, if you're George W. Bush, the answer is apparently easy: take your frustrations out on endangered animals and plants. If you're going to go down as reckless and inept and as the worst-ever-in-history president, you might as well embrace that fate and give it all you've got at the end, right? I mean, you want everyone to feel the damage you can do--right down to the wildlife who are barely holding on to existence and who might one day interfere with big business plans. Who are they to stand in the way of progress? Who are they to think they're entitled to something as silly and trivial as "habitat"? Am I right?
You, Almost Not President Bush, are a fair and equitable president. You are no speciesist. You're not going to screw over millions of humans and leave nonhumans out. No siree. Those animals can expect the same treatment their human cousins have been getting. In fact, you'll take it one step further--you'll disregard nonhuman animals and their interests even more.
Instinctively, I wanted to end this post with one word on one line:
Jackass.
But of course, I can't do that; as an animal rights advocate, I do my absolute best to avoid ever using a comparison to an animal as an insult--it is more an insult to the animal than it is to the human you're trying to cut down (to be discussed in a future post). So I pondered what other name I could call him--to whom or what would I personally least want to be compared? What embodies arrogance, shortsightedness, destructiveness, incompetence, broad offensiveness, and so much more? And then it came to me:
Bush.
Coulter was a close second.
Related links:
- Telegraph.co.uk: George W Bush may lift protections on endangered animals and plants
- New Yorker: Midnight Hour (quote: "What distinguishes this Administration in its final days—as in its earlier ones—is the purity of its cynicism. White House officials haven’t even bothered to argue that these new rules are in the public interest. Such a claim would, in any event, be impossible to defend, as just about every midnight regulation being proposed is, evidently, a gift to a favored industry.")
- AP: Dems look to stop endangered species rule changes
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Comments (9)
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Author
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Stephanie is an independent animal rights advocate, a vegan, a tree-hugging environmentalist, and a freelance editor and writer. She lives in St. Louis with an aging corgi-lab and an adolescent rescued pit bull.
Stephanie, you are my faorite blogger!! keep it up!
Posted by Wanda H. Shibles on 11/20/2008 @ 10:13AM PT
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Touche, Stephanie.
Posted by Ben Rattray on 11/20/2008 @ 02:00PM PT
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I've always been partial to calling Bush a douche nozzle.
Posted by Tara Wujcik on 11/21/2008 @ 03:04PM PT
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I hope the GWB administration's wildlife and habitat destruction laws and those brought in to muzzle and frighten dissenters are the first to be repealed!
Posted by Jeffrey A. on 11/21/2008 @ 08:29PM PT
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"Bufoon" insults no animal and is an accurate description of Bush. OMG, someone lock him up til Feb so he doesn't blow up the world.
Posted by Margo Johnson on 11/22/2008 @ 09:37AM PT
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The disrespect of President Bush is wrong. You disagree with him and that is fine but he is YOUR president just like I am stuck with Obama. However, I will not disrespect Obama. He will be MY president even though I feel I may disagree with most of his legislation. It is sad that the democrats were not and rarely have been willing to cross the aisle for the good of the nation. Sad!
Posted by Gary T on 11/24/2008 @ 06:58AM PT
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I am a Democrat, and I'm more than willing to cross the aisle for the good of the nation.. ...When it's for the GOOD of THE NATION. Unfortunately, with our current president, I haven't seen much of an aim to do what's good for our nation (or any other).
Posted by Lisa R on 11/26/2008 @ 07:56AM PT
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Bush has increased every type of social spending, has launched the first serious program to prevent/treat Aids, blocked ANWR drilling, and has been faced with the greatest threat to our national security since WW2. He has screwed up plenty, and all I can say is thank you for trying Mr. President, My prayers are with you and your family. God bless America
Posted by Charlie Reed on 11/26/2008 @ 09:45AM PT
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There's nothing to which, and no one to whom, Bush II can or should be compared without insulting whoever or whatever is on the other end of the comparison. Consider:
1. Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London, called him the worst threat to life on this planet, because he refused to sign Kyoto and continued to make pretty much the whole world mad at America, particularly Arabs, Muslims and others in the Middle East. The latter, considering it happened even after 9/11, is arguably the greatest diplomatic failure in human history.
2. He's the first president (I will not capitalize that "p"!) since Hoover to have lost jobs during his tenure -- even Nixon and Reagan created a few -- and the economic crisis we and the rest of the world face is the direct results of his policies, secrecy, abuse of power and cronyism. If you look at a simple chart of the Dow from the beginning of time to now, it zigzags basically upward until Bush II's tenure, when it turns down more sharply and for more months than ever before.
3. Half the Supreme Court is Bush-family appointees, all rabidly conservative, and it was one of these, Scalia, who single-handedly decided the 2000 "election", stealing it from the people and from a candidate who would have addressed aggressively energy and environment issues, whose need was desperate even then.
Therefore we should all continue to call him W -- for Worst.
Posted by J. Andrew Smith on 01/22/2009 @ 12:06PM PT
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