It was genuinely sad to see George Herbert
Walker Bush cry, not out of pride for Jeb Bush,
but out of horror for what has become of the
George W. Bush Presidency.
It is even more sad to see American Gold Star
mothers, with sons and daughters who pay the
price for his extremism, ignorance and vanity.
Today, with Messrs. Baker and Hamilton before
the Congress almost desperately looking for a
way out of a war they believe is catastrophic,
dire and deteriorating President Bush told the
Nation: he is not satisifed with the pace of progress in Iraq.
Not satisfied with the pace of progress?
With the sun setting on his unfortunate Prime
Ministership, with the frozen smile of his sad
sycophancy locked on his face, the man who
received the Downing Street Memo warnings
stood nodding by his side.
Together they repeated the same old tales of
the same old songs. The same old rhetoric.
The same old excuses. The same old rationale
with the same old refusal to tell the people the
truth.
The historians miss the point. They debate
whether George W. Bush is the worst President
in American history. With six years done, I
believe he is, but that does not fully address
the magnitude of what is happening.
I would put before the house this proposition:
that George W. Bush is the first catastrophic
President in American history. Even Richard
Nixon at his worst, was a capable foreign policy
President who opened the door to China, made
negotiating progress with the Soviet Union,
and with his many crimes and failures did not
endanger world security.
America today stands on the brink of an arc
of chaos, crisis, bloodshed and religious war
that not only engulfs Iraq but could engulf the
entire Middle East. For the first time in history
our President cannot credibly be called the
leader of the free world; in fact he has angered
and alienated the overwhelming majority of
people throughout the free world.
Not satisfied with the pace of progress in Iraq?
The truth about official Washington is this: the
one area of bipartisan consensus is that people
across the aisles ask whether this President is
dangerously close to crossing a Captain Queeg
line as a leader who sails further and further
away from a rational and sane understanding
of the damage he does.
This is not new. There is no more bipartisan
advocate than me, and I promise you: this
question has been privately asked by senior
Republicans for several years, but to their
eternal shame and discredit, they let it happen.
Someday historians will look back on the era
of one party Republican rule with astonishment
at the depth that official Washington sunk to, the corruptions that
permeated our capital, the core attacks on our Constitution and Bill of
Rights by President asserting the unilateral power to violate them, by
the demeaning character assassination of this President's politics, when
war heroes were called traitors, and great newspapers were charged with
treason.
Someday historians will look back on this era
with academic rage that a war was started by
a President who knew nothing and cared nothing about the world on the
day he assumed
the Presidency. Who was enraptured by the
extremism of ignorant ideologues, who used
war for partisan gain through slanders that were
orchestrated by spinmeisters and hacks.
Someday historians will look back with disgust
at a president who publicly humiliated generals who warned him, while he
pinned medals of
freedom on the chests of the architects of this
catastrophe. Who let the pertetrator of 9-11 get away to start an
unecessary and disastrous war with a country that had nothing to do with
9-11, then sent out his minions with tall tales about
mushroom clouds and smoking guns.
Someday historians will look back with horror
at the Stone Age ethics of an Administration
that became a clearing house for torture, and
a whore house for war profiteering in which
fat men with fat wallets let young men and
women die in the sands of Arabia, while they
stuffed their pockets and larded their greed.
Not satisfied with the state of progress in Iraq?
The Baker and Hamilton Commission was a
good and noble undertaking, that will make a
difference and hopefully set the stage for a
major change. But Baker and Hamilton, while
the best that the Establishment has to offer,
are fundamentally offering an improved version
of a catastrophic status quo.
People must understand this: the issue is not
merely whether President Bush is the worst
President in history, it is whether he is the first
truly catastrophic President in history.
I truly, deeply, sincerely, hope that he can be
pulled back from the brink because the stakes
are too high for our country and our world. The
stakes are too high for the men and women
who die, the Gold Star Mothers who cry, and
the carnage, bloodshed and religious war that
is spreading throughout the Middle East and
will not be stopped by well-intentioned versions
of a catastrophic policy, pursuing a disastrous
war, with a President surrounded by carnage
who says: he is not satisfied by its progress.
One of the smug, supercilious courtiers on the
President's staff said today that Jim Baker
should return to his day job. The truth is the
exact opposite: Jim Baker and others like him
should be sent on a historic mission to the
Middle East, and Americans hunger and thirst
for the day when our catastrophic President
takes his leave from office.
I repeat my call: the President and Democratic
Leaders should return to active duty the living
former Presidents of the United States, most
especially George Herbert Walker Bush and
William Jefferson Clinton, to work with leaders
throughout the free world for a new policy that
can lead where there is now catastrophe, that
can bring light where there is now darkness,
that can bring hope where there is now death
and despair that is dire and deteriorating.
Our current President should name them, the
Democratic Leaders should demand them, the
American people and the world can not afford
to endure two more years of dire, deadly and
deteriorating disaster.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have entered some
very dangerous waters, and something that is
profoundly different is urgently needed.























































































