Last night on ABC News, President George W. Bush denied any responsibility for the financial crisis the country is now going through. He was interviewed by Charlie Gibson, and was given a free pass to say whatever he wanted without being challenged even a smidgen. (See interview here.)
Gibson asked: “Do you feel in any way responsible for what is happening (in the economy)?”
What a question — “In any way responsible” — for crying out loud, Bush has been president for eight years and for six of those years he has had complete control of the federal government. Is he in any way, maybe, just maybe, just a tiny bit responsible? What a goofy question.
Gibson’s question should have been something like: “How in the world could you have allowed this to happen on your watch?”
But in response to the softball pitch he was given, Bush answered: “When history of this period is written people will realize that a lot of the decisions made on wall street took place over a decade or so before I arrived as president.”
Huh? Amazingly, Gibson let the whole thing slide. Does ABC or anybody paying attention think this is journalism? Compared to mush headed Gibson, Katie Couric is a tiger.
Bush has been president for the last eight years and, evidently, he would like for us to believe that the important factors causing the present degradation of our economy happened when Bill Clinton was president. The absurdity of Bush’s arrogance and the gull of his fantasy thinking is astounding. But more astounding is Charlie Gibson’s role in allowing such nonsense to go unchallenged. Evidently, Gibson thinks it’s his job, in these latter days of Bush, to sanction and give respectability to whatever propaganda fantasy nonsense Bush wants to lay out.
Gibson should have asked any number of questions. Here are a few: “Do you think that fighting two expensive wars, while giving tax breaks worth hundreds of billions to the most wealthy, has anything to do with the destruction of today’s economy? Do you think that taking us over three trillion dollars in additional debt just might have had some negative impact on the economy? Do you think that this crisis of confidence in the market is somehow happening detached from the crisis of confidence in your administration? Do you think you deregulation that allowed your rich cronies, corrupt lobbyist, powerful corporations have free rein in the market had anything to do with the plight in which we find ourselves in today?”
,P.
