Come on Bush, Really? REALLY?

I had read an article about this Bush speech at the Economic Club of New York, but it didn't really do justice to how desperate this bozo is.

He opens with saying difficult choices had to be made to pursue terrorists and extremists because of 9.11 implying that it is directly involved with the impending depression. Unfortunately, the 52 months of "record" job growth up to recently was only a trickling reduction of the massive harm that post-9.11 panic caused to the markets and the further recovery of the post-dot.com era. He tries to take credit for that growth, which was caused largely by terrorism, meanwhile blaming terrorism for our current woes. Stalin would be impressed.

His next major point is that the upcoming tax rebate (of which I will get $600, but only after paying in another $5,076 in federal taxes) will spark consumer demand, and he even implies that the prospect of that money alone has a motivating effect on micro-economic decisions. I think that many people, if not most (certainly most of the people I know) will be using that rebate to pay their rent or mortgage just to postpone getting thrown on their duffs.

Next, this guy has the nerve to opine that all is normal, and that this is just the market correcting itself. How is it then, in this fantasy-land free-market he is imagining, that a $30bn bailout for Bear Stearns, a $200bn check for future bailouts, and most recently and absolutely hypocritical a blank check to act as quinine for the ulcerated tummies of the world's biggest gamblers.

Is this laissez faire? Is this market independence and full disclosure? Is the tiny print on mortgage contracts the reason a bank with $300 billion under management went under?

There is absolutely nothing redeeming about Bush or any of his appointees and cohorts any longer. There is no coherent domestic, foreign, or economic policy that is not in its essence intellectually fraudulent. Bush should have been impeached along with Cheney years ago, and our economy and our national polity is going to suffer greatly for years and decades to come, if we can ever recover.