Ohhhhh Shit God help us all, Does this wanker really believe that?
BUSH ON FINANCIAL CRISIS: IT'S A GOOD THING THAT I'M IN CHARGE
In Final Months in Office, Bush Is Burdened but Still Confident
WASHINGTON — George W. Bush began his presidency with the worst terrorist attack on American soil and he is ending it with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. In between, he confronted a hurricane that nearly wiped New Orleans off the map as his administration showed ineptitude in its response.
Now, as he spends his last months in office trying to avert a global economic collapse, Mr. Bush has been telling people privately that it’s a good thing he’s in charge.
“He said that if it was going to happen at all, he was glad it was happening under his presidency, because he had a good group of people in D.C. working for him,” Dru Van Steenberg, one of several small-business owners who met with Mr. Bush in San Antonio earlier this week. The president expressed the same sentiment, others said, during a similar private session in Chantilly, Va., the next day.
“He said that whoever was going to take over in January was going to have a huge crisis on their hands the day they come into office,” Ms. Van Steenberg added. “He thought by this happening now, that perhaps everyone could see signs of improvement before the next president comes into office.”
Mr. Bush will spend Saturday as the host of an extraordinary emergency meeting of international finance ministers at the White House. For him, the economic turmoil is the financial equivalent of 9/11 — a bookend to a presidency that has grappled with challenges brought on by terrorists, Mother Nature and two long-running wars. No longer will Iraq be the sole determinant of the Bush legacy; now the president’s fate is tied up in the economy as much as the war.
Mr. Bush has always been confident of himself, even when the American public was not, and that has not changed. Just as he is convinced he did the right thing in Iraq, he is convinced he is doing the right thing on the economy — despite job approval ratings at historic lows and a presidential campaign in which both candidates have used him as kind of a battering ram.
“He said that if it was going to happen at all, he was glad it was happening under his presidency, because he had a good group of people in D.C. working for him,” Dru Van Steenberg, one of several small-business owners who met with Mr. Bush in San Antonio earlier this week. The president expressed the same sentiment, others said, during a similar private session in Chantilly, Va., the next day.
“He said that whoever was going to take over in January was going to have a huge crisis on their hands the day they come into office,” Ms. Van Steenberg added. “He thought by this happening now, that perhaps everyone could see signs of improvement before the next president comes into office.”
Mr. Bush will spend Saturday as the host of an extraordinary emergency meeting of international finance ministers at the White House. For him, the economic turmoil is the financial equivalent of 9/11 — a bookend to a presidency that has grappled with challenges brought on by terrorists, Mother Nature and two long-running wars. No longer will Iraq be the sole determinant of the Bush legacy; now the president’s fate is tied up in the economy as much as the war.
Mr. Bush has always been confident of himself, even when the American public was not, and that has not changed. Just as he is convinced he did the right thing in Iraq, he is convinced he is doing the right thing on the economy — despite job approval ratings at historic lows and a presidential campaign in which both candidates have used him as kind of a battering ram.
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 1:39 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home