Article: Why Bush is incompetent -- despite his successful reduction of govt. services

Well, I'm back from Afghanistan and -- after 48 hours in the air -- I am definitely jet-lagged. However, my friend Sonya just called and said, "Jane you HAVE to listen to KPFA. Chris Welsh is interviewing George Lakoff." Welcome home!

So I turned on the radio and Lakoff was saying that Progressives are claiming that Bush is incompetent because of his Katrina, Iraq, etc. failures. Lakoff stated that as far as Conservatives are concerned, however, Bush's "Let them eat cake" policies are SUCCESSFUL because Bush is reducing government and making us all fend for ourselves instead of relying on government for disaster aid. etc. You know. The old neo-con "drown it in the bathtub" theory of government.

According to Lakoff, Conservatives deliberately allowed FEMA to fall to pieces because Americans, not the government, should be paying to fix their own freaking levees and repair their own freaking roofs. Stop looking to the government for a hand-out. If you are flooded in Pennsylvania, too bad for you. You shoulda had some savings to cover the costs. Stop being a cry-baby. Suck it up. What would The Terminator do....

And in Iraq -- and DEFINITELY in Afghanistan -- the Conservatives have made the people there -- not the occupiers -- be responsible for reconstruction. Can't get more Conservative than that.

If you look at the Bush bureaucracy from this angle, it has been VERY successful. We (and the rest of the world) HAVE been left to fend for ourselves. And Bush HAS reduced government services.

But Bush is STILL an incompetent. Why? Because he has reduced government services FOR YOU AND ME. But he has not reduced government services for corporations. When corporations also have been cut adrift and forced to fend for themselves, then maybe we can start to talk about Bush's competence as a Conservative.

But, most important, Bush is an incompetent, even by Conservative standards, because he has NOT reduced taxes (except for millionaires and that doesn't count). If we are still paying taxes on services we are not receiving, then THAT IS FAILURE.

As long as there is still an April 15th but no reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan and no levee repair here, then Bush and his Conservative buddies are incompetent. Period. End of discussion.

PS: Speaking of incompetence, I need your help. Yahoo is making it harder and harder for me to use my address book. I want to change to an e-mail provider that will let me send out what I want to send out and to send it to who I want to send it to. Any suggestions? G-mail? Earthlink? Something that is simple enough for a techno-dunce like me to use and that is free?