Six Years Later – A Failed Presidency
Author: Richard Stoyeck

President Bush came into office with great promise, and the
reality has been one failure after another, and this is coming
from a writer who was a conservative Republican before the
President knew what the term meant. Let's use former President
Ronald Reagan's requirements for a successful Presidency. Do
you remember the last debate between then President Jimmy
Carter and candidate Reagan? The former Republican Governor of
California asked the American people in closing if they thought
they were better off today in 1980, than they were when
President Carter took office four years earlier in January of
1977. The following Tuesday, the American people threw the
failed President from Georgia out of office in a landslide.

Here we are now six years into another Presidency, and the only
thing that I believe has been successful about this Presidency
is the fact that the Dow Jones Industrial Average is somewhat
above the same level it was in 2000 when this President was
elected. Let's look at a few of the big issues this President
has faced and to which he has reacted poorly in resolving.

1) The tragedy of 9/11 – Six years later, Osama Bin Laden the
direct murderer of almost 3000 Americans remains FREE, and
unencumbered by the United States military. Do we still have
military units assigned to hunting him down? There is not a
word in the press about it if we do.

2) Making America SAFER in response to terrorism – Do you
really believe we are safer? I for one believe that no American
passenger airplane will ever be taken hostage again by
terrorists. I believe this only because of the American
passengers on board who will react immediately to a hostage
situation, not because of the marshal program but because
Americans still remember how to defend themselves, and they
will. As for planes crashing into buildings, do you really
think all those FED EX, UPS, and US Postal Service planes are
secure? Do you think private corporate aircraft are secure?
What about the tens of thousands of private airplanes in
America?

Recently a private airplane in NY flew up the East River, made
a U-Turn and crashed into an apartment building on the East
Side of Manhattan. Nobody realized what was going on until the
crash occurred. As a result the government has not banned
flights up the East River. It's kind of late, don't you think?

3)The Docks are not safe – How difficult would it be for a
terrorist group to sneak a low yield nuclear weapon into this
country aboard one of the tens of thousands of merchant
transport ships that bring cargo into this country each year?
Only a small percentage of the cargo is inspected.

4) Subway and Bus System still completely exposed – The
terrorist acts in Madrid and London in the last several years
exposed flaws in our own public transportation systems that
have not been addressed. Do you really think that terrorists
carrying backpacks with explosives in them would have any
problem getting on a NYC bus or subway car, and committing
their insane acts?

5) Hurricane Katrina – This terrible tragedy exposed government
ineptness, and lack of responsiveness. There were bodies of
American citizens floating down the Mississippi River in the
streets of New Orleans, and this is the 21st century. FEMA
which is the Federal Emergency Management Association proved to
be completely incapable of handling, or even helping in this
crisis. Do you really believe that these inadequacies have been
addressed? If chemical or biological warfare were used against
the United States by terrorists, do you think that we would
have anything approaching an adequate response to such an
attack? I don't believe it.

6) Initial Iraq decision making process – You have got to be
kidding us, Mr. President. We know in retrospect that there
were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and Saddam Hussein
posed no direct threat to America. In other words, he was not
going to attack us. The basis for the war was in error, and I
personally supported it. We have wasted 3000 American lives
during the invasion, and 3000 subsequent to the invasion in
ERROR, plus 30,000 men who have been injured including terrible
losses of their limbs.

7) Post Invasion decision making - Wow, could it really have
been worse? Could the people reporting to the President have
done a poorer job in post war Iraq, if they had wanted to? We
had the unnecessary disbanding of the Iraqi army, to the
throwing out of the Sunni civil servants that knew how to run
the day to day government operations. We then installed the
Shia civil servants who had not run the government in several
hundred years. The whole thing was a series of colossal, could
have been ANTICIPATED mistakes. Our window of opportunity to do
the right thing has now passed. The American electorate has lost
its patience with this President, and this war. Our options are
running out, and there is no good ending in site for us.

8) Largest deficits in American history – You have got to be
kidding when this man calls himself a conservative President.
There is nothing conservative whatsoever about his spending
policies. He has systematically outspent every one of his
predecessors in history to the tune of trillions of dollars. He
has not vetoed one Congressional spending act – first time in
history. His prescription drug bill for seniors is costing
almost $50 billion dollars per year more than it should because
he included overpayments to drug companies, and created
unnecessary giveaways to insurance companies to act as
intermediaries in the program. Who would have believed that a
Republican President would do such a thing?

9) Tax policies that don't make sense – I believe in the lowest
rate of taxation possible. I do not believe that you cut taxes
for the rich in a time of deficit, borrow the money from Japan,
China, and Europe to fund the deficits, and then send tax refund
checks to the richest 2 percent of the population with the
borrowed funds. Furthermore, I do not believe that the very
rich in our society believe you should do this either. Yet,
that's what the President has done, an act of fiscal
irresponsibility at best, and insanity at worst.

You figure it out for yourself. Look at the above and it equals
a failed Presidency. All of this from a man who has never once
consulted his father as to what he should do about Iraq. Both
men have stated that they have not talked about it. This is a
President that still can't talk about issues, or give even a
minor speech without READING the entire prewritten document. He
is that uncomfortable in his own skin. How will we survive
another two years of this kind of leadership?


About The Author: Richard Stoyeck's background includes being a
limited partner at Bear Stearns, Senior VP at Lehman Brothers,
Kuhn Loeb, Arthur Andersen, and KPMG. Educated at Pace
University, NYU, and Harvard University, today he runs
Rockefeller Capital Partners and http://StocksAtBottom.com
http://www.stocksatbottom.com