Squandering 911

Posted: Jun 9, 08 10:32am

There are a finite amount of "Presidential Moments" when a country needs more than just competence, but yearns for leadership, comfort, challenge and a catalyst for action. Some examples;

Lincoln's Gettyburg's Address

FDR's..." A day of Infamy"/declaration of war

JFK post sputnik, Race to Space

Were these great men or good men who made the most out of great moments?

Maybe a little of both.

There was no moment like 911 from a symbolic standpoint. The nation was ready, willing and able to support any direction necessary to properly respond to the attack.

In the short term, President Bush took full advantage of the domestic political opportunity but as we now know and can see he missed a historic and unprecedented opportunity to make strategic moves that would have provided a far more significant benefit to the USA and the world.

Megaphone in hand and with follow up in more logical next steps the President could have declared a turning point in our energy policy.

Had the energy, resolve and impact of that moment been used to galvanize the nation to "sacrifice" and "innovate" to rid ourselves of the need for oil, the world would be a better place.

Instead we have WAR with no perceived cost to citizens (expect for the horrific cost military families have paid). We put the War on our USA Credit card. There were no victory gardens, no rationing, nothing to slow the pace of our "consumer driven economy"...can't; have that.

What we got was corporate excesses advanced and protected by the state while citizens got restrictions to personal freedoms (however most did not put down their joy sticks long enough to consider the impact of those decisions). Secret meetings with energy companies and our VP under the guise of Presidential Priviledge. Congress calls big oil to testify but doesnt have the stones to "swear them in" nor investigate the voracity of their statements. As we head to unmitigated $5 a gallon gas. In fact Big Oil has run out of the usual "supply/demand" excuses and concedes speculators are in charge of the nations energy costs.

Had GWB taken a page out of the JFK play book and we had used the last 7 years to bring a full-court press on the energy challenges...we'd be one year away from the lunar landing.

We got convenient untruths from George while we swallowed the inconvenient contrived truths from Al.

The Democrats have been equally culpable in this fleecing of the citizens. In fact, they intend to "up the ante" by layering in schemes to charge us taxes for the energy we use.

We have no leader posied to take this threat to our nations economic and strategic interest to the appropriate level of engagement.

When politicians sell out the nation for their own advancement and enrichment...I thought the word for that was TREASON.

Our choice is which way we want to get F$##'d either the GOP's Big Oil Apologist which metaphorically requires vaseline (another petroleum based product go figure) or take it orally from the democrats and their "global warming tax plan". neither have the nations interest at heart and neither should be abided.

Unfortunately we continue to be under-engaged, under-educated, and otherwise distracted...just they way the politicians like us.

How far we have fallen from our Great Nation Status...analogies to Rome come to mind.

What could have been