Bush Signs Act of Contrition
I've been as tough a critic of the administration as anyone, but sometimes you have to give credit where credit is due. I never thought I'd see the day, but this press release says it all:
PRESIDENT BUSH SIGNS ACT OF CONTRITION
President Bush today signed Executive Order #152487, also known as the Presidential Act of Contrition. The Order expresses his deep remorse, profound regret and sincere apologies for the errors, deceptions, and acts of revenge that have come to define his life and career. “Like the Papal, I believed I was inflammable. Now I want change that and say to all Americans, ‘my bad.’”
The President confirmed that the Act arose from both current events and recent counsel from his close spiritual advisor, the Reverend Billy Graham. “A few weeks back, Reverend Graham asked me if I was right with God,” said the President. “When I hesitated, he told me to use Lent and the Easter season for soul-searching and repentance. So, I gave up vengeance, duplicity, hubris and chocolate for Lent and decided to move past step 8 of my 12-step program, making amends.” In addition, the President cited both the nation’s overwhelmingly negative response to his intrusion in the Terri Schiavo tragedy and the Silberman-Robb commission’s evisceration of his Iraq war rationale as factors in “coming clean with the American people.”
The Act of Contrition, signed in a small, closed-door ceremony in the Oval Office, highlighted five areas of “accountability and penance” for President Bush. These include restoring international trust in America, speaking honestly about domestic policy, improving his relationship with media, reaching out to political opponents, and bringing a tone of civility to Washington. The President also spoke of desire to atone for his “reckless youth”...
The full text of the press release follows here, but you can also get a PDF version here. _____________________________________________
For Immediate Release
Orifice of the Press Secretary
April 1, 2005
PRESIDENT BUSH SIGNS ACT OF CONTRITION
Executive Order Declares Across the Board “My Bad”
President Bush today signed Executive Order #152487, also known as the Presidential Act of Contrition. The Order expresses his deep remorse, profound regret and sincere apologies for the errors, deceptions, and acts of revenge that have come to define his life and career. “Like the Papal, I believed I was inflammable. Now I want change that and say to all Americans, ‘my bad.’”
The President confirmed that the Act arose from both current events and recent counsel from his close spiritual advisor, the Reverend Billy Graham. “A few weeks back, Reverend Graham asked me if I was right with God,” said the President. “When I hesitated, he told me to use Lent and the Easter season for soul-searching and repentance. So, I gave up vengeance, duplicity, hubris and chocolate for Lent and decided to move past step 8 of my 12-step program, making amends.” In addition, the President cited both the nation’s overwhelmingly negative response to his intrusion in the Terri Schiavo tragedy and the Silberman-Robb commission’s evisceration of his Iraq war rationale as factors in “coming clean with the American people.”
The Act of Contrition, signed in a small, closed-door ceremony in the Oval Office, highlighted five areas of “accountability and penance” for President Bush. These include restoring international trust in America, speaking honestly about domestic policy, improving his relationship with media, reaching out to political opponents, and bringing a tone of civility to Washington. The President also spoke of desire to atone for his “reckless youth.”
Reaching Out to Political Foes
In the Act of Contrition, President Bush extended an olive branch to his political opponents, apologizing for what he called “my past as an evil-doer.” His expressed his regrets to:
• Ann Richards, for his campaign labeling her “a drunk” during his successful 1994 Texas gubernatorial race.
• John McCain, for allowing Bush operatives during the 2000 South Carolina primary to call him anti-Catholic, claim that he had a black baby, to state that his wife was a drug addict, and broadcast that he betrayed his country during his Hanoi captivity.
• Al Gore, noting that the Vice President was “pretty much right” about the massive upward wealth redistribution of the Bush tax plan, the devastating impact of Social Security privatization, and other things he labeled as “fuzzy math” in 2000.
• Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords, for snubbing him after the 2001 tax debate, leading to Jefford’s bolting the GOP.
• Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife, CIA agent Valerie Plame, for “Turd Blossom [Karl Rove] busting on ‘em” over the administration’s bogus Niger yellow cake uranium claims.
• Richard Clarke, for being called “that little fop” (Laura Ingraham), “misogynistic snit” (Ann Coulter) and “a woman scorned” (Dennis Miller) for his clear assessment of the administration’s feeble anti-terrorism efforts.
• John Kerry, for allowing the slanders and libels of the Nixon hatchet man John O’Neill and the Swift Boat crowd to proceed with his condemnation.
• John Kerry, for calling him “a flip-flopper”. The President noted the “ironititicy of calling Kerry that” given that “I pretty much went both ways” on the 9/11 commission, the Iraq WMD commission, the Medicare prescription drug benefit, the creation of the Homeland Security Department, steel tariffs, engagement with North Korea, CO2 emissions caps, engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Condi Rice 9/11 commission testimony, and “a bunch of other stuff.”
• All Americans for making Katherine Harris a national figure.
Bringing a Tone of Civility
The President noted that “among my greatest regretments” was his failure to bring a new “tone of civility” to Washington, as he promised in 2000. President Bush noted that:
• “The Hebrews” were right to be upset about his 1993 admonition to Israeli Jews that “You’re all going to hell.”
• He should have called the Vice President “a major league a**hole” for Mr. Cheney’s declaration to Vermont Senator Pat Leahy to “go f**k yourself.”
• He will stop smiling or smirking at grotesquely inappropropriate moments, such as his obvious self-satisfaction during the second debate with Al Gore when he stated that the Jasper, Texas killers “would be put to death.”
• He would own up to his “bulge augmentation” during both his USS Abraham Lincoln “Mission Accomplished” speech and during the first 2004 debate with John Kerry.
• Rubbing bald men’s heads was “more of my mischiefication” which would stop by Lent, 2006.
Restoring International Trust
The Presidential Act of Contrition also shows the Commander-in-Chief’s remorse for his role in the declining international trust in the United States and the dramatic decay of its traditional alliances. The President declared that:
• He was responsible for the over-reaction to the non-existent Iraqi threat of weapons of mass destruction, noting, “I did not want the smoking cloud to be a mushroom gun.”
• General Eric Shinseki was right, and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were “off by orders of magnitude” regarding the troop levels needed to secure the peace in post-war Iraq.
• “Rummy calling them ‘Old Europe’ was really a bad idea.”
• He used the term “axis of evil” in reference to Iraq, Iran and North Korea just to get David Frum to shut up.
• Former National Security Advisor and now Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was “being a punk ass” when she said that U.S. foreign policy should consist of punishing France, ignoring Germany and helping Russia.
• “I believe it was called ‘Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.’, too.”
• Turning his back on the Kyoto Protocols, the Land Mine Treaty and the International Criminal Court was “fun”, but not “being neighborly.”
• Global warming “must be real”, if the Pentagon is already planning war-fighting scenarios in a U.S. where Des Moines, Iowa is on the East Coast.
• His total reliance on Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress resulted from the President “being behind on my mail.”
• He never actually looked in to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s soul, but was instead hallucinating after a meal of rancid borscht.
Speaking Honestly About Domestic Policy
The President’s apologies and desire for redemption are most poignant in the area of domestic policy, where “the Democrats are kicking our ass.” President Bush’s Act of Contrition includes:
• Acknowledgement that his Social Security privatization plan will create a $2 trillion budget hole over the next decade, and was designed only to undermine the greatest Democratic success story of the New Deal.
• An admission that well over one-third of his first term tax cuts went to richest 1% of Americans, just as Al Gore said.
• Confirmation that the Tommy Thompson’s Department of Health and Human Services knowingly withheld the true $550 billion price tag of its Medicare prescription drug plan from Congress.
• Disclosure that the President possesses incriminating barnyard photographs of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan from 1969, images central to Greenspan’s congressional testimony in favor of the Bush tax cuts, deficit spending and Social Security plan.
• Recognition that the Faith-Based Initiative was designed to pay the cost of the President’s 1976 DWI.
• An apology for John Ashcroft, period.
• Ken Lay and Enron, too.
• Details of his confusion over the Patriot Act, which he thought “was a play about the 2001 Super Bowl champs.”
Atoning for the Recklessness of Youth
In a reflective and magnanimous gesture, the President in the Act also “owned up” to his behavior during his “reckless youth”, a period that he estimated had concluded “sometime in 1999.” He expressed remorse for his actions during this time of temptation, which included:
• Failing to report for his required Air National Guard service in 1972-73, a period when he instead served as a roadie for Lynrd Skynrd and was an exotic dancer at the White Hood Lounge in Dothan, Alabama.
• Admitting that his Harken Energy windfall was “obviously insider trading” concealed by his father’s connections at the SEC and the law firm of Baker-Botts.
• Acknowledging his own frivolous lawsuit against Enterprise Rent-A-Car.
• Doing cocaine in his past. Though he acknowledged “being born with a silver spoon up my nose”, President Bush said his past drug use occurred “more than two hands-worth of fingers ago.”
• “Sticking” the residents of Arlington, Texas with the bill for the Rangers’ new stadium, which let him parlay a $900,000 investment into a $15 million payoff. (The proceeds from that sale went, the President grudgingly admitted, towards “Jack Daniels’ shares.”)
Improving Relations with the Media
Fostering a new relationship of openness, honesty and accessibility with the White House press corps is a centerpiece of the Executive Order. President Bush announced an end to many past White House media practices and promised to clarify others for the GAO, including:
• Acknowledgement that fake journalist and male prostitute Jeff Gannon was being pimped out of the Oval Office. The President admitted, “I was behind Jeff Gannon.”
• Halting payments to other journalistic mouthpieces and prostitutes like Armstrong Williams.
• The outing of a gay Canadian reporter.
• Holding the fewest full press conferences of any modern president.
• Staging rigged town hall meetings with invitation-only Bush sycophants in attendance.
• Using the Secret Service to bar potential Bush opponents from attending presidential events and “raising heckles.”
• Apologizing for Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan as “insults to the intelligentsia of the American people.”
• Admitting that “I’m kinda scared” of Karen Hughes.
• Ending the use of fake video news releases to sell the Medicare prescription benefit and other administration policies.
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