Bush-Cheney administration

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This page covers the actions of George W. Bush's administration while he was President of the United States.

Actions

• Spent $1.62 billion on advertising in 2.5 years (see [1]), an apparently unprecedented amount
• Has been less effective at rebuilding Iraq (despite multibillion-dollar levels of funding) post-invasion than Iraqis were in rebuilding it themselves (despite sanctions) after the 1991 war [2]
• Appears to be encouraging the spread of evangelism in the armed forces [3] (mirror @truthout); also [4] (need to find the actual wording to see just how innocuous it is...)
• Changed a $5 trillion budget surplus into a $5 trillion budget deficit in only four years (while continuing to reiterate the ever-popular big lie about "tax-and-spend Liberals") – see US Presidential Administration Budgets)
• Apparently stole millions of dollars from the Iraqi government [5] [6]
• The No Child Left Behind Act
• The USA PATRIOT Act
• The Invasion & Occupation of Iraq, which was carried through under false premises
• Persistent reports of torture by US military and officials
• Lackadaisical response to Hurricane Katrina
• Anti-transparency:
  • Accused of "waging a war against the journalistic standards and practices that underpin not only a free press but our democracy"
  • Skyrocketing secrecy: "Government secrecy has reached a historic high, even compared to the Cold War (San Diego Union July 3). Federal departments are classifying documents at a rate of 125 per minute... or two per second... and inventing new kinds of classification, while declassification efforts that peaked under the Clinton Administration have slowed to a crawl." ([7] 2005-09-02 entry) See also Gutting the Freedom of Information Act
  • Suppression of contradictory viewpoints:
    • Squelching of constructive critical discussion (e.g. "public dissent is strongly discouraged by the White House" mentioned in [8]; use of IRS as a tool for preventing dissention); also Eliminating Dissent in the Media
    • Repeated incidents of action against whistleblowers:
      • Bunnatine Greenhouse: The Washington Post The Carpetbagger Report (possibly problematic links: [9] [10])
      • 2004-11-14: Bush Plans to Purge the 'Disloyal' at CIA: "The White House has ordered the new CIA director ... to purge the agency of officers believed to have been disloyal to President George W. Bush..." (a clear case of Equating the Individual with the Office) (also another source)
      • The Plame affair
    • Repeated misrepresentation and suppression of scientific data (Science Abuse)
      • Top climatologist accuses US of trying to gag him

Opinion

• 2005-11-24 The long march of Dick Cheney (by Sidney Blumenthal, in Salon.com): "The hallmark of the Dick Cheney administration is its illegitimacy. Its essential method is bypassing established lines of authority; its goal is the concentration of unaccountable presidential power."
• 2005-10-17 issue of Newsweek: On K Street Conservatism by George F. Will: "The fact that none of those responsible for the postwar planning, or lack thereof, in Iraq have been sacked suggests – no, shouts – that in Washington today there is no serious penalty for serious failure."