And Don’t Forget T-Ball
Politus has a great post up about Bush’s urgent priorities before September 11th.
Yeah, he was focused on terrorism all right.
Before the events of September 11, 2001, Bush had signed 24 executive orders. How many of them dealt with counterterrorism?
In his first month in office Bush threw a bone to the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons by setting up the vehicle to give them boatloads of taxpayer money. No time for counterterrorism in January:
Jan 29. Establish Office of Faith Based Initiatives (Remember that?)
Jan 29. Require federal agencies to establish their own Centers for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives
February was whack-a-union month. No time for counterterrism in February either, unless you consider union members to be terrorists. Bush and the Low-Wage Republicans may think union members are terrorists, but the focus was on bin Laden, right?
Feb 12. Extend life of President’s Information Technology Committee
Feb 21. Dissolves Labor-Management Partnerships
Feb 21. Dissolves a labor-friendly executive order, allowing new contractors to fire everybody and hire scabs
Feb 21. Requires contractors to display anti-union messages
Feb 21. Encourage the use of non-union contractors
Bush couldn’t be bothered with any stinkin’ counterterrorism executive orders in March, either. The unions were causing trouble for his boys at American Airlines and something had to be done:
Mar 9. Establish an “Emergency Board” to interfere in the Mechanics Union strike against American Airlines
Likewise for April. The pesky bin Laden guy could wait ‘til next month. There was more union busting to do, and Hispanic voters needed to know that Bush was really worried about the Status of Puerto Rico:
Apr 4. Perfunctory termination of export controls
Apr 5. Slight change in pay for government employees working abroad
Apr 6. Exempt certain contractors from some requirements to hire union workers
Apr 30. Extend the President’s Task Force on the Status of Puerto Rico
Now we are up to May, when the terrorist chatter picked up by intelligence was spiking. Clarke and Tenet knew something was coming, and Clark was nearly apoplectic in his warnings. So, did Bush finally focus his administration on bin Laden, signing an executive order to that effect? No… May is the month for Social Security Privatization and phat payback to his oily buddies:
May 2. Create President’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security, the first step toward privatization
May 18. Actions to Expedite Energy-Related Projects, fast track for environmental rapers and scrapers
May 18. Ditto, for Big Energy supply and distribution
May 23. Prohibit import of rough diamonds from Liberia
May 28. President’s Task Force to Improve Health Care Delivery for Our Nation’s Veterans, a sham committee to look for ways to improve the VA
Terrorist chatter from intelligence intercepts was at a crescendo in June of 2001, yet Bush was focused on the “compassionate” part of his resume, after spending the last few months working on the “conservative” part. But not a peep about UBL or terrorism:
Jun 1. Very slight changes to the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee
Jun 6. Extend by 2 years initiatives to Increase Participation of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Federal Programs
Jun 19. Community-based Alternatives for Individuals with Disabilities
Jun 20. 21st Century Workforce Initiative; as if the Clinton boom was going to last forever
In July Bush was getting ready for his month-long vacation in Crawfish, and mumbling about “vampire” cellular phone power supplies. Wasn’t Usama bin Laden at least as important to his administration as trade with Belarus?
Jul 2. Waiving anti-communist trade restrictions against Belarus
Jul 31. Requiring government agencies to purchase energy efficient power supplies for things like cellular phones
August in Crawfish is too frikkin’ hot to think about terrorists:
Aug 17. Perfunctory extension of the cold war-era Export Control Act
This was the last executive order Bush signed before 9/11. Even though he and his lackeys now claim they were consumed with UBL and counterterrorism was a top priority to them, there is not a peep of any of that in any of the documents Bush signed to set the direction and functioning of his government. And then?
September 11.
At which point he decided to invade a country that had nothing to do with terrorism, destroy half a century of alliances and alienate the entire world.