Was President Bush born under an unlucky star?
Philippe Gelie of France’s Le Figaro ponders the unfortunate record of George W. Bush, and the way that today, at the end of his second term, he has been singularly abandoned by his own supporters, most of whom are up for election in November:
“A kind of curse must be following George W. Bush. The president, who began his first term under the shock of the September 11, 2001 attacks and inaugurated his second term with debacle of Hurricane Katrina, is now completing his time in the White House under the threat of a ‘Financial 9/11.’
“His reaction to the first crisis resulted in a ‘sacred unity’ around him, which lasted until the first reversal of fortune in Iraq. The second [Hurricane Katrina] exposed the incompetence of an administration silenced by loyalty. The third should have corrected those bad memories: with the appointment in 2006 of Henry Paulson, former chief of Goldman Sachs, Bush put at the head of the American Treasury an expert on financial markets, who quickly assessed the situation and proposed a drastic remedy.”
Concluding with a description of the abandonment of Bush by his party, Gelie talks of the scene at the White House just days ago:
Abandoned by the Republican minority in the House of Representatives, Bush has found himself in the unusual role of having to depend on the Democratic majority in Congress. ‘Don’t let this fail,’ he said to his conservative friends. In the hallway, Paulson even put his knee to the floor in front of Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House: ‘Please don’t blow up this deal,’ he asked. ‘It’s not me blowing this up. It’s the Republicans,’ she said. ‘I know, I know,’ Paulson sighed. This unusual image symbolizes the little strength that remains for a president who has fallen to 26 percent in the opinion polls, confronting a Congress which faces election: the entire House of Representatives and a third of the Senate will be replaced on November 4.”
Philippe Gelie in Washington
Translated By Kate Davis
September 28, 2008
France – Le Figaro – Original Article (French)
A kind of curse must be following George W. Bush. The president, who began his first term under the shock of the September 11, 2001 attacks and inaugurated his second term with debacle of Hurricane Katrina, is now completing his time in the White House under the threat of a “Financial 9/11.”
His reaction to the first crisis resulted in a “sacred unity” around him, which lasted until the first reversal of fortune in Iraq. The second [Hurricane Katrina] exposed the incompetence of an administration silenced by loyalty. The third should have corrected these bad memories: with the appointment in 2006 of Henry Paulson, former chief of Goldman Sachs, Bush put at the head of the American Treasury an expert on financial markets, who quickly assessed the situation and proposed a drastic remedy.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated and English-language foreign press coverage of the unfolding financial crisis and the U.S. election.
