Has George W. Bush's presidency already reached a "lame duck" stage?

Yes

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by Paul Schingle

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Technically, George W's lame duck status began as soon as he took the oath of office at the beginning of his second term. From that moment forward, he's had a finite number of days to reign and a lot of us have been counting down the days ever since.

Now, some would argue that he won't be a lame duck until after the election. There would be no question to the truth of this, if he had been up for re-election. We wouldn't know ofhis status until he lost. Once an incumbent is voted out of office, he automatically becomes a lame duck until the new person takes over.

Now, lame duck doesn't have to mean he can't get anything accomplished. Anyone remember the end of Gerald Ford's presidency? Talk about silly. I'm usually among the first to make fun of Republican presidents, but I was actually a bit of a fan of Ford's. He took over at a tumultuous time and didn't really make any huge mistakes. He pardoned Nixon, but I'm sure that deal was brokered before Nixon named him VP. At any rate, after Jimmy Carter defeated Gerald Ford in 1976, Ford decided he wanted to do something to be remembered by during his last 60-70 days in office. He was going to try to make Puerto Rico the 51st state in the union. Never mind the fact that Puerto Rico doesn't want to be a state and never mind the fact that the rest of the United States doesn't want any other territory to become a state. That idea went down in flames. It was silly, but overall it was harmless. I don't know if the same can be said, if George W. gets any wild ideas during these last few months of his regime.

President Bush has done a few things over the last couple days. With the recent financial industry fiascoes, he (and congress) have agreed to some serious bailing out of some people who already have some serious money with more serious money-our money. It may have been the right thing to do-we'll see about that. But, with a shaky economy and financial institutions faltering, those of us who work for a living fear the worst-an economic recession turning to a depression. We can all only hope that this won't happen. The last thing I read from an industry "expert" was, we expect a rosy outlook-come 2010.

Now, is any of this mess specifically George W. Bush's fault? I'd say he has a lot to do with it. His deregulatory views (and that of the majority Republican congress before 2006) helped a lot of these financial institutions create the problem of these high-risk mortgages. This is causing a lot of the problems now. He's not solely to blame, but his economic policies are a lot of the cause.

Has George W. Bush's president already reached the "lame duck" stage? I, for one, believe it already has. This should give me comfort, but it doesn't. A lot can happen in 100 days, and if anyone can make bad matters worse in that short a time, it is George W.

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