It is no secret that George W. Bush favors loyalty over competence when it comes to filling positions in his administration. This became painfully clear during the Hurricane Katrina disaster, when Americans learned that Bush’s head of FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) knew a lot more about horse shows than he did about emergency management.

Putting incompetent people into government jobs is bad enough, but Bush has taken it to a whole new level. He seems to get some kind of perverse pleasure out of putting the worst possible people into key positions. For example: Bush’s nomination of John “Mad Dog” Bolton to be Ambassador to The United Nations. Mr. Bolton is a pugnacious character, who not only does not believe in mission of The United Nations, but seems to be completely unfamiliar the concepts of negotiation, tact and diplomacy. Mr. Bolton was so unsuited to be U.N. Ambassador that even a Republican-controlled Senate refused to confirm him; so Mr. Bush appointed him while Congress was in recess (Mr. Bolton’s recess appointment has since expired, and he has returned to his regular job--inciting war).

Now, it appears Mr. Bush has had a little fun at America’s expense again.

Early last month, the World Health Organization released a study on reproductive health, which said “the only effective way to reduce unwanted pregnancies and abortions is to make contraception widely available.”

Five days later, Mr. Bush named Susan Orr as acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for population affairs in the Department of Health and Human Services. In this position, Ms. Orr has “extensive power to shape the kinds of information disseminated to millions of women,” and will be able to “develop new guidelines for clinics, set priorities, and determine how scarce dollars get spent.” (Slate, 11/21/06)

The joke is that Ms. Orr is vehemently opposed to birth control.

· “[Birth Control is] not about choice. It’s not about health care. It’s about making everyone collaborators with the culture of death.” (Susan Orr in 2000, quoted by CBS News, 10/18/07

In 2001, Ms. Orr supported a Bush administration proposal to stop federal employees’ health insurance plans from having to cover a wide range of birth control methods, declaring “Fertility is not a disease.” (The Washington Post, 10/16/07).

The only good news about this appointment is that it does not require Senate confirmation, so we won’t have to watch the Democrats cower and cave in to the Bush Administration again.

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In September, George W. Bush signed a measure, which increased the U.S. debt limit ceiling from $8.965 trillion to $9.815 trillion.

· “…Congressional lawmakers said the $850 billion increase should be large enough to allow the government to continue borrowing into 2009, well beyond next year's presidential and congressional elections.”--Reuters, 11/7/09

When Mr. Bush was appointed President in 2001, the National Debt was $5.6 trillion. Since then, the debt limit has been raised five times, so (our?) government can continue to borrow more and more money. Now, the Treasury Department has announced that the National Debt has reached a new record high, topping $9 trillion for the first time.

I know Vice President Dick Cheney has proclaimed that “Deficits don’t matter,” but does anyone see a problem with having to borrow $2 billion a day to keep the government running?

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A team of World Champion Bridge players are facing serious sanctions because one of them dared to hold up a handwritten sign that said “We did not vote for Bush” during an awards ceremony in Shanghai, China last month. (Quotes are taken from The New York Times, 11/14/07)

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