whitebeard

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Friday, February 03, 2006

George W Bush’s nemesis
Tom Burgis
31 - 1 - 2006

He’s got power, rich friends, and God on his side. But not Tom Burgis, who explains the selection of the United States president as January winner of the "bad democracy" award.

The woman who answers the phones at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was taken aback to be asked whether her organisation – known for its "cloak and ballot" techniques for fostering democracy overseas – had an opinion on President George Walker Bush's victory in the third Bad Democracy poll. Surely the NED has a specialist on North American democracy? "Well, no," came the riposte. "We don’t really need one."

Click here to view this month's list of bad democrat's, and cast your vote today

Confusion was similarly rife at the National Security Council. "The worst democrat of the month? But he’s a Republican." Even the Democrats themselves were retrospect about mouthing off against the forty-third president in print. The office of the party's rising star, Barack Obama, decided to "take a pass on that one", as did the national committee.

By contrast, Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, was more forthright:

"Bush trashed traditional American values. He is basically just a device to read a teleprompter. He appeals to the Caliban instincts in American public life, not those of Ariel. He's a surprisingly unsophisticated guy; he's a consumer of instructions, one of the first examples of a committee president, invented on a daily basis to deliver a rightwing credo."

...Here