G.W. and W.G.

In the 1920's, while the country was riding toward a big fall, there were those who spoke up and cautioned against the economic recklessness and political corruption which was taking place, especially under President Harding.

Warren G. Harding is the president who GWB most resembles, as he remained more or less oblivious to anything that resembled philosophy or intellectualism, and acted as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the banks and corporations. These companies (in the era when the storied robber barons bestrode Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue) ran hog wild in the wide open spaces of unregulated business and bend-over government facilitation which W.G. Harding instituted, and which was generally continued under Coolidge and Hoover.

Those who criticized and warned back then were castigated as foolish doomsayers and Cassandras. Those presidential administrations and their mouthpieces in the media (and, consequently, the majority of the public) thought and acted like nothing could throw a monkey wrench into the Great American Money Machine.

Every week now brings another sobering report, whether it’s General Motors taking a $1.1 billion quarterly loss, or a big company defaulting on its pension program, or the new Chinese trade deficit numbers, or another airline declaring bankruptcy. Yet the Bush Administration remains intent on doing what it’s doing, which is to help the rich get richer, and certain (cooperative) corporations get fatter, while "people problems" like our national health care crisis go unattended.

And, really, why should things like that, and minimum wage, and the squeeze on the middle class, and rising poverty levels get any consideration, when there are more important things to fuss over (at least from the slanted Republican social perspective) like gay marriage, steroids in baseball, poor brain-dead Terri Schiavo and a flag-burning constitutional amendment.

I believe that historians will look back on Bush’s presidency and compare his foreign policy excesses to another arrogant Texan, Lyndon Johnson, and his economic policy of pandering to the monied interests as very W.G.