The Curse of Bush
Struck Home on Nov. 4
Special to EIR
Nov. 8—With the 2008 Presidential elections over, and nearly all of the final tallies in, one simple truth stands out, above all of the media hype over the victory of Senator Barack Obama: The election was a clear repudiation of George Bush. Nothing more, nothing less.
After eight years of Bush-Cheney wreckage of the U.S. economy, two wars, the destruction of America's image around the world, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and the brutal take-down of civil liberties at home, the American electorate was overwhelmingly ready for "change." The mandate was for anybody but Bush, and the Republican Party of Bush, Cheney and Karl Rove.
Thus, Republican Presidential nominee John McCain, no friend of the Bush family, and an avowed enemy of Vice President Dick Cheney, nevertheless found himself in the thankless position of fighting a two-front political war, campaigning simultaneously against his Democratic rival Barack Obama, and against the intense popular hatred for the Bush White House and everything associated with it.
No Change in Voter Turnout
Statistics on the voter turnout, compiled and reported Nov. 6 by American University's Center for the Study of the American Electorate (CSAE), buttress the case that the election was a mandate against Bush and anything associated with the Bush family.
According to the CSAE data, and contrary to media hype, voter turnout on Nov. 4 was only slightly higher than the turnout four years earlier. Between 126.5 and 128.5 million Americans cast their votes in the Presidential elections this year, a total of between 60.7% and 61.7% of the eligible voters. In 2004, 122 million Americans voted; a total of 60.7% of eligible voters.
In line with the anti-Bush mood, the largest decline in voter turnout was from registered Republicans, with the percentage of Republican votes down by 1.3%, to 28.7%, compared to 2004. The registered Democratic turnout increased by 2.6%, from 28.7% in 2004, to 31.3% this year.
Curtis Gans, the head of the American University Center, and one of the nation's most astute analysts of voting patterns, put it simply: "In the end, this election was driven by deep economic concerns and the prevailing emotional climate. While there probably has not been, since 1932, the confluence of factors that underlay this election—90% of the American people seeing the nation on the wrong track, 75% disapproving of the president's performance, more than 80% perceiving a recession and feeling that things will get worse, and the reality of growing economic distress—on one level this election was typical. When economic conditions go bad, the party in the White House gets blamed and they lose."
Compound the economic crisis with the mass-hatred of Bush and Cheney, over the Iraq war, the suppression of liberties at home, and all the other factors that rendered George W. Bush the most unpopular President in history, and the electoral results stand out as a stark repudiation of eight years of catastrophe—all associated with the family name Bush.
Nothing Has Been Settled
In his first post-election comments, Lyndon LaRouche, the leading political economist and Chairman of the LaRouche Political Action Committee (LPAC), declared, "This election has settled absolutely less than nothing.... We've got ourselves a real crisis on our hands. We've got a guy who's been elected who's not qualified for anything. And we have one of the worst crises in world history, which is the other part of the story—and you've got people who are saying: 'Well now this is going to change the fate of humanity.' Well, that may be, but not the way they mean it."
It is this overarching reality of the present global crisis that led Lyndon LaRouche to issue an Oct. 30 statement, asking: "Is Assassination of Obama Britain's Next Move?" (see EIR, Nov. 7, 2008). The statement began: "The highly probable threat that Barack Obama, especially if he wins the election on Nov. 4, could be assassinated, is currently a matter of the utmost concern among serious political circles in both political parties. It is therefore urgent that there be built a bipartisan commitment to deal with this threat potential...."
True to Their Word
Precisely in line with LaRouche's Oct. 30, warning of a British-engineered assassination of President-elect Obama, the London media immediately began gloating over the prospects that the Illinois Senator may not live to take his oath of office on Jan. 20, 2009.
Typical of the kind of "propaganda of the deed" filling the pages of the British media since the Nov. 4 elections, were the screaming headlines in the British tabloid, the Daily Express, on Nov. 6, which read, in bold letters: "TARGET OBAMA—FEAR OBAMA MAY NEVER MAKE IT TO THE WHITE HOUSE."
The text of the article, which was subtitled, "A MILITARY-style operation to keep Barack Obama alive was under way yesterday within hours of his victory," included a detailed report on the President-elect and his family's Secret Service protection, and details of a dispute between Obama and his bodyguards over his refusal to wear a bullet-proof vest at all times.
The Daily Express story, which was picked up by British newspapers and other media outlets throughout the Commonwealth, began with a graphic description of the 12-foot-high bulletproof shields surrounding Obama as he greeted a crowd at Chicago's Grant Park, just moments after his victory. "Americans will have to get used to such scenes," the article gloated. "Such are the concerns for Mr Obama's safety that many are already voicing their fears he may not even reach the White House.... Fears for Mr Obama's safety began the moment he entered the race for the White House and investigations are on-going into potential threats from race-hate groups in and outside the US." The rest of the story was punctuated by such comments as: "Many fear an assassination attempt is simply a matter of time.... Two assassination conspiracies have already been uncovered and the plotters arrested as the special task force to preserve Mr Obama scours the internet and telephone calls for clues."
And in a tongue-in-cheek menacing reference to an earlier British assassination of an American President, the article quoted from the Secret Service website: "After the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901, Congress directed the Secret Service to protect the President of the United States."
"This kind of behavior by the British media does not surprise me in the least," LaRouche commented Nov. 7. "The British are gloating, in public, about their plans to assassinate the U.S. President-elect. This must be stopped, at all costs."
In his Oct. 30 warning, LaRouche noted that the British had boosted Obama's Presidential campaign, "but it would be highly unwise to forget the age-old tradition of betrayal with a kiss."
LaRouche further warned, "In the midst of the ongoing, unprecedented financial and economic breakdown crisis, there is nothing the Anglo-Dutch financial establishment wants more desperately than to destroy the Constitutional, sovereign United States.... The looming danger, however, is that the British, having succeeded in getting 'their' man into the U.S. Presidency, will decide that their objectives will best be accomplished by assassinating him."
LaRouche concluded, "In the face of that threat, sane Republicans and Democrats have to come together as a national force, to defend the country's integrity, and adopt the policies that will save it."
