Bush's legacy

Here's just some stuff to think about that I found on the Common Dreams website:

Before you intellectually or viscerally rush to defend the president of the United States from the comparison to a child abuser let me remind you of a few things. I won’t focus on the obvious - his veto of the children’s healthcare bill.

No, let’s start with his abandonment of the weakest among us; his failure to protect us, our families and the law enforcement professionals that serve as first responders against domestic violence.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee explained it succinctly, “The Bush Administration’s proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2007 … calls for deep cuts in crime-prevention programs that state and local police and sheriff’s departments have long relied upon, including key Justice Department efforts such as Byrne Grants, the Crime Victims Fund, the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Act and the Violence Against Women Act Programs.”

Need more evidence? How full is your oil tank? Physicians across the country like Dr. Joanne Cox, associate chief of general pediatrics division at Children’s Hospital in Boston, are cautioning against keeping houses with children in them too cold. There is great concern for homes with infants because “wrapping a baby in heavy blankets or clothing at night is generally considered unsafe because it raises the chances of suffocation.”

Parents choosing between heating their homes and buying medicine and food are on the rise: Search the GateHouse News Service online and you can read all about it. Especially troubling is the story about the Quincy, Mass. mom whose doctors have told her to make every sacrifice possible to keep her 4-month-old baby warm because he is having trouble growing and gaining weight. And for those of you who think it’s all about her living off the government, you’re right. She’s on a meager fixed government paycheck that she can’t do anything about right now because her husband is away … serving in Iraq.

And of course you’ve seen the new numbers released by the Institute of Medicine Analysis on the Impact of Uninsurance on Mortality - yep, 22,000 people die each year in the United States because they lack access to health care. That’s up from 18,000 in 2002.

The president is watching his self proclaimed terrorism fighting legacy collapse too. He’s increasingly known as the world’s bully - not the world’s defender - and his partners keep falling away.

I wonder if he will ever come to awareness regarding the great harm he has done to so many.