Bush Administration defends NAFTA, declares "There's nothing broken."

If nothing else has convinced any among my fellow citizens who beyond all reason yet hold to an opinion but that the government of George W. Bush is completely and hopelessly insane, then perhaps this will persuade them otherwise. It's about the disastrous North American Free Trade Agreement. From the Associated Press story...

The White House on Friday vigorously defended the 14-year-old free-trade agreement among the United States, Mexico and Canada against sharp criticism from Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

"There's nothing broken. Why fix it?" said Dan Fisk, senior director of Western hemisphere affairs for National Security Council. He acknowledged the administration must do a better job of explaining the benefits of the agreement.

(snip)

Bush has suffered a major setback on the trade front with the derailing of a proposed free-trade pact with Colombia. Bush sent the agreement to Capitol Hill earlier this month, but the House, led by Democrats, decided to eliminate a rule forcing a vote on the deal within 60 legislative days. The House's decision probably kills consideration of the agreement this year, leaving it for the next administration.

"Leaders in Congress have made a serious error," Bush said in a speech. "A serious error for economics reasons. A serious error for security reasons. It's not too late, however, for them to get it right."

(snip)

"We think NAFTA works," he said. Fisk said the criticism from the campaign trail has gotten a lot of attention from U.S. trading partners. "Some of the statements that have been made here have made bigger headlines in Canada and Mexico than they have here," he said.

"We want to find ways to, frankly, convince the American people from our perspective first and foremost that this is an arrangement that has worked for us and it's also worked for our neighbors," he said. "It's been a win-win situation."

So countless jobs lost because of NAFA, to say nothing of the millions more Mexicans who have crossed into the United States illegally because of NAFTA's effects, is a "win-win situation" to these people?!

Dear God in Heaven, we are at the mercy of idiots.

I was one of the people who wrote letters and made phone calls about NAFTA way back when. I remember the day the U.S. House passed it. You could say it was the beginning of my cynicism and little since has allayed my fears: that America is no longer controlled by the people but by the big money interests. Indeed, the remarks coming out of the Bush Administration very much confirm that. All they can conceive of are the profits on paper. They do not see, no do they care for, what this has cost the average American.

A few days ago I did something that I had never done in almost 17 years of published writing: I used what is considered the worst possible expletive to describe what is becoming of America. I haven't regretted that I chose to use that word but I have regretted that it was the last desperate arrow left in my vocabulary to convey my anger. Reading these comments out of the Bush White House now tempts me to fire an entire volley at them.

By the way, Lisa and I watched Part 5 of HBO's John Adams tonight. Go see it if you can, and listen to the speech that Adams gives to toast George Washington as the first President ends his term. Now compare that to the simpleton mangling of the current President's thought patterns: "Leaders in Congress have made a serious error... A serious error for economics reasons. A serious error for security reasons. It's not too late, however, for them to get it right."

Ladies and gentlemen, in contrasting between the Founding Fathers such as John Adams, and George W. Bush who we are told is the product after more than two centuries of their efforts, I posit that this is clear enough evidence that evolution into more complex forms of life is a fraudulent theory.