EDITOR'S NOTE: This story was written on December 19, 2007 by Ivan Potter. He hit the banking disaster and mortgage meltdown long before any of the talking heads of cable punditry got a clue.  I wonder if I can get him to predict the next Derby winner?


We couldn’t pass this one up. 
 

In Fredericksburg, Va. on Monday, December 17, 2007, President Bush stood before the local Rotary Club and spoke of the good health of the American economy.

The photo seems so surreal. Here is the leader of the free world standing in front of an American iconic audience, the local Rotary club. And yet, something seems so wrong.

Maybe it is the unnerving feeling that Bush is in physical danger.

There is no photo image of a large prescreened crowd of Republicans or soldiers who are told to stand and clap and do not ask any hard questions. Instead, Bush looks like he is pleading to his audience. AND THERE ARE THE TWO OF THE SECRET SERVICE SECURITY DETAIL standing between Bush and his audience of Rotarians.

Should we worry? Has the White House lost the Rotarians? Are they the latest new threat to America?

Somehow it seems so deja vu. First, we have a president talking about how good the situation is on the ground. How he has the situation well under control. That there are no problems with recovery. That all possible federal resources will be brought to bear upon the situation.

Yes, when President Bush stood among the wreckage of post Katrina New Orleans with his chief of FEMA, he said on camera, “You’re doing a heck of a job, Brownie.”

Yet, we couldn’t help but think about how since August 2007, the American banking system has had to have money quickly pumped into all the major banks in New York to keep them from failing; a housing market disaster of biblical proportions with the prospect of 2 million Americans losing their homes in 2008; loss of manufacturing jobs across the nation; and a run-away war that is draining $12 billion a month out of the American economy.     

Maybe the Fredericksburg Rotarians know the truth about what Bush has done to the American Economy and they are mad.