Daly and Bush agree: "Stay the course!"

The calls of "stay the course" from the Bush administration are echoed from his polar opposite at the farthest corner of America -- Chris Daly's campaign in San Francisco. On its surface, that may seem like a stretch, but the parallels are too strong to be dismissed, even if they are funhouse mirror images of each other.

President Bush has proven himself incompetent (or disinterested) in serving the majority of Americans, preferring instead to focus his efforts on benefiting one small section of them. Likewise, Chris Daly has ignored the majority of his constituents, and has instead focused his efforts upon benefiting one minority group for the past 6 years. Bush claims that Americans who don't back his plans are "unpatriotic", while Daly accuses San Franciscans who don't support all of his causes of being "heartless" or "Republican tools". It doesn't matter how long you've been a Democrat, what other progressive causes you support or how much you care about helping the truly helpless -- in Daly's mind, you're either with him or against him.

Bush has never understood the necessity of being able to work with people of differing ideologies; that's why his "coalition of the willing" was little more than window-dressing for a unilateral campaign of war. Daly has likewise never understood that necessity, and has offended and alienated everyone from the Mayor to business groups to countless citizens in his District. His temper tantrums in public are too well-known to need repeating here. He is incompetent at acting with maturity or respect towards people from differing ideologies. He even once bragged that he had gone for two years without speaking to Gavin Newsom -- his colleague and Mayor.

George W. Bush's contempt for the interests of the rest of the world has isolated America from its traditional allies by starting unnecessary wars but refusing to react to or even acknowledge serious issues like global warming. Chris Daly has shown contempt for the needs of the tens of thousands of people who live in District 6 and the hundreds of thousands more who work here every day, much less the millions who visit us every year. The majority of people in District 6 have been asking for a safe, clean neighborhood. Has he delivered? He hasn't even tried.

Bush has a policy of throwing money at his failed projects, to the detriment of the economy and others who also rely upon the tax base. The war has been a disaster, and we are no safer now, yet he has spent trillions of dollars on it. Chris Daly has advocated ever-growing expenditures to benefit his pet groups. San Francisco's taxpayers have been required to spend more than $200 million every year spent on services benefiting people who are considered "homeless", and to "cure homelessness". But after throwing billions of dollars at the problem, the number of homeless people in San Francisco actually grew. Clearly, people have been coming to San Francisco to take advantage of the most generous public support system in the nation. But this isn't good enough for Daly, who never met a homeless project he didn't want to fund with our tax dollars. And he only intends to expand them.

Finally, Bush has systematically misled the public about the justification for going to war in Iraq, just as Chris Daly has systematically misled the public about the causes for the crime and garbage that people in District 6 has had to endure. Bush attempts to blame Saddam Hussein's regime for the attacks on 9/11. Likewise, Chris Daly blames the Mayor, other officials and public servants, unions, the Republicans, the Police, business interests (the economic engine of our City) and just about everyone else -- for causing all of the City's problems. His claims aren't convincing for one minute. Chris Daly's biggest problem looks back at him in the mirror every morning.

After 6 years of both Bush and Daly, one might well ask upon what grounds they think they have earned our support. Bush pretends to be "tough on terrorists", with calls to rally the faithful -- the "true American patriots" to his cause. Daly pretends to be defending "the soul of the City", with calls to rally the faithful -- the "true progressive Democrats" to his cause. But both claims are little more than jingoism; emotional appeals to convince citizens to continue to support their failed policies and their divisive politics.

They ask for us to grant them more time for more of the same failed policies, more years of "staying the course", no matter what toll it takes on us financially, or through our losses of liberties, or with the harm it continues to cause our quality of life. America has suffered through six years of George Bush, just as District 6 has suffered through six years of Chris Daly. What is needed in both cases is "regime change".