George W. Bush Sewage Plant Initiative Makes It On the Ballot as Prop. R

Ballot Guide Argument

Just as France presented the Statue of Liberty as its gift to the nation, the citizens of San Francisco may now bestow their own special gift to the country by renaming our award winning waste water treatment plant in honor of outgoing President George W Bush. We think this is a fitting memorial for a truly outstanding Commander-in-Chief. On matters ranging from diplomacy to fiscal and environmental stewardship, no other President has had such a dramatic impact on the country and the Constitution in such a short time. Most presidents wait years or decades to receive their memorial airport or highway. We think President Bush deserves immediate recognition for his eight years of public service.

Critics of this measure point out that the initiative unfairly maligns the talented and hard working staff at the award-winning plant or that it memorializes an administration best forgotten. To this we simply say that those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. President Bush has left us with a gigantic mess, and that this facility symbolizes the city's deft ability to clean up its share of the financial and diplomatic mess left in this administration's wake. It will also become the world's first presidential sewage plant, a potential tourist attraction, and therefore an opportunity for the dedicated plant workers to educate visitors about this essential and heretofore unknown public works. This measure will have a minimal fiscal impact and may increase tourist traffic to the plant, Zoo, and nearby attractions in southwest San Francisco, creating yet another quirky must-see destination along with our cable cars, Haight St, and Beach Blanket Babylon.

Fellow San Franciscans, we urge you to vote Oui! on November 4th.

Brian McConnell

Opposing Argument

As of this writing, 4139 servicemen and women have been killed since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The number of Iraqis who have been killed as a result of the invasion and occupation of their country cannot be measured. The proponents of this measure may consider the Bush Administration to be a joke. However, the consequences of the decision to invade are not a laughing matter for families of those who have died during the past five years. This measure, whatever its intentions, dispects them.

I agree that the invasion of Iraq is the worst foreign policy blunder in the history of the U.S. I also agree that Bush has been the most ignorant man to ever occupy the office of President. To call him the worst President since Warren Harding is to insult the memory of Harding, who at least did not enter this country into any unnecessary wars.

Moreover, the federal debt at the end of this Administration totals over $9 trillion, not including the recent guarantees extended to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac whose liabilities may constitute an additional $5 trillion to be paid by the U.S. taxpayer. Aside from Iraq, Bush's legacy will be the adding on of a prescription drug benefit of at least $1.2 trillion without any mechanism of funding the new Medicare entitlement. Bush's minions had specifically ordered the civil service from disclosing the true cost of the benefit from Congress before it had been voted upon. Maybe it would be more appropriate to name the local bankruptcy court or a consumer credit counseling center after Bush?

Besides, if we name the local sewage plant after Bush, then what's left to name after Jesse Helms?