Elephant in the Parlor
The entire purpose of a Democracy - or a Republic for that matter - is to serve the needs, wishes, preferences, tastes, attitudes, desires, beliefs and preferences of the People. When any elected official fails or ceases to fill that role, it is high time for him or her to step down, or be put aside, or be taken away - in chains, if need be.
Considering the strong and traditional Conservative legacy from which I and my namesake originated, I find it almost inconceivable that I would have ever reached the point which I have now reluctantly reached.
Perhaps the "last straw" was the attemped selling out of our great nation's highly vulnerable major seaports to (of all places) the United Arab Emirates. Did the current leadership take total leave of its senses? Were they not aware that this very same political entity continues to regard the Taliban as the only legitimate government of Afghanistan? Were those American leaders not aware that this very same UAE government actually owns the business concern that would have been operating our crucial seaports? Could they not have been aware that this self-same UAE government was (and is) the political entity who owns the banks who laundered the money used by the 9/11 terrorists who murdered thousands of Americans in cold blood? Could those on the Bush team have not been aware that millions of people from that regional and religious culture utterly despise America and Americans, and that only one such person need "slip past the gates" to unleash another 9/11 upon us?
At very, very least, how could an American political administration be so totally unaware of how utterly insensitive and politically unwise it felt to the average American, to have their President put the ownership of America's most vulnerable seaport assets into the hands of such utterly foreign owners? Does the hallowed phrase "From sea to shining sea" resonate no passion in them?
All of this raises the issue that has been troubling me the most. As with most people of a Conservative upbringing and background, I had been giving "my" President every benefit of the doubt, granting him every possible leeway to explain every action of which I may have felt uncomfortable. But, when that "last straw" finally broke my aching back, I was forced to revisit with new eyes a long procession of painful visions.
First was the debacle of the tragedy in New Orleans at the hands of Hurricane Katrina. Or, to be more accurate, "at the hands" of those who (in retrospect) demonstrated a level of incompetence and cronyism that operated at nothing short of criminal levels. We know now what we did not know then: that Michael Brown, FEMA's director, had zero meaningful experience in managing any large organization, other than elitist horse-shows. We know now (and have seen it on undeniable video-conference videotape) that - while we loyally believed Mr. Bush's seemingly sincere claims that he was unaware of weakened levees in New Orleans - he and his staff were made fully aware of those levees' deadly vulnerabilities well in advance of their certain and devastating failure. We know now that - while Mr. Bush was blithely proclaiming "Brownie, you're doing a great job!" - he either had no idea at all of the horridly inept job that Mr. Brown and FEMA were doing, or Mr. Bush did know it but was deceitfully trying to convince us otherwise. Either way, a great many Americans died and untold fortunes in property-loss resulted directly from that incompetence.
More important is what the above tells us about 9/11. As with the final report on the horrible and preventable disaster that befell New Orleans, it was likewise a Republican-led investigation that declared that 9/11 too was caused by a wide-spread and colossal failure of virtually every aspect of national security and disaster prevention. With hindsight, it is quite easy to see the same level of blatant cronyism, arrogance, disorganization, amateurish political in-fighting, and utter incompetence that undermined our defenses within the FBI, CIA, FAA, Pentagon and all other crucial agencies, leaving all America as vulnerable in 2001 as the Gulf Coast was in 2005. Indeed, the abjectly unforgivable ineptness that brought us such havoc in New Orleans came over four full years after the debacle of 9/11; after the Bush team had had four full years to improve their inept national security skills and methods since 9/11; four years after they should have been able to learn something - anything - from their utterly inadequate performance in 2001.
In retrospect, considering the Bush Administration's undeniable ineptness and gross negligence in 2001, our nation is fortunate that 9/11 wasn't far worse than it was. For that blessing, we can thank only Al Quaeda's naive failure to attempt attacks more daring than they did, since they clearly never suspected that America's security had fallen into hands so woefully unprepared to do a proper job of ensuring America's defense. Clearly, they never dared to believe it would have been so easy, because never before in our entire history had America ever been left that unprotected.
But, despite any charges of the ease of being a "Monday Morning Quarterback," it is still fully valid to explore all the other "smoking guns" that all good Conservatives should have seen, but - out of blind loyalty - we refused to notice. Not the least of these is Mr. Bush's promise to be a "Fiscal Conservative". Yet, somehow, within mere months, he had converted a 5 trillion dollar budget surplus into a 2 trillion dollar deficit. If we can rightfully condemn Liberals for their "tax and spend" obsessions, is it not a hundred times worse to recklessly spend in the present moment by borrowing unimaginably huge sums from our descendants, for generations to come, which they will have to pay back from future taxes, with heavy interest? Is it not a thousand times more criminal to give those present cash-windfalls to a politician's political supporters, contributors and cronies, and to force our descendants to foot the bill for their entire lives, for generations to come?
We likewise saw Mr. Bush cry crocodile tears over the lost lives in recent coal mine disasters. But he never mentioned that it was he who greatly weakened the safety laws that would have protected those miners, solely to put more money into the pockets of the mine owners, likewise among his supporters and contributors.
Meanwhile, now virtually a year after the crime, we still don't know who it was who revealed the name and highly sensitive CIA-status of Valerie Plame, which was in every sense a major (and criminal) breach of national security, and specifically the kind of federal felony which Bush the Senior once described as being of the gravest damage to the US and to all Americans, and deserving of maximum punishment. If Bush the Junior is even one-tenth the war-time leader he claims to be, would he not have long ago gathered all his subordinates and said, "Within the hour, I will have on my desk the admission and resignation of whoever committed this crime, and the names of anyone and everyone who was involved in any way." Yet, a year after the fact, the most that Mr. Bush will say is that he won't "comment on an ongoing investigation". And, when (for his criminal trial) Mr. Cheney's direct subordinate, Scooter Libby, tried to obtain the emails that would show who authorized this leak, the only thing that the public was told was that those crucial emails have mysteriously vanished.
Of course, we cannot forget the horrendously mistaken Iraq War, which is now past its 3rd anniversary of Mr. Bush declaring it to be completed, with his famous and cocksure fighter-plane descent over the shipboard banner announcing "Mission Accomplished". Entire volumes can be spoken about the catastropic and bankrupting debacle and embarrassment of this war, but suffice it to say here that any other president in recent memory would have been promptly impeached for that single act of war-policy incompetence and malfeasance alone.
Still, even all of the above does not write the final chapter on the failures of this 43rd American President. As we look at America's southern borders, we find the governors and congressmen of those crucial states desperately shouting to us of the estimated 3,000 to 8,000 (let us use 5,000, for conservative round numbers) illegal invaders crossing into our great nation each and every day, among whose illegal ranks must certainly be hundreds of terrorists from God knows where, with plans and patience known only by Satan himself. Yet, after promising in October of 2005 to increase the security of our borders, Mr. Bush has done absolutely nothing to keep that promise. 5,000 per day times roughly 30 days in each month equals 150,000 per month... times five months is 750,000 strangers (lawbreakers, one and all, by virtue of their wilful illegal entry into our nation and their remaining hidden from our laws) who have invaded America since Mr. Bush made his promise a mere five months ago. The yearly totally easily surpasses 1.5 million, by the most conservative estimates (and many estimates hover around a full 3 million per year.) The question is not "How many dozens or hundreds or thousands of those invaders are actually deadly-serious suicidal terrorists?" but rather "How many of them need to be even mediocre terrorists to wreak unimaginable destruction upon our great land?"
It is not my words alone that paint the above sad picture. More and more staunch Conservatives and Republicans have gone from merely voicing concerns to raising severe and frightening doubts about this president - and his backers, advisors and handlers - and their arrogant and utterly out-of-touch policies. In recent weeks, even the famed Cato Institute - long respected as a mature voice amid America's ranks of responsible Conservative economic and social thinkers - has echoed much of what I have itemized above.
And that is in addition to the many, many disenchanted life-long Republicans who were painfully astonished to learn how the Bush team was fully in the process of turning over our most crucial and vulnerable seaports to the Taliban-supporting UAE -- and especially to learn that Mr. Bush himself was totally unaware of this unconscionable betrayal until he read about it in the newspapers! (Which begs the question of whether Mr. Bush was too unaware or lacking in business and political savvy to have bothered to keep abreast of such monumental goings-on, or if the behind-the-scenes international power-brokers considered him too unimportant or inept to include him "in the loop" on such matters. Or both.) And, even in the face of the fire-storm that arose over this betrayal of US security, Mr. Bush vowed to strongly fight for that betrayal, and arrogantly promised to promptly and enthusiastically veto any Republican attempts to block that outrageous give-away of our crucial seaports. Plus - even beyond that - he continued to defend the absurd scheme well after it had been totally abandoned and disowned by even the staunchest Conservatives and Republicans.
All of which raises the first of two urgent questions, "Exactly who does this man represent?" Certainly not Liberals, or Libertarians, or Moderates, or Independents... but, astonishingly, not even Conservatives and Republicans. Again, do not take my word for any of this. Read the words of the esteemed Cato think tank, long amid the early and steadfast ranks of initial Bush supporters.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/07/AR2006030701403_pf.html
Indeed, with an astonishing 34% approval rating for this sitting president (unheard of in our lifetime for a "war president" during days of deadly foreign peril) and a mere 18% approval rating for his vice president, Mr. Cheney, we are forced to ask who exactly is his constituency? Who does he represent? Who are the supporters who benefit from his actions and policies? After the monstrously incompetent and deadly failures of 9/11 and Katrina, plus the politically out-of-touch betrayal revealed by the UAE sellout of our seaports, how can we trust this administration to even begin to know how to protect our great land? Or to even care to learn?
All of which leads us to the second urgent question. Aside from wondering exactly who are the powerful and well-heeled international financial interests who (by default) are clearly the true beneficiaries of Mr. Bush's policies, we must ask (more importantly) where do we common-folk loyal Americans fit into their global plans? Remember, nearly five full years after the unparalleled catastrophe of 9/11, we have clearly seen how the Bush team was deeply entrenched in the colossal sell-out of our vital seaports to the Taliban-supporting Dubai government-owned business interests who celebrate their vast financial conquests at the same jet-set country clubs as Mr. Bush's long-time oil-rich Saudi friends and his big-oil multi-national supporters.
Yet, these are the hidden billionaire wheeler-dealers and governments whose financial interests and business preferences are clearly navigating America's ship of state. Is it not their interests that will guide our nation's secret police as they monitor and archive all of our email, phone calls, faxes and Web activities? Is it not their hand-picked security teams and domestic spies who will be picking apart our private lives, looking for evidence that we may be doing or thinking something that runs counter to their global goals and windfall profits? Is it not their allies and supporters and secret political operatives who will be questioning our patriotism, and moving to prosecute us for speaking out against their lucrative multi-national agendas, that greatly enrich themselves at our expense?
Further, at a fundamental level, we must question the screening of even the more mundane staffers who have been selected as this administration's rank and file. We have already seen the embarrassing sham of Mr. Bush's assistant's good ol' boy frat-buddy (Mr. Brown) being appointed as FEMA chief (despite such poorly matched credentials). We saw Mr. Bush trying to push his personal lawyer and old-time Texas crony (Ms. Meirs) onto the Supreme Court (to the shock, laughter and loud rejections of Democrats and Republicans alike). More recently we learned that a former top White House aide was arrested for grand theft from department stores, while a top-level Homeland Security official was caught-in-the-act online by the FBI as he vigorously attempted to lure (what he thought was) a 14 year old girl into sexual liaisons and statutory rape. These - and God knows how many more like them - are the nuts and bolts of the machinery to whom we have entrusted our liberties, freedoms, national security, and protection from terrorists and natural disasters. Such are the wisdom, staff selections and screening procedures of the Bush team, to which we have entrusted the very future of our great nation.
The symbol of the Conservative movement is immortalized in the form of the Republican Party's whimsical elephant. How long can we - as Conservatives, as Republicans, as Patriots - pretend to not see the incredibly destructive juggernaut that has been unleased on our cherished nation?
President Clinton was impeached - and rightfully so - for his egregious and disrespectful behavior within the walls of our hallowed White House, for his betrayal of basic decency, morality and honesty. Yet, we must look carefully at all of his sins, even before he became president, and ask (1) how many Americans were directly harmed by his sins and crimes and (2) in what ways did those victims suffer? Before becoming president, the legendary "Whitewater Scandal" was an amalgam of sleazy land-deal business transactions peppered with a variety of questionable or fraudulent bank-loans and crooked scam-artists who comprised Bill Clinton's personal life and Arkansas good-ol-boy network of shady wheeler-dealers, and which resulted in over a dozen lower-level criminal convictions among his tawdry Arkansas crowd. But even the worst of those crimes didn't loot any part of the US federal treasury, or even the Arkansas treasury, or submit any common-folk US citizens (or anyone else on earth) to jeopardy of life or limb. As for Mr. Clinton's notorious personal life, Monica Lewinsky was a willing partner, though surely Mr. Clinton was a certifiable sexual predator, whose victims included Jennifer Flowers, Paula Jones and perhaps as many as a dozen others, over the years. He crossed the line of public trust when he looked into my eye and yours while he outright lied to all Americans about his illicit and seedy adventures, which certainly gives all Americans solid grounds to be highly indignant and revulsed. For that betrayal while president, he fully deserved to be not only impeached, but to be convicted and removed from office.
That being said, go back and re-read all of my words that preceded the above tales of Mr. Clinton's sordid misdeeds. Go talk to the families of the well over 2,300 brave American GI's who have died; and the many tens of thousands of Soldiers, Airmen, Sailors, Marines and National Guardsmen who have been gravely wounded and crippled for life; and the hundreds of thousands of similar horrid deaths and casualties among the innocent Iraqi civilian men and women and children, who we had promised to be rescuing and helping. Look at our 2 trillion dollar deficit that grows worse each day; at the hundreds of billions of dollars we'll be spending (for decades to come) fighting in Iraq, which never needed to happen; at the outrageous and obscene windfall profits being enjoyed by Mr. Bush's contributors in the oil and arms (and other) industries; at the widespread corruption and payoffs involving his friends, thanks to the dealings of Mr. Abramoff (whom Mr. Bush denied ever having met until pictures at over a dozen different meetings began appearing); at the well-documented torture that was graphically revealed in both Iraq and Guantanamo, that has greatly embarrassed all of America's proud traditions and ideals around the world; at the wide-spread secret wire-tapping of American citizens, that outraged even old-time loyal Republicans and Conservatives.
And then go back and look at that pre-war newsreel of Mr. Bush taunting Fate and all of the world's most evil souls by saying, "Bring 'em on!" while (as we now know so miserably well) he clearly lacked the experience, skills, savvy, diplomacy, talents, staff, competence, intelligence, honesty, and political insights to avoid any of the extraordinarily catastrophic tragedies and blunders detailed above. Go back and watch him displaying the most abysmal lack of maturity and international diplomacy by appearing before the UN and calling other world leaders "gutless" and "cowards" for not eagerly following him into the disastrous war into which he led the US, and which they clearly had the wisdom and common sense to avoid. Then ask yourself, if William Jefferson Clinton deserved to be impeached and convicted for lying about a brief dalliance with a fully willing tart, what exactly can America reasonably expect to be the fair and appropriate consequences for the wilfully deadly deceit and mammoth failures of George Walker Bush?
Patrick_Q_Henry@yahoo.com
Considering the strong and traditional Conservative legacy from which I and my namesake originated, I find it almost inconceivable that I would have ever reached the point which I have now reluctantly reached.
Perhaps the "last straw" was the attemped selling out of our great nation's highly vulnerable major seaports to (of all places) the United Arab Emirates. Did the current leadership take total leave of its senses? Were they not aware that this very same political entity continues to regard the Taliban as the only legitimate government of Afghanistan? Were those American leaders not aware that this very same UAE government actually owns the business concern that would have been operating our crucial seaports? Could they not have been aware that this self-same UAE government was (and is) the political entity who owns the banks who laundered the money used by the 9/11 terrorists who murdered thousands of Americans in cold blood? Could those on the Bush team have not been aware that millions of people from that regional and religious culture utterly despise America and Americans, and that only one such person need "slip past the gates" to unleash another 9/11 upon us?
At very, very least, how could an American political administration be so totally unaware of how utterly insensitive and politically unwise it felt to the average American, to have their President put the ownership of America's most vulnerable seaport assets into the hands of such utterly foreign owners? Does the hallowed phrase "From sea to shining sea" resonate no passion in them?
All of this raises the issue that has been troubling me the most. As with most people of a Conservative upbringing and background, I had been giving "my" President every benefit of the doubt, granting him every possible leeway to explain every action of which I may have felt uncomfortable. But, when that "last straw" finally broke my aching back, I was forced to revisit with new eyes a long procession of painful visions.
First was the debacle of the tragedy in New Orleans at the hands of Hurricane Katrina. Or, to be more accurate, "at the hands" of those who (in retrospect) demonstrated a level of incompetence and cronyism that operated at nothing short of criminal levels. We know now what we did not know then: that Michael Brown, FEMA's director, had zero meaningful experience in managing any large organization, other than elitist horse-shows. We know now (and have seen it on undeniable video-conference videotape) that - while we loyally believed Mr. Bush's seemingly sincere claims that he was unaware of weakened levees in New Orleans - he and his staff were made fully aware of those levees' deadly vulnerabilities well in advance of their certain and devastating failure. We know now that - while Mr. Bush was blithely proclaiming "Brownie, you're doing a great job!" - he either had no idea at all of the horridly inept job that Mr. Brown and FEMA were doing, or Mr. Bush did know it but was deceitfully trying to convince us otherwise. Either way, a great many Americans died and untold fortunes in property-loss resulted directly from that incompetence.
More important is what the above tells us about 9/11. As with the final report on the horrible and preventable disaster that befell New Orleans, it was likewise a Republican-led investigation that declared that 9/11 too was caused by a wide-spread and colossal failure of virtually every aspect of national security and disaster prevention. With hindsight, it is quite easy to see the same level of blatant cronyism, arrogance, disorganization, amateurish political in-fighting, and utter incompetence that undermined our defenses within the FBI, CIA, FAA, Pentagon and all other crucial agencies, leaving all America as vulnerable in 2001 as the Gulf Coast was in 2005. Indeed, the abjectly unforgivable ineptness that brought us such havoc in New Orleans came over four full years after the debacle of 9/11; after the Bush team had had four full years to improve their inept national security skills and methods since 9/11; four years after they should have been able to learn something - anything - from their utterly inadequate performance in 2001.
In retrospect, considering the Bush Administration's undeniable ineptness and gross negligence in 2001, our nation is fortunate that 9/11 wasn't far worse than it was. For that blessing, we can thank only Al Quaeda's naive failure to attempt attacks more daring than they did, since they clearly never suspected that America's security had fallen into hands so woefully unprepared to do a proper job of ensuring America's defense. Clearly, they never dared to believe it would have been so easy, because never before in our entire history had America ever been left that unprotected.
But, despite any charges of the ease of being a "Monday Morning Quarterback," it is still fully valid to explore all the other "smoking guns" that all good Conservatives should have seen, but - out of blind loyalty - we refused to notice. Not the least of these is Mr. Bush's promise to be a "Fiscal Conservative". Yet, somehow, within mere months, he had converted a 5 trillion dollar budget surplus into a 2 trillion dollar deficit. If we can rightfully condemn Liberals for their "tax and spend" obsessions, is it not a hundred times worse to recklessly spend in the present moment by borrowing unimaginably huge sums from our descendants, for generations to come, which they will have to pay back from future taxes, with heavy interest? Is it not a thousand times more criminal to give those present cash-windfalls to a politician's political supporters, contributors and cronies, and to force our descendants to foot the bill for their entire lives, for generations to come?
We likewise saw Mr. Bush cry crocodile tears over the lost lives in recent coal mine disasters. But he never mentioned that it was he who greatly weakened the safety laws that would have protected those miners, solely to put more money into the pockets of the mine owners, likewise among his supporters and contributors.
Meanwhile, now virtually a year after the crime, we still don't know who it was who revealed the name and highly sensitive CIA-status of Valerie Plame, which was in every sense a major (and criminal) breach of national security, and specifically the kind of federal felony which Bush the Senior once described as being of the gravest damage to the US and to all Americans, and deserving of maximum punishment. If Bush the Junior is even one-tenth the war-time leader he claims to be, would he not have long ago gathered all his subordinates and said, "Within the hour, I will have on my desk the admission and resignation of whoever committed this crime, and the names of anyone and everyone who was involved in any way." Yet, a year after the fact, the most that Mr. Bush will say is that he won't "comment on an ongoing investigation". And, when (for his criminal trial) Mr. Cheney's direct subordinate, Scooter Libby, tried to obtain the emails that would show who authorized this leak, the only thing that the public was told was that those crucial emails have mysteriously vanished.
Of course, we cannot forget the horrendously mistaken Iraq War, which is now past its 3rd anniversary of Mr. Bush declaring it to be completed, with his famous and cocksure fighter-plane descent over the shipboard banner announcing "Mission Accomplished". Entire volumes can be spoken about the catastropic and bankrupting debacle and embarrassment of this war, but suffice it to say here that any other president in recent memory would have been promptly impeached for that single act of war-policy incompetence and malfeasance alone.
Still, even all of the above does not write the final chapter on the failures of this 43rd American President. As we look at America's southern borders, we find the governors and congressmen of those crucial states desperately shouting to us of the estimated 3,000 to 8,000 (let us use 5,000, for conservative round numbers) illegal invaders crossing into our great nation each and every day, among whose illegal ranks must certainly be hundreds of terrorists from God knows where, with plans and patience known only by Satan himself. Yet, after promising in October of 2005 to increase the security of our borders, Mr. Bush has done absolutely nothing to keep that promise. 5,000 per day times roughly 30 days in each month equals 150,000 per month... times five months is 750,000 strangers (lawbreakers, one and all, by virtue of their wilful illegal entry into our nation and their remaining hidden from our laws) who have invaded America since Mr. Bush made his promise a mere five months ago. The yearly totally easily surpasses 1.5 million, by the most conservative estimates (and many estimates hover around a full 3 million per year.) The question is not "How many dozens or hundreds or thousands of those invaders are actually deadly-serious suicidal terrorists?" but rather "How many of them need to be even mediocre terrorists to wreak unimaginable destruction upon our great land?"
It is not my words alone that paint the above sad picture. More and more staunch Conservatives and Republicans have gone from merely voicing concerns to raising severe and frightening doubts about this president - and his backers, advisors and handlers - and their arrogant and utterly out-of-touch policies. In recent weeks, even the famed Cato Institute - long respected as a mature voice amid America's ranks of responsible Conservative economic and social thinkers - has echoed much of what I have itemized above.
And that is in addition to the many, many disenchanted life-long Republicans who were painfully astonished to learn how the Bush team was fully in the process of turning over our most crucial and vulnerable seaports to the Taliban-supporting UAE -- and especially to learn that Mr. Bush himself was totally unaware of this unconscionable betrayal until he read about it in the newspapers! (Which begs the question of whether Mr. Bush was too unaware or lacking in business and political savvy to have bothered to keep abreast of such monumental goings-on, or if the behind-the-scenes international power-brokers considered him too unimportant or inept to include him "in the loop" on such matters. Or both.) And, even in the face of the fire-storm that arose over this betrayal of US security, Mr. Bush vowed to strongly fight for that betrayal, and arrogantly promised to promptly and enthusiastically veto any Republican attempts to block that outrageous give-away of our crucial seaports. Plus - even beyond that - he continued to defend the absurd scheme well after it had been totally abandoned and disowned by even the staunchest Conservatives and Republicans.
All of which raises the first of two urgent questions, "Exactly who does this man represent?" Certainly not Liberals, or Libertarians, or Moderates, or Independents... but, astonishingly, not even Conservatives and Republicans. Again, do not take my word for any of this. Read the words of the esteemed Cato think tank, long amid the early and steadfast ranks of initial Bush supporters.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/07/AR2006030701403_pf.html
Indeed, with an astonishing 34% approval rating for this sitting president (unheard of in our lifetime for a "war president" during days of deadly foreign peril) and a mere 18% approval rating for his vice president, Mr. Cheney, we are forced to ask who exactly is his constituency? Who does he represent? Who are the supporters who benefit from his actions and policies? After the monstrously incompetent and deadly failures of 9/11 and Katrina, plus the politically out-of-touch betrayal revealed by the UAE sellout of our seaports, how can we trust this administration to even begin to know how to protect our great land? Or to even care to learn?
All of which leads us to the second urgent question. Aside from wondering exactly who are the powerful and well-heeled international financial interests who (by default) are clearly the true beneficiaries of Mr. Bush's policies, we must ask (more importantly) where do we common-folk loyal Americans fit into their global plans? Remember, nearly five full years after the unparalleled catastrophe of 9/11, we have clearly seen how the Bush team was deeply entrenched in the colossal sell-out of our vital seaports to the Taliban-supporting Dubai government-owned business interests who celebrate their vast financial conquests at the same jet-set country clubs as Mr. Bush's long-time oil-rich Saudi friends and his big-oil multi-national supporters.
Yet, these are the hidden billionaire wheeler-dealers and governments whose financial interests and business preferences are clearly navigating America's ship of state. Is it not their interests that will guide our nation's secret police as they monitor and archive all of our email, phone calls, faxes and Web activities? Is it not their hand-picked security teams and domestic spies who will be picking apart our private lives, looking for evidence that we may be doing or thinking something that runs counter to their global goals and windfall profits? Is it not their allies and supporters and secret political operatives who will be questioning our patriotism, and moving to prosecute us for speaking out against their lucrative multi-national agendas, that greatly enrich themselves at our expense?
Further, at a fundamental level, we must question the screening of even the more mundane staffers who have been selected as this administration's rank and file. We have already seen the embarrassing sham of Mr. Bush's assistant's good ol' boy frat-buddy (Mr. Brown) being appointed as FEMA chief (despite such poorly matched credentials). We saw Mr. Bush trying to push his personal lawyer and old-time Texas crony (Ms. Meirs) onto the Supreme Court (to the shock, laughter and loud rejections of Democrats and Republicans alike). More recently we learned that a former top White House aide was arrested for grand theft from department stores, while a top-level Homeland Security official was caught-in-the-act online by the FBI as he vigorously attempted to lure (what he thought was) a 14 year old girl into sexual liaisons and statutory rape. These - and God knows how many more like them - are the nuts and bolts of the machinery to whom we have entrusted our liberties, freedoms, national security, and protection from terrorists and natural disasters. Such are the wisdom, staff selections and screening procedures of the Bush team, to which we have entrusted the very future of our great nation.
The symbol of the Conservative movement is immortalized in the form of the Republican Party's whimsical elephant. How long can we - as Conservatives, as Republicans, as Patriots - pretend to not see the incredibly destructive juggernaut that has been unleased on our cherished nation?
President Clinton was impeached - and rightfully so - for his egregious and disrespectful behavior within the walls of our hallowed White House, for his betrayal of basic decency, morality and honesty. Yet, we must look carefully at all of his sins, even before he became president, and ask (1) how many Americans were directly harmed by his sins and crimes and (2) in what ways did those victims suffer? Before becoming president, the legendary "Whitewater Scandal" was an amalgam of sleazy land-deal business transactions peppered with a variety of questionable or fraudulent bank-loans and crooked scam-artists who comprised Bill Clinton's personal life and Arkansas good-ol-boy network of shady wheeler-dealers, and which resulted in over a dozen lower-level criminal convictions among his tawdry Arkansas crowd. But even the worst of those crimes didn't loot any part of the US federal treasury, or even the Arkansas treasury, or submit any common-folk US citizens (or anyone else on earth) to jeopardy of life or limb. As for Mr. Clinton's notorious personal life, Monica Lewinsky was a willing partner, though surely Mr. Clinton was a certifiable sexual predator, whose victims included Jennifer Flowers, Paula Jones and perhaps as many as a dozen others, over the years. He crossed the line of public trust when he looked into my eye and yours while he outright lied to all Americans about his illicit and seedy adventures, which certainly gives all Americans solid grounds to be highly indignant and revulsed. For that betrayal while president, he fully deserved to be not only impeached, but to be convicted and removed from office.
That being said, go back and re-read all of my words that preceded the above tales of Mr. Clinton's sordid misdeeds. Go talk to the families of the well over 2,300 brave American GI's who have died; and the many tens of thousands of Soldiers, Airmen, Sailors, Marines and National Guardsmen who have been gravely wounded and crippled for life; and the hundreds of thousands of similar horrid deaths and casualties among the innocent Iraqi civilian men and women and children, who we had promised to be rescuing and helping. Look at our 2 trillion dollar deficit that grows worse each day; at the hundreds of billions of dollars we'll be spending (for decades to come) fighting in Iraq, which never needed to happen; at the outrageous and obscene windfall profits being enjoyed by Mr. Bush's contributors in the oil and arms (and other) industries; at the widespread corruption and payoffs involving his friends, thanks to the dealings of Mr. Abramoff (whom Mr. Bush denied ever having met until pictures at over a dozen different meetings began appearing); at the well-documented torture that was graphically revealed in both Iraq and Guantanamo, that has greatly embarrassed all of America's proud traditions and ideals around the world; at the wide-spread secret wire-tapping of American citizens, that outraged even old-time loyal Republicans and Conservatives.
And then go back and look at that pre-war newsreel of Mr. Bush taunting Fate and all of the world's most evil souls by saying, "Bring 'em on!" while (as we now know so miserably well) he clearly lacked the experience, skills, savvy, diplomacy, talents, staff, competence, intelligence, honesty, and political insights to avoid any of the extraordinarily catastrophic tragedies and blunders detailed above. Go back and watch him displaying the most abysmal lack of maturity and international diplomacy by appearing before the UN and calling other world leaders "gutless" and "cowards" for not eagerly following him into the disastrous war into which he led the US, and which they clearly had the wisdom and common sense to avoid. Then ask yourself, if William Jefferson Clinton deserved to be impeached and convicted for lying about a brief dalliance with a fully willing tart, what exactly can America reasonably expect to be the fair and appropriate consequences for the wilfully deadly deceit and mammoth failures of George Walker Bush?
Patrick_Q_Henry@yahoo.com
posted by Patrick Q. Henry at 2:41 PM
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