Chimpeach

I figured no one needed me to chime in on the Cheney shooting incident, especially after the professional comedians chewed him a new one. I heard every Dead-Eye Dick and "Administration That Couldn't Shoot Straight" reference that they could pepper the old bastard with. Still, it was an unfortunate accident,especially for poor Harry Whittington who, as part of the White House clean-up, had to get out of bed, put on a suit, and apologise for getting shot. If Cheney had not been so taciturn and surly, he might have absorbed the ridicule for a few days and the whole matter would have been over. Cheney's post-accident conduct, however, gives genuine cause for alarm. His disdain for the media is so thorough, his aloofness from the electorate so complete, that Cheney doesn't feel that he is accountable to anyone on matters both public and personal, including the President.

Cheney's delay in reporting his accident to the President shows that he either outranks him, or has the same contempt for Bush shared by most of the world. Can you imagine such an accident happening to Walter Mondale and he decided to wait a couple of days before informing Jimmy Carter. Or Quayle not being immediately forthcoming to Bush the Elder? They would both be asked for resignations and be out on their respective asses the next day. This situation should even convince the Bush partisans what the real hierarchy of power is in this White House. Cheney is, and has been, the de-facto president who is responsible for government policy decisions in league with his secret underworld of advisors. Karl Rove makes all the political decisions, in case a Cheney policy, like torture, falls afoul of the polls. And GeeDubya, the amiable global village idiot, is merely a meat puppet for corporate interests who looks good in a suit and can lead the traveling road show doing what he so accurately describes as "catapulting the propaganda." I would think the Bush voters might be feeling a little buyer's remorse about now.

I was resigned to enduring the three years left in this circus. But there is a real crisis within the administration itself that does not bode well for anything other than damage control to continue from here. No more speeches about men to Mars or America's "ownership society." The United States is now practically a wholly owned subsidiary of China and Japan. And all Bush can do is try to outrun the looming financial crisis like a tourist in Pamploma about to be gored by a bull. This nation cannot afford three more years of this irrational and destructive behavior. So, for the good of the nation, after Mr. Cheney's full involvement in the CIA leak case is made public, he should resign his office and be replaced. Bush and Rumsfeld deserve Impeachment for lying to the American people and taking this country to war without sufficient planning or equipment. Rove just needs to be arrested, and like Ambassador Joe Wilson said, "frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs."

This government is the worst fraud ever perpetrated on the American people. The Iraqi war has the Muslim world in a rage, Iran has become a present danger with our armed forces too stretched to respond if necessary, and for the first time since the Reagan years, new Latin American leaders, contemptuous of the Bush government, are being elected by railing against U.S. imperialism. Bush has made this a much more dangerous world. If his intentions were to roll back social progress to the fifties, he succeeded in returning us to the twenties. We will be a very long time cleaning up the wreckage left behind by this bunch.

And the blundering, inept Homeland Security Department just granted rights to the United Arab Emirates to operate some of our most vital ports. I guess they figure that Arabs are better at finding the bad apples in their bunch who wish us ill, and will prevent them from infiltrating the Port Authorities better than our government. Sort of like how the military outsourced the job of capturing Osama Bin Laden to the Pakistanis at Tora Bora. Michael Jackson already lives in Dubai. Following the logic of the Bolton and Brown appointments, Bush should just go ahead and make him ambassador. I'd bet he would do a "heckuva job."

Homeland Security's bastard child, FEMA, has yet to adequately respond to Hurricane Katrina. People on the Mississippi Gulf Coast are sleeping in tents while acres of mobile homes lie sinking in a field in Arkansas. Say what you will about Bill Clinton's integrity, but had this hurricane taken place on his watch, you can bet that things regarding housing and health would be fixed by now. These wretched citizens are still waiting for loans, trailers, and assistance, while millions of dollars intended for the victims have already been stolen and the levee problem has yet to be addressed. Hurricane season is right around the corner.

After the 2001 attacks on this country, I recall feeling grateful that experienced men like Cheney and Rumsfeld were in power. I never believed that they would cynically use those attacks to manipulate the American people into backing their distorted and discredited world view. Now, I am bone weary of them and I just want them to go. There is criminal conduct to be accounted for and justice to be meted out for all the people in this White House that helped push the fraudulent case for war. Since this administration continues to morph into the Nixon model, when they are convicted and gone to prison, President Condoleezza Rice can tell us, "our long national nightmare is over."

The Critical State of the Union

Is he delusional? Is he insane? Or is there just not enough oxygen getting into that bubble he is in? What in the hell was he talking about? Is some evil scientist somewhere about to perfect a cloned centaur that I don't know about? Then what was all that business about banning inter-species cloning? We already have Ted Williams' head in a freezer somewhere and some DNA from Secretariat. Just think of the baseball playing racehorse we could create if the President would relax the regulations a little. He has on everything else, why not cloning? We could clone Bush and impeach him twice.

The wonderful thing about our President is that it does not matter what you say or write about him. He is not listening so he is not concerned. Bush is the walking example of the axiom "ignorance is bliss." As long as there is another hill to climb on his mountain bike, the world is a wonderful place. As evidenced by the State of the Union speech last night, that's too bad for the rest of us. Usually, Bush says whatever he needs to say to get through a crisis, (i.e. "We'll build back New Orleans better than ever," or, "Listening to Americans' conversations without a warrant is covered under Congress' vote to give the President power to wage war.")But last night, he did not even attempt that. It was the same old bovine leavings. "9/11, terrorists are trying to kill you, don't pay any attention to the man behind the curtain, God bless America, Git-R-Done."

Bush speaks of the dangers of isolationism and protectionism. Are we back to the Monroe Doctrine? Who in the United States is speaking of "isolationism" except President Bush? Back in college philosophy, we learned that such an argument is called a "straw man." You create a bogeyman from whole cloth, create fear or confusion about it, then you knock it down. Saddam Hussein has proved to be very much of a straw man except he keeps walking out of court and defying the law. Who does he think he is, George W. Bush? And the only protectionism I've heard about comes from Republicans, horrified by our trade deficit, who wish to put tariffs on goods coming from other countries who's labor is cheaper than ours. Bush realizes his corporate donors along the Texas border need that cheap labor, but he engages in doublespeak because the people who vote for him want to build a wall.

Bush says "freedom is on the march." Unfortunately, it's a forced march at bayonet point. If he has admitted intelligence failures caused him to "adjust" his battle plan, why in five years has he done nothing to improve our intelligence capabilities? What good does it do to read Americans' e-mail but miss the fact that the Palestinian elections are not going the way you thought? Bush pointedly warned Hamas about conditions they must meet before being recognized by the United States. My question is, do you think they care? The Palestinian people elected a terrorist organization to represent them right under the nose, and financial aid, of the U.S. government. Are they concerned that the Bush administration scolded them? Judging from the news footage from the West Bank, the outcome of this election could have been predicted by the administration just from finding out who had the concession for green baseball hats in Nablus.

It has reached the sad point where it does not matter what the President says. Most people just don't believe him anymore. Last night, Bush read a Karl Rove "strategeried" speech poorly. It was a waste of an hour for all concerned. Now that it's over, we can turn our attention this week to the largest case of corporate fraud ever, and hope that somewhere during the Enron trial it will be pointed out that they were the Bush team's major corporate donors since his first run for Governor of Texas. What I am eagerly awaiting is the State of the Union address for next year. I realize that it is twelve months away, but the mid-term elections are only ten months away. And if the American people have finally drawn the conclusion that our engineer and his crew are, and have been, asleep at the switch, they just may rise up in righteous indignation and decide to throw the bums out. In that case, without the cloak of a Republican Congress to protect him, next year's address may come while the President is under indictment for high crimes and misdemeanors. Come on, calendar! Meanwhile, no cloning Granny along with Fluffy to try and create a housecat that bakes cookies.