My Exit Strategy

ISLAMIC PEACEKEEPERS! How much louder can I shout it, and why haven't I heard this suggestion from anyone in government? The Bush administration's reckless adventure in Iraq is fast approaching the time when it will be beyond our ability to influence events on the ground. Our soldiers are in the crosshairs of every wanna-be jihadist with a weapon and the elected representatives of the Iraqi people refuse to compromise on a coalition government despite the prodding from Dr. Rice to hurry up and get something done before the U.S. mid-term elections.

This is something President Bush could accomplish on his own, without the coaching of his failed policy-makers or his soon to be jailed political advisor. President Bush has assets he could yet bring to bear toward a favorable outcome in Iraq. He has old friends in the Saudi Royal Family; an ally in Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan; a convert in Khadaffi of Libya; a grateful populace in Kuwait; and emerging Arab states like Qatar and the U.A.E. who wish to prove to the U.S. that they are trustworthy enough partners with which to do business. The President could appeal to these nations and leaders personally, or through Secretary Rice, to provide troops to act as peacekeepers while the Iraqis determine their own future.

This would relieve the American military of daily and deadly street patrols and allow them to redeploy to what John Kerry called in a N.Y. Times editorial, "a garrisoned position, over the horizon." Kerry failed to note that U.S. trained Iraqi security forces are not yet capable of suppressing the violence, either against coalition forces or against Iraqi civilians. If the American and British forces were removed from the equation and replaced by Muslim troops, proportionately Sunni and Shia to the Iraqi population, neither Al Qaeda nor home grown Iraqi insurgents would be so zealous to kill them in the name of jihad. The U.S. could prove to the Iraqi people that we have no permanent designs on their country by withdrawing our forces to secured positions and allowing those Arab states that claim to be America's friends, to stand up and prove it and assist us in our time of need.

The time is running out in this endeavor. If the breaking news concerning the Scooter Libby testimony to the grand jury proves to be true, the President is about to become embroiled in a maze of political and legal difficulties that will dominate the remainder of his term, however long that may be. President Clouseau promised to get to the bottom of who was leaking classified information from his administration, but he forgot to get a "lizenze for his minkey," and found the leaker in the mirror. The President claims patriotic amnesia. While mountain biking in Crawford, he heard one too many Toby Keith songs on his iPod and felt justified in trashing the reputations of the sneaky traitors who dared question the true lies that the White House Iraqi Group so meticulously concocted. Jethro's in a heap of trouble this time.

But our soldiers in Iraq can't afford to wait for legislative justice to be meted out to the neo-cons and war planners who's bankrupt ideology put them there, along with the President who said of Iraq that "God told me to strike them, and so I did." Unless God suddenly changed His mind and decided, "Blessed are the warmongers," Bush was probably hearing the voice of God through Dick Cheney. It is now clear that both Cheney and Rumsfeld believe that if Bush the Elder had given Norman Schwartzkoff one more week, he would have been in Baghdad and either captured or killed Saddam. But Poppy Bush wasn't interested in the uncertainty of a long term occupation of Iraq. That's why Bush the Clueless wasn't interested in asking his father's sissy advice and instead claimed council from a "Higher Father." It's tough to argue with schizophrenics or politicians who claim they hear voices.

Everyday the status quo is maintained in Iraq, is one day farther from resolution, and another day of bloodshed. The discredited architects of this conflict are now obligated to extricate us from it. They should, without delay, impose upon the President to call on America's Arab friends, cowboy hat in hand if necessary, to request military assistance in helping to lessen the turmoil in Iraq. It is in the interest of modern Arab states to assist first in ending the slaughter of Muslims by their fellow Muslims; to pacify the home grown insurgency and restrict Al Qaeda targets by limiting the American military presence; and to assist in encouraging the emergence of a representative Iraqi government that could put a check on Iranian ambitions in the region.

The question is, can this macho, posturing administration find the humility to ask for help? Our armed forces have done everything that could possibly have been asked of them and more. The American military cannot impose a political solution on the Iraqis, and their presence is now a flashpoint for Islamic rage. Bush is the first president since Nixon with a daily body count. And though Nixon was elected on a "secret plan" to end the Vietnam War, over 20,000 more soldiers died before the "secret plan" was implemented. Will Bush's Urban Cowboy attitude cause him to keep our forces in Iraq beyond the point of their usefulness? A personal appeal for Muslim troops may yet earn Bush his coveted place in history as the man who was brazen enough to alter the Middle East political landscape. Then this President can honor the service of the men and women he placed in danger by returning them safely to their families.

I Have A (Bad) Dream

I have a bad dream today. That one day, this militaristic administration will realize the dire conditions in which they have placed our armed forces, and try to find a premise to re-institute the draft, just as they found one to invade Iraq. Because of Secretary Rumsfeld's complete misjudgment about the forces needed to control Iraq, along with our soldiers stationed in Afghanistan and around the world, our military is stretched like a taut rubber band. Ask any member of the cabinet or the Congress and they will say that there is absolutely no popular support for a draft. Yet, they don't rule it out. And with our armed forces missing their volunteer goals month after month because war doesn't seem like much of a career choice for someone who is merely trying to raise money for college, we simply need more soldiers. This means that any provocation against the United States, be it along the Iranian border, or another attempt to strike at a major American city, can be used by experienced propagandists to stir up patriotic fervor to, by God, raise an Army large enough to crush our enemies.

Please don't think I am being paranoid about a draft. After all, the Selective Service system was never disassembled after the draft was ended by Congress in 1973, and it is still the law for young men to register with Selective Service on their 18th birthday. Though representatives from both parties continue to repeat that proposing a draft would be the political kiss of death, Salon.com reported that on an obscure federal web site devoted to the war on terror, the Bush administration quietly began a public campaign to restaff and restart the regional draft boards that men from the Vietnam era remember so well. The announcement read, "If a military draft becomes necessary, approximately 2000 Local and Appeal Boards throughout America would decide which young men...receive deferments, postponements or exemptions from military service." The only thing that has changed about a potential draft are the rules.

Neither President Shemp, Deadeye Dick Cheney, or Karl "The Konquerer" Rove, ever had to worry about the draft during the Vietnam War. Cheney, the king of deferments, merely stayed in college until it was over, and Rove was likewise disqualified. President Shemp, of course, was in favor of the war in Vietnam and allowed the military to train him as a jet fighter pilot. Only, that was sufficient. He didn't really want to fight or nothin'. Now we see that the National Guard and the Army Reserve are no longer safe havens from combat and if required to confront North Korea or Iran, we don't have the manpower to do it. Under current law, if the Congress and the President agree that military forces are needed in the defense of this country, the President's signature re-activates the draft. Federal law then requires the Selective Service to immediately set up a lottery and begin to send out induction notices. And you can forget about that college silliness. New law states that students who's lottery numbers are picked would only be permitted to finish their current semester and then it's "grab your toothbrush and get on the bus."

In addition, a proposal from Selective Service director Lewis Brodsky to senior Pentagon officials, just released under the Freedom of Information Act in 2004, suggests for the first time, that women should also register for the military draft and that young Americans regularly inform the government if they have acquired any "niche specialties" needed in the armed services. If you think you are too old for the draft, Brodsky also proposed extending the age of draft registrants from the present 25, to 34 years old. If the war in Iraq continues to be, in Rumsfeld's words, "a long hard slog", where will the new soldiers be coming from? Just this week, the Supreme Court ruled that any University that accepts government funds must allow military recruitment on campus. This riles former Vietnam era students who rallied to prevent military recruiters on campus when their only purpose was to find warm bodies for the meat grinder in Southeast Asia.

We have been told by leaders of both parties that it's not a matter of "if" but "when" there is another attempt at a terrorist attack on this country. This administration is filled with master manipulators, and it would take very little to appeal to the sort of patriotism we saw after 9/11 to raise the forces necessary to fight Bush's wars. My observation is that young people, especially college students today, are on the whole a patriotic group and would be inclined to serve if their country called. They should remember the words of Mark Twain that "Patriotism is being loyal to your country all of the time, but to the government only when they deserve it." I try to emphasize to my 20 year old step-son that it's important to differentiate between the nation and what it stands for, and a regime, only temporarily in power, that uses jingoism and patriotism to achieve its political agenda.

This is my bad dream and greatest fear; that this government will attempt to rob young people of their plans and futures in order to fight in a rich man's war. Already, this new conversation about a "War on Christianity" has Karl Rove's fingerprints all over it. This is a blatant attempt to create an emotional wedge issue in time for the 2006 mid-term elections. Banging the drums of war hysteria accomplishes the same purpose, and what better issues for the Republicans to run on than God and War? Already, congressional leaders have proposed bills to introduce some sort of mandatory "national service" for young people, be it in the military where they are needed, or some quasi-altruistic program based on Peace Corps ideals that they haven't thought up yet, but will be impossible to join because of the waiting lists. Here's the most frightening part. Should President Shemp sign legislature re-instituting a lottery draft, federal law requires that the first group of conscripts be processed and ready for boot camp within 193 days of the program's start.

I can't tell my step-son what to do. The best I can tell him is how the draft affected every aspect of my young life, and put strain and anxiety on me and my family who were frustrated at my inability to resolve this personal crisis by appealing to the Draft Board. And I was one of the lucky ones. I avoided killing or being killed in an unjust war of choice, begun by a lie. We don't need another memorial wall on the Mall in Washington. This latest rumbling about a draft must be opposed at all costs. And if my step-son should come to me for advice about what to do should he find himself in such a situation, I will tell him to do the honorable thing and go to jail.

Takin' It To The Street

When I read that the Southern Republican Leadership Conference was to be held in Memphis at the Peabody Hotel with 2500 hardcore Southern True Believers in tow, I decided to protest the event. If I can sit at the computer in my lounging clothes and encourage others to take action, it was the least I could do to drive downtown and join the hundreds of other protesters certain to be there from all over. I have my priorities of course, and first had to watch the Memphis Tigers win their conference championship. I figured I would catch the Republicans for the afternoon session. But my sign was ready. I had made it the day before with posterboard, tomato stakes, magic marker, and staples. It said "Sheep," on one side and "Fools," on the other. I felt anyone who can still defend this administration is either a sheep or a fool. I added the address of this blog, just in case.

It wasn't the first sign I've made. I wasn't always a protester. In college, I was a raging moderate who believed that whatever the question, the answer was "love." Then I witnessed a peaceful demonstration by students at the University of Tennessee turn confrontational and then violent as a squad of Knoxville, helmeted, riot police charged the crowd in a club swinging melee that sent students scattering down the famous Hill, dripping blood into the new Student Center from their fresh head wounds. I realized that protest was a matter of conviction. Then when Richard Nixon announced he was coming to Knoxville to speak at a Billy Graham Crusade after the secret bombing of Cambodia, it fell upon me as a resident Knoxvillian to physically demonstrate against this political misuse of a religious gathering. That's when I made my first sign. It said "Crusade for Christ," but I had drawn an X through Christ and written "Nixon" below it. We picketed the main drag in front of the campus for the benefit of the afternoon Knoxville rush hour, and just to show that we were there. I didn't ask for it. It came to me. Same thing with the Republicans last Sunday. I was obligated to show my face in the place.

I got into a minor confrontation the minute I arrived. I grabbed my sign and headed for the sidewalk on Union Ave. in front of The Peabody when two policemen told me I could not protest on that side of the street. I asked if this wasn't a public sidewalk and was told, in fact, "no," that The Peabody owned the sidewalk all around the block. I was skeptical but crossed the street. Then as a measure of civil disobedience, I walked to Third Street and down the sidewalk on the Peabody side but the back way where the service entrances are. No one stopped me but the hostility was palpable for a single picket. I decided I would feel better when I found the rest of the protesters. I returned to the Union Ave. entrance of the Peabody, (across the street), and found three others. A young gay man with a back-pack holding a sign that said "Impeach Bush Now;" a young man of college age holding a sign that said "Stop Republican Fascism;" and a former hippie housewife from Lakeland who's sign read "Evildoers." I asked the woman where everyone else was and was informed that this was it. There were four of us.

You could spot the Republicans in a second. Everyone was in their Sunday, go-to-meetin' clothes, and wearing a laminated badge around their necks held together with a red ribbon which they wore like the scarlet letter. No sooner had I staked out my spot when a heavyset, red-ribbon wearing man in his forties walked behind us and paused to say, "Well, aren't you all proud of yourselves?" There was something in his sneering condescension that set me off. I replied vociferously, "I'm very proud of myself for standing out here in opposition to people like you." He said, "It's people like me that guarantee your right to stand out here." I lost it a little,"People like you? I thought the Constitution gave me that right..." and then I called him a synonym for a donkey's sphincter. I was sorry as soon as I said it, but the guy froze and looked at me very hard. I thought, "My God, I haven't been here five minutes and I'm about to be in a fistfight." Thinking that the best defense was a good offense, I immediately said in my best Chuck Norris, "You better just keep on walking, mister." The fat Republican looked at the ground and shook his head, paused for a second and walked on. I was relieved not to have to throw or duck punches. I apologized to my fellow demonstrators and told them it had been a long time, but now I remembered that if you plan to demonstrate where you are not in the majority, you can prepare to take a little abuse.

I had no idea how much abuse could be packed into a few hours, most of it drive-by name calling, some of it confrontational. The ugliest remarks were from the Republican women. Although, Kathryn Harris had cancelled her appearance at the shindig, most of the women I saw looked like Kathryn Harris impersonators, only longer in the tooth. They had that 60s Mary Tyler Moore hair-do shellacked in place, deep lipstick scars on their faces and lots of cosmetic surgery. What looked like startled shock on one woman's face was actually a brow lift gone terribly wrong. She said to the protesting housewife, "Is Osama Bin Laden your best friend?" (BTW, just writing that name gets me on a list somewhere), to which the protester replied "What the hell does that mean?" There was a tense stand-off until the GOP women remembered their dinner reservations.

I tried to time my protest to be there when the Republicans ended their afternoon session. They were all there. Frist, Hastert, George Allen, Mitt Romney, Trent "Highty Tighty" Lott, and the rest of the contenders. When a girl came up to me and asked what I thought of Mitt Romney, I replied that I liked his Daddy because he was a Democrat. When the three o'clock hour arrived, no grand poohbahs came out of The Peabody, but we caught the delegates' eye. The four of us posed for photographs for the next half-hour. We were indeed a collective curio. One guy even had me put my arm around him and hold the sign on the "Fools" side so his wife could take the picture. And dozens of cell phone memories were imprinted with our images. I reminded my fellows that someone among these happy few was from the FBI. They looked alarmed but being the oldest, I chuckled and said with false bravado, "they can just dust off my old picture from the 60s." Then several carloads drove by shouting "Faggots," and the antiquated "Commies." I laughed at that one thinking the closest Commie to Memphis was an old man in Cuba. A smaller number of drivers honked in support or gave the thumbs-up sign, but although there were numerous black Republican delegates in attendance, every African-American that drove by, without exception, honked or waved in approval. I forgot to mention that I was also wearing my "George W. Bush is a Punk-Ass Chump" tee shirt.

Chris Matthews from "Hardball," walked outside and looked up at our signs. I waved to him and he smiled back and removed his sportcoat. For a moment, I fantasized about arguing my position with Matthews on MSNBC, being the oldest of four demonstrators, but Matthews asked a policeman which way to Beale Street, then turned his back and walked in the opposite direction. The crowd thinned. The Republicans were eating and resting up for the evening session and we were discussing calling it a day when a homeless black man wearing a choir robe with a velvet collar and a broad-brimmed Jack Abramoff hat approached. He thanked us for being there and said even though he was homeless, he kept up with the news and knew that the Republicans under Bush were not looking out for the poor. I asked him if he had heard what Rev. Joseph Lowry had said at the Corretta Scott King funeral, and to my astonishment he told me he was at the funeral and proceeded to quote from the various speakers at length. He said that an elected city official looks after him sometimes and gave him the money for the bus ride to Atlanta and it was one of the greatest events in his life. Just when I was beginning to feel good about that, from the corner of my eye I saw a rough looking man in a dirty shirt and an unkempt moustache rushing towards me. I braced myself and turned to confront this wild man when he handed me a fountain coke with ice and a straw and said, "thank you for doing this." I was glad that I did and would do it again if some others would join me.

That's why I want you to know about the March for Peace, Justice and Democracy sponsored by the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center. People will gather at the First Congregational Church at 1000 S.Cooper at 1PM, this Sunday, March 19th and walk somewhere. It marks the third anniversary of "Shock and Awe." I felt better after having exercised my right to freely assemble and protest my government's policies, and you can probably be home in time to watch the Tigers in the NCAA Tourney. Before our merry band of four protesters at The Peabody finally parted company we shook hands all around and agreed to meet at the Peace March. I said to them in closing, "We didn't do much, but at least we did something."

All Wet

I wish to apologize to Michael Brown. I have just seen the Associated Press video footage of FEMA's pre-Katrina briefing to President Shemp, and it appears to me that Brownie was, indeed, doing a heckuva job. He anticipated a storm of historic magnitude and even anticipated the chaos in the Superdome as a possible "catastrophe within a catastrophe." He inquired about medical and mortuary services and told his subordinates if there were any territorial disputes to do what they needed to do and he would take the blame. I have seen hours of news footage and read hundreds of press accounts regarding Katrina and the FEMA response. I thought I knew, yet I did not know. Now I have seen and heard and realize that Brownie wasn't the weak link in the criminally neglectful non-action after Katrina. It was President Shemp himself.

My first reaction to the Bush briefing video was "so what?" He's inept and we know it, so what's new? President Shemp did what he always does; say whatever he needs to say at the time, in this case "help is on the way," and leave it to his underlings to take care of the details. What is so blatantly obnoxious is President Shemp's bald-faced lie five days after the hurricane struck that "No one could have anticipated the breach of the levees." Hell, I anticipated the breach of the levees. That's the first thing they teach you as a visitor to New Orleans. "They have to bury the dead above ground here because it's all below sea level." Maybe President Shemp forgot that they call those funny drinks at Pat O'Brien's "Hurricanes" for a reason. And his stammering response about "no situational awareness" (a statement that would make Al Gore wince) on the ground after the hurricane would be more credible had we not now seen evidence that he had detailed situational awareness before the storm hit. I just thought he was vacationing and detached. Now I'm starting to agree with Kanye West, he just doesn't care. There was campaign money to be raised and photo-ops on the schedule. President Shemp knows his priorities.

I understood the gravity of the situation listening to Jeanne Meserve, normally a composed CNN reporter, break down while relating the breaking grim news that after the levee breach people in New Orleans were drowning in the dark with no one to help them. The online headlines read "New Orleans Descends Into Chaos," and because I have a heart, I cried reading those stories. Now, I'm repulsed by the President's conduct, just as I was in watching his conduct for the first ten minutes after he was informed that "the nation is under attack" on 9/11. In fact, during President Shemp's "fly-over" the Gulf Coast to assess the damage, his recorded words were, "It's devastating. It must be doubly devastating on the ground." And then some, Bubba. Maybe President Shemp has a heart, just no soul.

A supervisory board in San Francisco just made news by being the first governmental body to call for the impeachment of the President and Vice President for High Crimes and Misdemeanors. Thirty five years ago, the Bay area was the first to have Free Speech demonstrations and anti-Vietnam War marches, and the rest of the country dismissed them as "peaceniks," and Communists. Big ideas often start in small ways.(Please refer to my previous post "President Hastert"). I am also convinced that this government must be held accountable for their crimes. But I am not in such a hurry to insure that we must prioritize and, IMPEACH CHENEY FIRST.

The tragic thing about this President is that though of good heart but slight of head, he never really wanted to be President in the first place. He is entirely a creation of Karl Rove (read Molly Ivans' "Bushwacked"), who had to first talk him into believing he could be Governor of Texas. Karl Rove first saw President Shemp as a young man with a steely gaze and a lot of charisma and thought, "I can make him president." That is a long way from having an ambitious young man or woman with ideals and ideas of their own who actually wants to be President and sincerely wishes to serve. Bush accepted the Presidency much as he might have accepted the presidency of his college fraternity; like it was a popularity contest or a feather in his cap, and no matter what damage he does to the bylaws, there's no permanent harm done. Now he has done permanent harm. It's there for anyone to see who wishes to see. And those who will suffer the worst, Katrina victims aside, are the Congressional Republicans and administration apologists who have to face the voters in 2006. Then we will see a hurricane of a magnitude that not even President Shemp can ignore.

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.

Clinton's Sin Pt.II:Hillary

Hillary Clinton has been listening to her political advisors again, and I'll bet that Bill is not one of them because she's getting bad advice. Her "Congress as Plantation" remark in a church in Harlem on Martin Luther King Day was hamfisted and insulting. Bill would have been much more nuanced and said something like, "the Republicans run Congress like a company store." Then he could have made his black reference so appealing that all those listening would believe they were in on the same inside joke. Bill grew up in 1950s Arkansas, and the cadence and pitch of black oratory come naturally to him. Hillary grew up in a Chicago suburb and attended private schools. Her attempt at relating to an African American church congregation sounded more like Vivian Leigh than Hattie McDaniels. Something happens to white people when they address a black audience. Their speech becomes more Southern and measured and if they receive a response from the audience, it starts feeling good to them and they believe that they, too, can pontificate like Martin Luther King,Jr. And before you know it, they're talking about plantations and what-not. This manner of speech coming from Mrs. Clinton in that setting can be called only one thing; pandering.

Since it is no secret that Mrs. Clinton is the frontrunner for the 2008 Democratic Party's presidential nomination, she is attempting to position herself to become more palatable to middle America. Thus, last month she announced her co-sponsoring of a bill in Congress with Republican Senator Robert Bennett to criminalize flag burning, even though the Supreme Court has already determined that the symbolic act of burning the flag is free speech protected by the First Amendment. That was then and this is now. A new Supreme Court with a decidedly conservative bent may decide to revisit the issue. If the bill has Hillary's name on it, she may look more patriotic to the yee-haws but ultimately, it won't work. Liberals know who she is and where she came from and so do Conservatives. Her stance in this matter is pure posturing and everyone can see it but her. This insults both the left and the right and though Hillary may well capture the 2008 nomination, I believe she will get rolled like George McGovern in 1972. She is as polarizing a figure as Bush and is perceived as someone who cares more about political power than the issues. The real shame is that this is a perception of her own construction.

So it is also with my hometown Congressman Harold Ford, Jr. who is running for the Senate seat being vacated by Bill Frist. Junior is the son of the patriarch of the most powerful black political dynasty the city of Memphis has ever seen. He has been cautious to avoid the sort of rough racial politics his uncles and aunts played in the 70s and 80s. Yet, because he is positioning himself to be acceptable to the conservative voters of East Tennessee, he voted in favor of a constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriage. This from a young man educated at the University of Michigan who inherited his father's congressional seat before he even graduated. This smacks of hypocrisy. I don't think he really believes in his vote, and instead tried to execute a "stealth" vote after the issue was already decided to show conservative voters he was no liberal like Dad. If Congressman Ford, Jr. actually believes that an amendment to the Constitution is needed to prevent gays from marrying, then it is doubly troubling. Regardless of how you feel about Jr.'s controversial family, they were political and civil rights pioneers, and it would be deeply upsetting to know that a person who benefited from the advances in civil rights would attempt to pass a constitutional amendment denying those same rights to others.

I am sick to death of political posturing and the ever increasing influence of the political advisor. It was widely reported and heavily criticized that in one phone conversation between Bill Clinton and his advisor Dick Morris, Morris put one of his call girls on the line to listen in on the President. When Bush was elected, however, Karl Rove went ahead and moved the entire whorehouse into the West Wing. Rove has proven how so much power in the hands of an unelected official can be misused with impunity. My sense is that voters are also tired of the political advisor and yearn for someone to emerge with real convictions and sincere intentions.

Last month, Senator Barack Obama spoke about his political philosophy and leveled a sober critique of the current government in a speech sponsored by the family of the late Senator Robert Kennedy. Ethel Kennedy was so impressed, she was quoted as saying that Obama reminded her of Bobby at that age because of his intelligence and his conviction. Obama is a freshman senator and needs more experience in office, but he seems to be the type of honest and forthright speaker this nation is seeking in a candidate. And in the three years before the next election, perhaps someone will rise from obscurity to capture that national imagination like Jimmy Carter did in 1976. Or a man of the people like West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin could be thrust into the forefront by unpredictable events.

I hope that whoever is the eventual Democratic nominee will get there without pandering or talking down to the American voter. And if there is to be any tampering with the constitution to garner votes, I hope someone will propose to do away with the 22nd Amendment setting Presidential term limits. This bill was forced into law by Republicans who were tired of being clobbered by FDR. Term limits thwart the will of the people by setting an artificial and arbitrary time for the President to retire. This seems to be the antithesis of true Democracy and counter-productive to our society. If we could repeal the 22nd, it would put an end to the problem of lame duckism and allow our chief executive to concentrate on the problems of the nation other than raising money for the next election. What I'm attempting to say is that I believe Bill Clinton is now ready to be President. Why settle for a pandering Hillary when we could have a contrite and polished Bill?

Quid Pro Quo

To understand what is at the heart of the Washington lobbying scandal you don't even need to know Latin to discern the meaning of "Quid Pro Quo." Quid is English slang for what used to be the British Pound Sterling, as in, "Hey mate, how 'bout half a quid for an old soldier?" Pro is who you give the quid to in Washington in order to spread it around to all the crooked legislators willing to accept cash to vote a certain way, as in, "that Jack Abramoff is a real Pro at stealing from the Native Americans." The quo is a little more difficult to understand. We're still looking for the "quo" because it's hard to prove whether a Congressman is stealing or if he just votes that way anyway. "Quo" could be the quorum you need to pass earmarks and pork barrel projects. Or it could be the mathematical quotient to figure which Congressman, plus how much laundered cash, equals a vote. Or it could reference the novel, "Quo Vadis," in which Nero fiddles while Rome burns. If whatever is on the wire that former Representative "Duke" Cunningham was wearing for the FBI can prove which other representatives gave up the "quo," there's going to be hell to pay.

I understand that Democrats are implicated in this potential bribery scandal as well as Republicans. Just not as many. Because only the Republicans could self immolate in such a spectacular way. They have control of both houses of Congress, the executive branch, and the judiciary, including the Supreme Court, and they turn it into a food fight. This is positive proof about absolute power corrupting absolutely. Here they were with no one to monitor their bad behavior, intoxicated with the perks of office, and puffed up with power. They put their wives and their staffers on the lobbyist's teat with no qualms at all. They took and took until there was no more to take and then they started devouring each other like cannibals. Wave some cash around and the vaunted Republican discipline comes tumbling down and it's every man for himself. They are reminiscent of the ruthless, shipwrecked schoolboys in William Golding's "Lord of the Flies" who reward the strong and punish the weak. And if you recall the mid-sixties, black and white film of that novel, Karl Rove looks exactly like "Piggy." You can almost hear them screaming, "kill the pig," bash it's head." Only the Republicans self destruct in this way. Ask John Dean or Ollie North.

It's good for the party that was elected by promising to protect our "morals and values" to show themselves as so utterly valueless. It helps to keep in mind between election cycles that we vote for individuals to represent us and not some monolithic party philosophy. If someone is elected because they tow the party line, then you can expect them to behave like the party leadership. And Tom DeLay still doesn't know what he did wrong. He thinks all those rounds of golf are his reward for putting his friends in positions of power in Texas while serving as the Majority Leader in Washington.

And this cash cow that once was Jack Abramoff has been turned into a pinata at a children's party. Everyone is trying to throw away the goodies he gave out to children's charities as if that will cleanse the giver. It's great to have a second Christmas in January, especially since the one in December had a war waged upon it, but it won't protect all the little cash receiving elves, or Santa Claus either, from investigations of bribery and special favors. Instead of "quid pro quo," these dirty legislators should consider another Latin phrase; "ex post facto." Giving their ill gotten gains to charity after the fact will not help anything but their mortal souls and the charity of choice.

There is nothing more to do but wait and watch. Abramoff, who likes to quote "The Godfather," ends up like Sammy the Bull, first facilitating and then ratting out his mentors. This will be great entertainment, except for there's a war going on and the distraction could prolong it. But it's necessary to root out the corrupt and contemptible members of the Republican juggernaught before the mid-term elections in order to sod the political ground for new leadership. Peter Clemenza said, "You need to have a war every ten years or so to get rid of all the bad blood." If this bribery/lobbying scandal can be used as a stepping stone in replacing the Republican majorities in Congress, then the legislative branch can begin some real investigations into the Bush doctrine of preemption and whether this administration intentionally misled this nation into war. Perhaps then we may see the return of checks and balances, and not the bankbook kind that this Congress is obsessed with.
With a few honest legislators leading some genuine reforms, this administration may see a little "quid pro quo" of it's own.

Bush Has A Fit

I've heard that the best defense is a good offense, but the President's sputtering hissy fit over the disclosure of his domestic spying ring is about as offensive as it gets. Is he angry at the New York Times who sat on the story for a year? Maybe they finally developed a conscience after the Bush administration used their reporter to leak preferential information during the build-up to the Iraqi war. In the words of George the First, "This will not stand."

Bush may say he's only eavesdropping on swarthy men telephoning the Middle East, but anyone who lived through the Nixon era knows that the next step is the "Enemies List." And when we are discussing domestic enemies, that may include anyone who ever crossed Karl Rove or pushed Cheney around when he worked for Gerald Ford. We already know the Republican blueprint for illegal domestic surveillance. Nixon was impeached for it and half of his cabinet went to jail. Bloggers and journalists of every stripe are wearing out that old Santayana quote about those not learning from the past being condemned to repeat it. This has to be the lamest lame duck we have ever had.

And it's not that there were any obstacles in the administration's way. A special court established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is already in place and ready to sign warrants within hours of their request. And if they don't answer the door quickly enough, the Bush Leaguers had up to four days to inform them of any action taken to tap a cell phone. Even in the Bush copywrited "Global War On Terror,"
it is necessary to go through the motions just to give a wink to the Constitution. They make laws preventing tuna fishermen from casting nets so large and tightly woven that they catch dolphins. The same principle applies here. While fishing for evil-doers, a lot of patriotic Americans that just don't happen to agree with the President get tangled up in the net.

Bush is upset that he was caught in yet another in a string of stunning illegalities. And, let's face it, judging from the President's history, he didn't just make an end run around Congress and the Courts because they impeded his path. Bush is a slacker of historic proportion, so if he did not obtain court orders it was either because he was too lazy or no one explained the meaning of the law to him. For him to come out swinging and say these revelations will hurt our troops is the worst sort of demagoguery. Russ Feingold said it best, "Bush is not king."

Simply put, the Bush Leaguers' attempt to ignore the law and then to paint their critics as unpatriotic, stinks. This attempt at unchecked power to spy on American citizens is the moral equivalent of Joseph McCarthy snooping for Commies in the 50s. Maybe the Communist witch hunts were well intended at the beginning. But history shows that they were bad for our country and put a shroud over political dissent that ruined lives and lasted for decades. It finally got repugnant enough for people of good will to stand up and stop it. And all the Bushies had to do, and all they have to do now, is ask for a warrant.

These disclosures won't prevent the government from monitoring electronic messages. It will just make the evil-doers more clever about not using any "red flag" terms that might give them up. For instance, they won't be able to use any words that are inflammatory, err, make that volatile, or maybe, upsetting. And you can't mention by name that very real terrorist organization that means to hurt us, or the name of that tall, skinny, bearded guy who leads them. And don't discuss the new information regarding our military command structure outsourcing the job of capturing that tall guy to the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan. Make that; the rag-tag bunch of scamps that we financed to kick the Russians out in that far away place where the most recent unpleasantness was concocted. They let the tall guy go because, after all, he was one of them.

If the government intends to eavesdrop on American citizens, they should actually have to read the transcripts or listen to the conversations rather than collect masses of data and look for something that might be suspicious. Anyone who has ever been critical of Bush could end up in that naked pyramid. Correct that to say, anyone who says unkind things regarding the imperial power of the current regime runs the danger of being lumped together with people who really don't like us and wish to harm us in a very real way. Wait, that's not going to work either. How about, loose lips equal danger of arrest and incarceration without legal representation for indefinite periods of time. Well, never mind.

It's Just Business

If you'll permit me one more "Godfather" reference, as we slouch toward the end of this turbulent year I am reminded of the scene where the Meyer Lansky/Hyman Roth character tells Michael Corleone in corrupted 1950s Cuba that (I will paraphrase), "We're only one step away from finding someone to be the President of the United States who understands how to do business."

I would never compare our country's successful corporations with the Mafia. Oh hell, why not? These business criminals who pay no taxes to our treasury; this CEO corporate culture of mega-salaries and unlimited benefits that outsources both jobs and corporate bank accounts; this Executive Mafia that rewards the boardroom and punishes the worker even as corrupt bookkeeping practices strip away the pensions and retirement funds that once seemingly secured the retirement of a loyal employee; these cynical profiteers who's only concern is the bottom line have finally found their man in George W. Bush, someone who "understands" how to do business.

In this tumultuous year we have seen natural disasters of cataclysmic proportion. The year began with the largest magnitude earthquake ever measured in the Pacific Ocean that resulted in a tsunami that put half of South Asia under water. Then the crippling earthquake in Pakistan stretched our resources and will to assist because we had just experienced the worst hurricane season ever in the United States and lost a major American city. Already, this winter has caused early ice storms in the warmer Atlantic states and unseasonably warm temperatures where there should be snow, accompanied by a government caveat that winter gas bills could reach an all time high. People and families in Mississippi and the Gulf Coast are living in tents because of ineptitude in high governmental positions and they are the lucky ones. At least some are able to camp out on their own land and hope for the future, while poorer people in Texas and Louisiana may be gone for good and the diaspora from New Orleans continues unabated.

No one can blame the Bush administration for the climate changes that are undeniably taking place. But you can blame them for ignoring the problem. This is why international treaties like Kyoto are important and should be embraced rather that scuttled by our leaders. International cooperation is necessary to study and take measures to prevent the man-made contributors to climate change. This government is so busy stripping regulations from industry under the guise of benevolent sounding programs like The Clear Skies Initiative which allows more pollutants, that they are actively making matters worse instead of better. Their complete indifference to environmental matters is not only a national disgrace but a clear and present danger to the public health and to the well being of the Earth. But it's just business for the Bush cabal and their corporate friends.

The energy policy meetings chaired by Mr. Cheney have yet to be investigated because they were held behind closed doors. But we do know that executives and lobbyists from energy companies wrote our national policy to benefit the industry, and former CEO Cheney's company, Halliburton, has made out like a bandit during this regime's watch. A handful of favored corporate sectors like Big Energy, Big Pharmaceutical, and Big Insurance are doing well while the "Electronic Horde" that Thomas Friedman once described as the excitement and job creation surrounding the technological revolution has moved on to China and India. The brain drain in Science and Medicine continues because of a lack of governmental grants for new research and the major medical breakthroughs are now occurring in Israel and France. While this country argues about what to teach in biology class, the conservative right attempts to shout down dissent and drown their opposition in a sea of self righteousness.

The single year-end optimistic note came with the Iraqi election. Despite our government's arrogant mishandling, there is still a chance for a good result to come from our Iraqi incursion if the Defense Department realizes that this war can no longer be won militarily. Our President's calls for nothing but "total victory" can not be accomplished at the point of a gun. We must do everything to assist the Iraqis in winning their current political wars, so that we may remove the bulls-eyes from our own soldiers' backs. And someone in government must realize the need for Islamic Peacekeepers from the region to restore order in Iraqi cities and give their fledgling democracy a chance to flourish. The Iraqis' chances for parliamentary democracy will be better with our military removed from their streets and re-positioned in secured locations along the borders. Only then will we have the chance to be seen as something other than occupiers.

The lessons in Democracy, however, are better learned from someone other than President Bush and his co-conspirators. The current revelations concerning domestic spying and surveillance of American citizens are only the top layer in this particular pit of blatant illegalities and are much wider than the President has admitted. The President claims that he is "absolutely" within the law to order wiretaps and data collections involving scores of U.S. citizens, without the approval or supervision of the courts. But just because Bush says it's so, doesn't make it so. This man-made disaster, like so many of this governments' other pratfalls, is just now unfolding. In this coming election year, how many of the President's loyalists will rethink their positions when considering facing their constituents for reelection? And George W. Bush, proudly serving his corporate masters, is oblivious to the fact that although he once envisioned himself as the incarnation of Ronald Reagan, he will end up as the historical successor to Richard Nixon. We all deserve better in the New Year. A couple of Congressional investigations into the secret inner dealings of how the Bush administration conducts "business" would be a good start.

Mea Culpa

The President's newly found candor regarding his administration's missteps might have been refreshing two years ago when he stood mute in response to a reporter's question trying to think of any mistakes he had made in his first term. Now it is abundantly clear that Bush will say whatever he needs to say to gloss over the grotesqueries committed by his government and pacify the electorate. Now, every response he gives can be contradicted by a speech he made previously. He insists his illegal wiretapping is a mandate from Congress, then a speech is discovered where he vows to get a court order before such measures are taken. Bush is the undisputed king of the flip-flop. And he is a born again prevaricator.

Just recall the hoopla accompanying his call for a Constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage. Since his reelection, has anyone heard another word about it? Then there was the scene with Bush sitting with his cabinet promising to ferret out and fire anyone who leaked information outing a CIA agent. We all know who leaked, but no one has been fired. After Hurricane Katrina, Bush made quite a show of promising to personally lead the investigation about what went wrong. He should be on the golf course in Florida with OJ looking for the real killer. No such personal investigation was ever commenced, despite his eerie "blue light special" speech in Jackson Square promising New Orleans the moon. He has not been back since and I am regularly informed that four months after the storm, much of New Orleans resembles Baghdad. In poorer residential areas, heavy equipment hasn't even been moved in to begin to clear the rubble while victims of the storms still suffer the results of Bush's raw cronyism at FEMA and the Small Business Administration. The president of the Red Cross resigned under fire last week because of the mismanagement of that once stellar organization.

And the Bush cabinet was supposed to be so tough, all of Congress was cowed into submission. That is until one former marine Vietnam vet called for the withdrawal of our troops from Iraq and suddenly talk of a troop drawdown begins. Secretary Rice had to deflect criticism of the government's torture policy all over the world until Bush called in Senator McCain, adopted his policy regarding torture, and claimed it as his own. Now we see that when you push back, there are no dire consequences in spite of the bellicose posturing of the Bush team. Instead, they cave in. That's what happened with the Social Security privatization plan, the establishment of a cabinet level Homeland Security Department, and the 9/11 Commision which Bush resisted until it became an inevitability. In recent days, the Alaska/Ted Stevens/Halliburton drilling project was drop-kicked along with permanent reinstatement of the Patriot Act. Bush's defense of his unsupervised surveillance of Americans took care of that.

In his speeches about Iraq, it was either "victory or defeat." Exactly like "you're either with us or you're with the terrorists." And no one in the press seemed to make much of a fuss about the one horrendous revelation Bush let fly in his new statement of contrition; 30,000 Iraqi civilian casualties. If Bush gives that as the number, you can safely double it and be closer to accurate. Is there any wonder the insurgency is so vicious? Would anyone not take up arms against an invader that murders 30,000 innocent people and occupies a nation in the name of preventing the use of weapons of mass destruction? Our government is the weapon of mass destruction in this world.

And all of this; the war, 9/11, Intelligent design, the pandering to the religious right, is a smokescreen to divert attention away from the fact that this government is systematically stripping away regulations from commerce and industry in order to reward their friends and punish their enemies. Rather than decrease their pet tax cuts, this government cuts social programs to the poor while bragging of a robust economy. No government has ever cut taxes in a time of war and they will not acknowledge the looming financial crisis facing this country. With the Bush team, it's "stay the course," while the President flounders, the Vice President hides on Army bases making speeches to pre-screened audiences, and the "Architect" of it all, Karl Rove, who never received a single vote from anyone, stares into the abyss.

When the book "Bush's Brain" by Wayne Slater and James Moore was released, it was an eye opener. It tells of the Machiavellian schemes Karl Rove concocts to achieve his political goals. The amendment about gay marriage was such a scheme. On this Christmas Eve, while Bush was taking the offensive about his Iraqi policy and his public approval ratings were at an all time low, a mysterious "War Against Christmas" broke out on Fox News, lead by Bill O'Reilly and highly placed members of the Christian right, including James Dobson, Tim Wildmon of Tupelo, and Jerry Falwell. The dispute wasn't about the commercialization of Christmas, but about boycotting retailers who said "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" in their advertising. Sure enough, it was a wedge issue that caused much discussion and division in this country, and Bush's ratings went up four points. This disgusting operation has all the earmarks of a Karl Rove operation, only no one has said so.

But with the coming indictments of the grand jury investigating the CIA leak, the Jack Abramoff and Tom Delay scandals, the surly ineptitude of Bill Frist, and the pending trial of Enron's Ken Lay, there is not much more the government can do to distract us. Instead, they have caused us to begin paying close attention to their crimes. And a mid-term election that returns one of the Houses of Congress to the Democrats will create the ability to begin investigations into the Bush clan and their operatives that will make Watergate look like a misdemeanor. Ironically, it was former Nixon council John Dean who said earlier this week that this President was the first to admit to impeachable offenses in advance. This government's future looks as bleak as "Kenny Boy's." They should start getting used to seeing daylight filtered through iron bars.

I write this with the full knowledge that what I say is monitored by the National Security Agency. I am used to it. I lived through the Vietnam era of CIA excess. So, hello fellows. Hope you all have a "Happy Holidays." See you on the flip flop.

Clinton's Sin

I have a friend, a State Senator, who told me of meeting Bill Clinton midway through his first term as President. He said he told Clinton that he should get a medal for all the hits he had taken on behalf of our generation and I agreed with him. Every societal excess of the 60s was pinned on Clinton from draft dodging to drug abuse. And his progressive stances on gay civil rights and privacy rights in abortion matters made him an instant target for the conservatives who believed that the long-haired protesters of the 60s were the demon's seed. This was before the sex scandal that caused the President's impeachment and near removal from office. With this breach of personal morality, all the hits taken by Clinton for his generation were refocused back on the rest of us, and the cultural conservatives set upon Clinton like Father Damien in The Exorcist.

David Maraniss' fair handed biography of Bill Clinton, "First In His Class," does not refer to Clinton's rank at Oxford, but the fact that he was the first person of the Baby Boom generation to be elected president. My politically involved friends and I rejoiced the night Clinton won the White House from Bush, Sr. Not only because political power was being passed to the post war generation, but because Clinton was one of us. He was raised in the segregated South with a resentment toward racial bigotry and emerged a new kind of Southerner with the abilities to ease the old conflicts. He was a typical college student of the 60s. He grew his hair long, experimented with marijuana, resisted the draft and protested against the Vietnam War. What was not typical was his obvious brilliance and mastery of details within the larger picture. Coupled with his great ambition to live a political life and to make a difference, he was a man capable of understanding every nuance of a policy decision and a born problem solver. More importantly, he was capable of enunciating a vision for a fairer and more inclusive society in the United States. Considering ability alone, he might have been one of our greatest presidents.

The Lewinsky episode changed all that. At first merely shocked, when I learned that the woman involved was a 20 year old intern, I thought certainly Clinton must resign. Clinton's strong public denial caused his supporters to give him the benefit of the doubt, especially when his greatest defender was his wife. Even when the facts were laid bare, many attempted to justify the lie by believing that Clinton was merely speaking in Lawyerese, and in the strict definition of the judge in the Paula Jones case, "sexual relations" meant intercourse. So technically, the argument could be made that Clinton did not exactly lie, but he was actively misleading. I wanted to grab him in a Fredo Corleone embrace and say, "I know it was you. You broke my heart."

Everyone knows a Bill Clinton. Someone who cannot, or will not, manage his impulses and cheats on his wife. No one celebrates such behavior and most consider it a character flaw. But nearly everyone agrees that it is a private matter. The venomous way his opponents attacked him like torch bearing villagers out to kill Frankenstein's monster made his supporters rally to his side. The entrapment, threats, circus testimonials to the grand jury, and the minute sexual detail revealed by the partisan special prosecutor's office were as unseemly as Clinton's behavior. Yes, Clinton lied about sex. So did FDR, Ike, JFK, LBJ, and Reagan. Recent Secret Service testimony has revealed that Nixon beat his wife, but he didn't cheat on her. But these men were not asked about it under oath. And why should any person, much less the President, have to testify under oath about his personal sexual behavior when the prosecutor was appointed to investigate a real estate transaction? Clinton's opponents insist it was about perjury, but it was always about sex, and fellatio out of wedlock is not an impeachable offense.

So Bill Clinton survived but Al Gore didn't. Had Clinton resigned when the scandal was revealed, he would have left Gore with a three year incumbency and retained power within the Democratic Party. I don't blame Al Gore from running away from Clinton. With an eight year record of peace and prosperity, an historic treasury surplus, and the first balanced budget in half a century, Gore should have been able to waltz into the office against any Republican opponent. Gore's experience as honor student, seminarian, soldier, journalist, Senator, and Vice President made him one of the most qualified candidates of the last century to run for the presidency. His belief in, and defense of, his President cost Al Gore dearly, but he should never have lost an election because he was perceived by an image obsessed populace as less amiable or ingratiating as Clinton.

So after waiting until past middle age to see someone of my generation assume power, just as we had discussed all those miserable war years ago, G.W. Bush was elected and promptly turned the reigns of power back to his father's administration. Their Cold War thinking has stalled the progress of American ideas in the world for the foreseeable future. For all of Clinton's talents and administrative accomplishments, his reckless behavior was not merely a betrayal of his wife and family, it was a betrayal of all who trusted in him.

But Clinton's greatest sin was not regarding sex. I still believe that his indiscretion was a personal matter between Clinton, his wife, and his conscience, and that none but his creator have the right to judge him. No, Clinton's greatest sin was in roiling the electorate and creating a backlash against his behavior that allowed the election of George W. Bush. And although I am a believer in redemption, with the current state of chaos in the world, this is a sin I am having a difficult time forgiving.

Dubya's Travels

Watching Bush's foreign travels to escape his woes is so reminiscent of Nixon's South American adventure in 1958 when he was Vice President. It was there that many of us saw an official of the U.S. government spat at and jeered for the first time. Hearing Bush proclaim "We don't torture," while in Argentina was eerily like hearing Nixon say "I am not a crook." We do, in fact, torture, and Nixon was a crook.

This government seems to be morphing into the Nixon administration a little more every day. What with their secret plans to end the war while indictments loom like thunder clouds over major cabinet officials. When this is all over, the only one left standing may well be Bush and that is only because Rove, Cheney, and Rumsfeld kept him out of the loop for plausible deniability's sake. When John Dean wrote a book called "Worse Than Watergate," many of us thought it to be merely hyperbole and not understatement.

At least in the darkest days of Watergate, Nixon could escape to China and Russia because he made significant foreign policy breakthroughs in those nations. Bush has no such foreign policy successes, and so if the crowd is not hand picked or screened, he cannot go anywhere in the world without violent demonstrations following him. Even the old Nixon trick of saying criticism of the war is hurting our troops was dusted off by the actual president, "Dirty" Dick Cheney. But there was no silent majority to arouse this time and he was speaking to the ever dwindling choir.

It was considerate of Bush to go to China to visit our money but it was a bad idea to insult them before he went. China is the country holding the note on our bloated budget deficits and is a rising superpower that we will be struggling with in the coming years, not only over commerce, but for the diminished supply of oil left in the Earth. It was a quarrel over iron and steel that fueled our dispute with the Japanese in the 30s. If this government will invade a sovereign country in the middle east for cheap gas, is there any doubt that we will use similar force against any nation that would keep us from it now? Bush did everything wrong in China except throw up in the Premier's lap. He has lost the moral authority to lecture other nations about religion and human rights while he is attempting to make theology into law at home and threatening his first presidential veto against a bill that would prohibit torture by the U.S., at home and abroad, that was drawn by Senator McCain.

What I have not yet discovered is, if Bush achieved the main objective of his Asian vacation. Three weeks before the President's Asian trip, Secretary Rumsfeld visited Mongolia and was given the gift of a pure bred Mongolian horse. What other reason would Bush have for going there other than to pick up his horsie? This administration is all about the perks of power. Why risk looking like a moron standing there trying to open locked doors if there wasn't a little something in it for your trouble? Forget the cover-up over the CIA leak case; I want to know if the President got his pony.

Of course, upon return from his arduous journeys in the East it was vacation time once again, war protesters be damned. In case we need a reminder, New Orleans drowned because the Bush administration was on vacation. While Bush was away, there was a little dust-up in the House of Representatives with a distinguished war veteran calling for the return of American troops from Iraq and a dim bulb congresswoman only Nixon could love inferring that he was a "coward" for a suggestion so seditious.

It was the attempt at image manipulation, false propaganda, and dirty trickery that finally did in the Nixon administration and it appears that the same tactics will do in the Bush regime. In this case the "Boy Genius" Rove's cleverness didn't transfer well into adulthood. He was President of the Young College Republicans in 1972 and was one of the indoctrinees wearing a straw boater and lustily cheering for "four more years" at the Nixon convention of that same year. Rove was around to watch Donald Segretti go to jail for his dirty tricks and he was both a peer and disciple of Lee Atwater, the creator of the Willie Horton ad campaign for the Senior Bush. Nixon did not last a year into his second term and the Atwater ads are a benchmark in divisive politics. Rove's flaw was believing he was invincible and would never be caught with his fingerprints on any illegal activity.

We will all wait and see what transpires. Meanwhile, that iceberg in the distance is coming closer with the words "Special Prosecutor" on it and Karl Rove and Dick Cheney are steering the ship of state right into it. Then all the indictments, resignations, and Senate Investigations that go along with such a disaster will transpire. Perhaps then we may get some answers from the most secretive government since Nixon's. John Dean is right. This will make Watergate look like a curious antiquity of another age. Nixon resigned before facing trial in the Senate. This time, nearly the entire cabinet and their advisors are culpable in the fabrications concocted to mislead and falsely persuade the American public. The people will not be continually lied to about the condition of their society, and sooner or later they will rise in indignation and hold the liars accountable. Too bad the indignation did not come in time to prevent Bush from winning a second term. But like Nixon, he may have used his last trick to get re-elected. And like Nixon, he may face an early exit from office. That is why I encourage all informed citizens to appeal to Congress to IMPEACH CHENEY FIRST. We have enough liars and war profiteers this time around to fill Bush's remaining three years with plea bargains and sentencing recommendations.

With all the professional pundits and former loyalists from his own party turning against the President, it is almost unsporting for a lay journalist to take a whack at him. But never forget that it was G.W. Bush that said, "Bring 'em on!"

Hippie Alert

The purpose of the title of this effort, Born-Again Hippies, is to encourage those who once held youthful ideals and lost them along the way, to re-energize that commitment to speak out against the injustices of the present day. And for those young or old enough who attempt to romanticise the 60s, you should know that it was not all free love and sunshine. Everyone from Wavy Gravy, to Jerry Garcia, to Bill and Hillary Clinton considered themselves as hippies at one point. But over time, people of conscience allowed the very word "hippie" to be smeared along with other words like "liberal," and "intellectual," until it became a caricature for a glassy-eyed, radical environmentalist dressed in hemp and soaked in patchouli oil. Very simply, "hippies" stood for those who were aware of the desperate need for changes in society and attempted, in Gandhi's words, to "become the change" they sought in the world.

Before "hippie" became a fashion and just another life style, it was a philosophy and a movement. It was born in the rejection of an arrogant American government, and the militaristic society that supported them, who led this nation to war under false pretenses. The hippie movement was formed as an alternative to intransigent government officials and a general public that not only refused to listen to the voice of dissent, but vilified the dissenters and polarized the nation as a result. Turning their backs on the Vietnam War, the disenfranchised hippies were cut adrift by the "Greatest Generation" to fend for themselves, without role models or peers of distinction, to learn by trial and error a more peaceful way to live life without the constant strife from the government, the stifling workplace, and the military.

Noble attempts were made in the name of fairness, community service, and non-exclusivity. The belief was nurtured that every person had something to offer and had intrinsic values to be respected. Opposition to the Vietnam war was the focus of the movement, but it included civil and human rights, feminism, environmentalism, and a new awakening to spirituality that could not be corralled by any one religion. The excesses were real as well. The reckless use of psychedelic drugs caused lasting psychic damage to many. At the same time, a short-sighted government began their war on drugs by putting pot smokers in jail while heroin ran freely in the streets of every major city. The sexual excesses cost some their marriages and relationships in the name of sexual freedom while causing a coarseness in the culture relating to sex that can be felt to this day. Simultaneously, people no longer felt locked in marriage by the puritanical views of society and began to find other forms of defining "family."

The high point was in the early Spring of 1968, after the withdrawal of Lyndon Johnson from the presidential race. It seemed as if the hippies' anti-war activities had finally worked. Johnson was out, it appeared as if Robert Kennedy would be elected President and ending the Vietnam War was his priority. Then, in rapid succession, King and Kennedy were murdered, the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago became a gruesome bloodletting, Nixon was elected, and there were five more years of war. It never occurred to the generation that despised the hippies and cheered on the Chicago police as they split the skulls of anything with long hair in their paths, that these were their children being brutalized and beaten.

Without the hippie movement, Nixon might have pursued his initial strategy to win the war on the ground and bomb the enemy even further back into the stone age. But because of massive popular dissent, the Democratic Congress, not Nixon, found the will to end funding for the war. The Democratic Senate, led into war by Johnson's lies, forced Nixon and Henry Kissinger to find a way out of Vietnam sooner, rather than later, and they ended up settling for almost the same terms in 1973 that were on the table in 1968. This is why the war over the Vietnam War has never ended. The troops returned without fanfare and faded back into society and a nation polarized just one year earlier between the protesters and the "silent majority" came to a tacit agreement not to discuss it anymore. The war was better left in the past.
The hippie movement was dead. But every contemporary candidate for public office has had to explain himself on this matter. It will not go away. The issues of right or wrong concerning the Vietnam War were never settled, despite the mea culpas of Robert MacNamara and Lyndon Johnson.

The time has come once more, for the second time in the lives of the generation who protested against the war and the administration's abuse of power of the 60s, to speak aloud again, to march again, and to stand against an immoral and illegal war begun by the lies of a different administration. Now is the time to talk, to organize, and to convince the electorate that peace is better than war, that generosity is better than greed, that truth is better than lies, and that love is stronger than hate. We must also rededicate our nation to caring for "the least of these" instead of taking from the poor to further enrich the wealthiest among us. We must recapture the mantle of beacon to the world concerning human rights, and reverse the Bling-Humvee notion that individual consumeristic gluttony is somehow good for our society. Most of all, the American people must never allow their government to take this country to war again over deceptions, distortions, and lies. A dark night awaits us all if we do not succeed.

Jimi Hendrix sang in "If 6 was 9" 1968;

White collar conservative flashing down the street

Pointing their plastic finger at me.

They hope that soon my kind will drop and die

But I'm gonna' wave my freak flag high.

David Crosby sang in "Long Time Comin'" 1969;

You've got to speak out against the madness

You've got to speak your mind if you dare.

But no, don't try and get yourself elected

If you do you had better cut your hair.

Everything old has become new again. Now, up against the wall!

Profit and Loss

Every administration wants to make its mark in the world but the Bush regime has left an ugly scar instead, on the Earth as well as on the body politic. From the endangered Alaska Wildlife Refuge to old growth forests in Oregon being harvested under the "Healthy Forests Initiative;" From strip mining and mountain capping in the Eastern coal states to the rubble that is Iraq, the Bush group has inflicted a wound on the planet that will be a long time healing.
Add to the physical destruction the long term effects of the "Clear Skies Initiative," which allows more toxins into the atmosphere, or the refusal of this government to consider any agreement on climate control and greenhouse gases, be it international or interstate.
This is because the governing philosophy of this brand of Conservative is not lead by "values and morals," or religion, or even national security. This government is ruled by one thing only, bare knuckle capitalism. That's the agenda behind all the deregulation of environmental safeguards and the arrogant non-cooperation with other nations. The Bush message is "don't stand between an American capitalist and his God given right to maximize his profits."
The corporatization of everything commercial in this country would be bad enough if they were good corporate citizens. But aside but plastering their names on sports arenas, many of the largest corporations keep shell offices in the Cayman Islands and other administration approved tax sanctuaries to legally bypass something so troubling as income tax. Bush wants to end the estate tax too, so another Yaley legacy can inherit a family fortune without having to pay the government. And the current tax cuts to the most wealthy come to $70 billion dollars. Kanye West was wrong when he said that Bush doesn't care about black people. Bush doesn't care about poor people. And his government is utterly shameless about it.
In the teeth of scandal and criminal investigation, the Republican led House Agricultural Committee voted along strict party lines to approve budget cuts that will take food stamps away from 300,000 people and cut off school lunches and breakfasts for 400,000 children. A government report says that in the five years of the Bush presidency, the number of people who are hungry because they can't afford to buy enough food has risen by seven million and affects 12% of U.S. households. And it was the White House that proposed the restrictions on food stamp recipients while simultaneously making it more difficult to declare bankruptcy.
The grim reality is that there are a full three years of Bush economics facing this country unless someone in power, preferably on the Republican side, screams "enough!" Because it is in the Republican Party's self interest not to self-destruct with the Bush administration, some brave soul may yet exclaim that these policies are killing the average American and it must stop. The best a caring citizen can do is to prepare ourselves to come out in sufficient numbers to return one of the legislative bodies to the Democrats in 2006. At least this will break the Bush government's immunity from accountability, and will allow legitimate inquiries to begin into the plunder of both natural and human resources used by this regime to accomplish their political goals. It's a good thing the President is a "compassionate conservative." I'd hate to see the extent of the damage done by someone who didn't care as much.

2000

It seems like an eternity ago that there were only 2000 soldiers killed in Vietnam. I use the word "only" knowing it is an emotionally charged word. But that is the word I am hearing from my more bellicose and heartless acquaintances. Some assume that 2000 American lives is not too large of a sacrifice to achieve the goals of the government's foreign policy. The President said as much yesterday when he said more sacrifice would be needed in the war on terror.
The number 2000 certainly pales beside the number killed in the Pakistani quake, or the total number of hurricane victims in this deadly year. But those killed in natural disasters were simply in harm's way. There is a great deal of difference in dying by the hand of God than by dying by the hands of those who would intentionally put you in danger. There is no longer any denying that the Iraq war was a war of choice planned by men who intended to topple Saddam Hussein from power, even before they took power themselves.
There is irony in the fact that Saddam now stands trial for murders committed in his name in 1982. Is the United States not complicent in these murders because the Reagan administration financed and armed Saddam at that time? If there were executions, there is a good chance that they were carried out with American weapons. Saddam was fighting Iran then and the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Plots hatched by the Bush41 CIA to assassinate Saddam resulted in a botched attempt and more purges of the Iraqi regimes' enemies and the attempted assassination of Bush Sr. on a visit to Kuwait.
Had the current President only come before the American people and said, "aside from the
fact that he is also my father, Saddam Hussein planned and attempted the murder a former President of the United States. This government considers that an act of war and we mean to retaliate against the Iraqi dictator." That would have been a war they could have sold without the snake oil and most people would have supported it. Instead, this administration manufactured evidence to go to war, an act both immoral and illegal. They might have borrowed a play from Poppy's playbook and tried to surgically remove Saddam like Bush Sr. did with Manuel Noriega. Anything would have been better than the current atrocity being waged in our names. Like anyone, I would like to see a favorable outcome in Iraq for this country and the world's sake. But I don't believe it will happen while the Bush government is in power. There is too much blood on their hands for the Iraqi people to ever forgive them. And the 2000 dead, like the 58,000 Americans who died in Vietnam, will have to wait for other election cycles to discover if their sacrifice was worth the lies that killed them.

President Hastert

"Mister Speaker, the forty forth chief executive of the United States, President J. Dennis Hastert."

This administration, which never learns the lessons of history, still should have learned this one. After all, Karl Rove was a disciple of Donald Segretti and a peer of Lee Atwater in the field of political character assassination. Any examples needed can be found in the defeats of John McCain in the 2000 political primaries in South Carolina and the Swift Boat Vet Ads of the last election. The "boy genius" overreached this time, however. And even if he was unaware that exposing a CIA covert operative was a crime, the lesson of history is that the cover-up is always worse than the crime. That's why the news footage of the President sitting with his cabinet promising to get to the bottom of this mess, while the grinning conspirators sat to his left and right, stands out as the chief image of this deceit. They were reminiscent of a sixties' image of a Mississippi lynch mob about to be acquitted by an all white jury.

The President seemed aware of what was said and done in his name, and since the initial leak came from the Vice President's office, there's a good chance Mister Cheney knew as well. If that is the case, we will soon be hearing once again, "what did the President know, and when did he know it?" History's like that.
I don't know anything more about special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald than what I have readand heard in the mainstream media, but I do know that no Grand Jury sits this long, and no journalist goes to jail for three months for nothing. If the Bush White House thought this Prosecutor was going to roll over, they should have known that every thirty years or so, a man comes along with the integrity of Archibald Cox, and when he doesn't do the administrations' bidding, there is hell to pay.

In this case, the hell comes in the form of perjury and obstruction of justice, and Karl Rove's arrogant political destruction of Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife will pale in comparison to the damage he has inflicted on his own government. The cover-up of Rove's involvement by the President, and the cover-up of Lewis Libby's involvement by the Vice President, are impeachable offenses. After 2000 American and countless civilian lives have been lost in Iraq, the disaster of Hurricane Katrina, accompanied by the disaster of the President nominating his personal attorney to the Supreme Court, the political climate, on both sides of the spectrum, is ripe for a recall of the 2004 election.

I believe that Prosecutor Fitzgerald is about to hand down some serious indictments along with the indictments of unnamed co-conspirators. If that is the case, it spells the end for the criminal conspiracy that has seized this government. If Rove and Libby go down, so will the President and Vice President and in the direct line of succession stands the current Speaker of the House and the next President of the United States, J. Dennis Hastert, as destiny bound as Gerald R. Ford.

3 Point Plan for Citizen Action

Now that the hurricanes have revealed the rotten core of this administration, I would like to recommend a 3 Point Plan for Citizen Action for the remainder of the Bush term.

1. Resist all further attempts by this administration to "gut" government, both in services and in regulations for business and industry.
2. Send George Bush, cowboy hat in hand if necessary, to the Egyptians, the Pakistanis, our new best friends the Libyans, and especially the Saudis, to send an Islamic peacekeeping force to restore order in Iraq and allow our soldiers, who are walking jihadists targets, to return home to take care of their own.
3. Stop pretending that it is Dubya who makes the decisions for this government or this nation. Allow him to go on permanent vacation in order to do no further harm. Let him mountain bike at Camp David in case they need him to read something, but the shadow presidency of Cheney-Rumsfeld-and Rove should come into the light and be accountable for their policies.

In this administration, the buck never stops. In fact the almighty buck overrules all other restraints on governance. These shameless profiteers, raking in chips with both arms like a Las Vegas Poker champion, will not stop until the people stop them. 2006 is a long way away. Better to stand up and raise your voice now against the chaos that this administration has caused. Soon there will be no place left to hide.