A Case Study in Eating Your Own

One thing about driving is that it's a good time to think and I have to say that we are seeing a monumental battle being readied on the national political front.

In my other journal on my post about drumming up support for HR 636, livejournal user Thormonger (a righteous and upstanding dude with the courage of his convictions that I totally respect) tweaked me good-naturedly that even if Bush and Cheney got drummed out, all it would mean is another Republican in the White House. I'm going to guess he meant be elected in 2008 as opposed to being appointed to replace B/C....

Wait, you haven't heard of HR 636? Get thee to Google, and while you're there, check out HR 637 as well. Or is it 635? In any case, at least with 636 it is a resolution to censure El Presidente for being a naughty naughty man.

In any case, I'm not sure I agree with Thormonger for a number of reasons.

First, although most of the noise admittedly is coming from the Left on this, Bush has also lost a lot of support from the Right as well. The hard Right is unhappy about his stance on immigration and immigration reform and less than thrilled about his appointees to the Supreme Court. The Right has been waiting and biding their time since Reagan to get a majority on the High Court to enact their agenda and to say they are disappointed would be an understatement.

There's no need to rehash why the Left is unhappy.

But the big news is the battle for the Center, the hearts and minds of Middle America, and the impending constitutional showdown that is brewing.

Polls have shown that the public is very disenchanted with the war in Iraq. Mission was not accomplished 3 years ago and at least twice a week there's another report of more US soldiers dying and people are asking "what are they dying for?"

This is the same question that arose in the 60s and 70s during Vietnam. At first it was asked by a bunch of pinko commie fag stinking fucking hippies, but then started filtering into the mainstream. That Bush et al cannot see this.... it's not surprising. They are incredibly myopic when it comes to issues that directly strike them and their tried-and-true tactics of attacking those who attack them isn't going to work this time. It's not just so-called "whack jobs" like Cindy Sheehan openly questioning them. There is a slow awakening to the fact that every step of the way, the Administration has either lied or fudged the facts to justify the war in Iraq. There were no WMDs or bioweapons or chemical weapons. There was no great smoking gun showing Al Qaeda setting up shop in pre-war Iraq, and there is nothing tying Saddam Hussein to 9/11.

Instead there is this civil war that has torn Iraq apart. Retired generals are openly calling out Rumsfeld and the Administration for "rosying the scenario" and going into Iraq with too few troops.

Ladies and gentlemen, I refer you again back to Vietnam. In the aftermath of the US's pullout, we had generals offering up the same critique- that the loss in Vietnam was because the US didn't send in enough troops. There is debate as to whether more troops would have made a difference in Vietnam- most say no, that we had already bombed them back to the Stone Age, inflicted chemical warfare upon them (Agent Orange), but like the Black Knight in "The Holy Grail", those plucky little bastards still fought.

What we are seeing in Iraq is something similar. The battle fought by the insurgents is low-tech, only this time with IEDs and car bombs. Like with the Viet Cong, they are exacting a heavy price upon those consorting with the infidel invaders, kidnapping, torturing, and killing the lackey running dogs.

I mean, how many times can I beat a dead fucking horse- what we are seeing now is a replay of Nixon and Vietnam and Watergate and those in the belly of the beast, as it were, cannot see this.

And where Nixon had Watergate, Bush has the Plame affair. Initially seen as only a minor footnote, what will matter so much isn't the actual crime but the ensuing cover-up.

Like Nixon, Bush has made a lot of enemies, and like Nixon, he is an arrogant ass believing that the righteousness of the cause- stopping the march of Communism in SE Asia/stopping the march of Islamic extremism in the Middle East- places them above the law.

We have seen Bush in the past year say that he did not have to adhere to the due process of law in this war on terror. (and for an excellent summation of this I refer you to this journal , with mad props to Livejournal's Kwalton for that. We have seen him attach notes to legislation he signs, indicating that he was not bound to follow it. We have seen him seek to expand the power of the Executive Branch with what can only be describe as an Extra Crispy intepretation (as opposed to Originalist) of the Constitution.

(and BTW, I claim copywrite to "Extra Crispy" as the term for describing those with an interpretive view of the Constitution, as opposed to what the Far Right deems "Originalist". I've been using "extra crispy" now for over a year.)

Now this is where Bush has made a serious error. The man has a majority in both the House and Senate. All he had to do was play nicely and ask for the rubber stamp and they would have given it to him. But like Nixon, Bush is deeply distrustful, seeing enemies even among friends. Hell, do you really think Arlen Specter would be turning upon Bush with such a vengeance if old Dubya just went along with the game? I doubt it.

Bush has shit all over Specter and many of those in his own party who run Congress. He's trampled upon their turf and a number of them have had enough and they are now gearing up to protect what they see as their prerogative and their zone of influence. Mr Bush has not been a very friendly neighbor and has really mucked up the works to the point where many of his former allies in the party are in serious danger of not being reelected.

This is part of the danger of playing the Us/Them game without any sort of middle ground, and it's the game we have seen since day 1 with Bush/Cheney/Rove. If you're not 100% for them, you're against them and they will attack you with every means at their disposal to humiliate and discredit you. (See also: Richard C Clarke).

And this is also the danger with being the majority in power. How many times did we hear Bush et al blame Clinton for things? Well, Clinton's been out of power for 6 years now and dammit, there needs to be someone to blame and it's certainly not the person in the mirror. But once you eat "the enemy", you have to start eating your own.

And this is when it turns ugly, and folks, if you think it's ugly now, just hang out because you ain't seen nothing yet.

Tags: Bush Cheney H.R. 636 H.R. 636 censure impeach Iraq Plame Specter Nixon Vietnam Watergate separation of powers Extra Crispy Originalist

Back to work/ the morning edit

Well, it's been a while since I've posted on this blog. I've been busy with life and all that and things have slid a bit to the wayside.

But while I've been away, the Bushies have been hard at work providing me with much fodder; so much that I'm not sure where to begin. And just to show how much things have changed, I now find that there's a majority on the Lunatic Right who agree with me that Bush needs to go. I don't know how I feel about that. It's like the old Groucho Marx quote about not wanting to belong to any country club that would accept the likes of him. I mean, what's next- having my pic splashed across the tabloids of me in a liplock with Kennedy the former MTV trollop turned GOP strumpet?

No thanks- I'll have the soup.

But.... good goddamn. The level and depth of incompetence and weasely venality is truly stunning. I was discussing this with an acquaintance and whenever there has been a decision to be made by the Administration, it has almost always been wrong. Now I can understand being wrong once in a while- that's human. But to be wrong on such a consistent basis for almost 6 years?? Unbelievable.

What threw things into very stark relief for me was thinking back to 9/11. I happened to be on YouTube and a link to a 9/11 video was there so I clicked on it and for the next 10 minutes relived the horror of that day. I was awoken that fateful morning by a phone call telling me to put on the news. I turned on the tv to see smoke pouring out of one of the twin towers. My first thought was that it was a fire. But then the second plane zoomed into the frame and slammed into the other tower and that was when I lost my shit.

Like most other Americans I was beyond horrified to the point that when I initially saw the tape of Bush being told of the attack, I was willing to give him a free pass on sitting there with that 'deer caught in the headlights' look that he gets.

As the days passed we learned what had happened and I found myself feeling patriotic. The sight of Congress rising as one to sing 'God Bless America' stirred something deep inside me and as much as I did not like Bush, he was the president and at a time when we are under attack (such as we were), it was time to put aside partisan differences and stand together.

And stand we did as we sent troops into Afghanistan on a mission to wipe out the Al Qaeda training camps and to kill Osama Bin Ladin. Al Qaeda wanted war, well, we would give them war and hunt them to the ends of the earth and make them pay for what they had done.

If only Bush had stuck to that.

Instead, he and his advisors caved in to some deep dark impulse to use the excuse of Al Qaeda to settle an old score with Saddam Hussein. Evidence was fudged, intelligence reports slanted, and phony pretenses foisted not just upon the American people, but upon the world. General Colin Powell, probably one of the most respected people in America, was sent before the United Nations and presented a case that unbeknownst to him, was full of lies and deceit. This honorable warrior and politician was heinously tossed under the bus by craven and cowardly politicians. When the truth came out, it tarnished his name and reputation, all to whore forth the lies that Hussein was behind 9/11 and that Hussein also had WMDs.

The French saw this for what it was and they openly mocked the US and they were dead fucking on. And the Germans and Russians refused to play along in the charade as well.

But Bush went forward. The political capital and good-will paid for with the blood of over 3100 dead Americans was cashed in to pay for both a personal vendetta and war spoils for Haliburton. Onward the US blundered into Iraq, ignoring calls for more diplomacy and continued containment of a renegade regime that thus far had worked. Still we were lied to about WMDs, with Condee Rice warning that the smoking gun could well be a mushroom cloud.

All we were told about Iraq was a lie. There was no Al Qaeda there- at least not until we turned Iraq into a free-fire zone and bandit country. Nor were there the promised cheering throngs tossing rose petals at the feet of our advancing soldiers. And no, mission was not accomplished 3 years 2400 dead servicepeople and $300+ billion ago.

Then we had Katrina. While New Orleans drowned, Bush strummed. His head guy had no fucking clue when anyone who was watching the news- even the dreck disguised as news on Fox- knew people were dying at the Convention Center. When push came to shove, Bush failed and failed miserably.

And like with Iraq and with his National Guard record, he just couldn't bring himself to tell the truth. He said he wasn't informed, but then a tape of the video conference with a man looking very much like him sitting in a room being fed information surfaced.

And now, mother of Christ, we have this merry band of intrepid fuckups about to get us involved in yet another war, this time with Iran. I saw this coming and may have even commented upon it back when he gave the State of the Union. We heard him use the same phrases about Iran that he used with Iraq- that they were seeking to develop nuclear weapons and that they were playing footsie with Al Qaeda. And since that speech we've had them steadily pounding the drum.

But then we had a remarkable thing happen. The president of Iran sent a letter to President Bush seeking to open a dialog on a number of fronts. Now the US and Iran have not had any official communications since the hostage crisis of 1979-80. Just the fact that they contacted the US is amazing. But rather than look upon this as an opportunity, the usually brilliant Condee Rice essentially told them, in bureacratees, to eat shit and howl at the moon.

Why? Who the hell knows? But the damage has now been done. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who in terms of Iranian politicians is a moderate, stuck his neck out on this. Rice's reply confirmed the suspicions of every hard-liner and religious nutjob in Iran that the US has no interest in diplomacy and wants to wage yet more war against a Muslim country.

And yet again, the Bushies have been successfully played for a bunch of bloodthirsty stupid ignorant chumps. First they fell into the trap of fulfilling Bin Ladin's crazed ramblings that it was the goal of the US to invade and occupy an oil-rich Muslim country, and now it is this.

As further proof that the Bushies lack a sense of irony, I just want to note that back when Reagan committed his treason by engineering a back-room deal with the Ayatollah Khomeini while Jimmy Carter was still president, as part of this treasonous sucking-up Reagan had his minions deliver a birthday cake and a Holy Bible (which as we all know every Ayatollah needs) with a personalized inscription. So now we have an Iranian sending a US president a letter chock full o' Christiany goodness. I know I'm laughing about this and god knows we all need a laugh to keep from going insane.

Maybe we should just give up and admit that we are truly a nation of cocksucking ignorant chickenfucking assholes. We're so goddamn stupid that we can't even see when others are laughing at us and not with us. We stand here tilting at windmills and rushing off against manufactured enemies while in the meantime, every other developed nation is quietly preparing to clean our clock and relegate us to the status of slave state.

Shit, just keep us fed on a diet of bullshit, vapid celebrity, and manufactured "reality" tv and we'll be happy. Never mind that our kids can't find their asses with both hands and cannot locate on a map most of the states in the country. Just keep tossing us the latest Paris Hilton news and we'll be good little slaves. People can tell you more names of the cast of "Survivor" than amendments that make up the Bill of Rights.

I feel a lot like Hunter Thompson felt when he was talking about the end of the 60s and the beginning of the age of Nixon. We had our own renaissance with the 90s under Clinton. But then Bush came in and now we are a shattered and disgraced shell of a nation and so widely loathed that many foreigners not only have lost sympathy for us because of 9/11 but believe the US deserved it.

But again, nobody gives a rat's ass. We'll just yell mindless slogans like "Git 'er done" and send in more poor young bastards to die for yet more lies in Iran.

Our only hope is that people are finally starting to wake up. It's a dream that I hang onto, just because the alternative is too damn depressing. Yet the rational side of me sees the writing on the wall and it scares the hell out of me.

And that, dear reader, is what I take to bed with me on this cold rainy miserable New England night.

Tags: Bush Iran letter failure Iraq Reagan cake ayatollah treason