What Fresh Hell Is This?

One thing you have to say for the Bush right wing. They know how to ask a question and then answer it themselves. The question, over the week-end, was "why do the Bush-haters hate Bush so much?" After these six years, after the escape of Osama Bin Laden, after the Iraq War and all the injuries and deaths owing to it, after tax cuts for the wealthy, after exposure of the corruption highway that runs between the Republican-controlled Congress and the White House, after the attempted (and often perpetrated) rape of the environment, after the debacle of FEMA and Katrina, after all the stone-walling and time-wasting on Global Warming (and these are just the high spots), they still don't get it?

Well, look at this, I say. First, a quote from a piece by Elizabeth Holtzman about the Bush attempt to insert into the military tribunal legislation a retroactive immunity against prosecution of Bush and Cheney for war crimes in having violated not only international law but U.S. law: "Creating immunity retroactively for violating the law sets a terrible precedent. The president takes an oath of office to uphold the Constitution; that document requires him to obey the laws, not violate them. A president who knowingly and deliberately violates U.S. criminal laws should not be able to use stealth tactics to immunize himself from liability." And we do know how "knowingly" Bush has broken the law because he and Gonzalez admit it and have been admitting it for years.

This, I would say, constitutes the insult. Personally, I think everyone in the world will be better off if Bush is tried for war crimes, thrown in jail for a while, and then made to mop floors at a VA hospital for the rest of his life. Cheney, too, Rumsfeld, too.

But the Bushies have to add the injury to the insult. Bush is to be made immune, but hey, legal immigrants are to have their legal protections tossed away. Here is a quote from a piece in the Guardian today by Stephen O'Shea: "What Congress is currently debating, in the context of its "war on terror", is a proposal to strip foreign nationals, including those legally resident in the United States, of habeas corpus. If the measure passes, they can be picked up and jailed indefinitely without charges being brought against them."

The blind arrogance of this proposal is breathtaking. How chickenshit are these rightwingers? Even armed to the teeth with shotguns, assault rifles, and other domestic weapons, they still are so terrified of a potential terrorist that they want to take away a legal protection that is hundreds of years old? Are the moderate Republicans going to march like robots into this outrage? Are the Democrats in Congress going to humiliate themselves even further by allowing this? Who do these people think they are?

Excuse me. I was talking about Bush-hating.

For which there are fresh reasons every day. In the context of these two attacks on the law, what are we to make of the article in the Washington Post yesterday showing us that, yes, Bush is sympathetic with parents who have lost children in his war? He's met with 300-odd of these parents. He's been nice to them. Am I such a Bush-hater that I am not touched by his evident concern?

You bet I am. He MADE this war. He SENT these kids into it, knowingly not sending his own kids. Are his tears crocodile tears? And why is the Post running this article now, in the middle of an election? Just to show that the man is human? No one ever doubted that the man is human--his wish for immunity from the consequences of his crimes is all too human. His fear of immigrants, even legal immigrants, is human, too.

But really, my question is, how is it possible not to hate Bush? At this late date, when all of his policies have failed and all of his ideas have been exposed, and most people in the world and in the nation disagree with him, he continues to subvert the constitution (that "God-damned piece of paper") that he took an oath to uphold. What is wrong with you people who don't hate Bush? What do you think that he has done to deserve something other than hatred? Come on, be explicit. I really would like to know.