Is it just me, or does the GROUNDBREAKING, 'take back Washington,' non-binding, sure-to-be-vetoed, Iraq war spending bill that keeps our military there for 18 more months of death, debt and destruction somehow not really smell like victory?
Is anybody else out there having a hard time seeing the upside of an estimated 90,000 more dead Iraqis and 1000 more dead GI's? When you factor in the hundreds of thousands more crippled for life, destroyed families, and about 124 billion bucks down the toilet, where exactly is the 'thumpin' the president was supposed to be taking?
Christ, what would defeat have looked like?
This is the smell of victory Robert Duvall waxed poetic about in Apocalypse Now, you know--- morning napalm death fog, with rotting corpses everywhere--but the possibility of good surfing.
But Duvall's character was a deranged psychopath--and in a work of fiction to boot.
Down in Washington, the deranged psychopath is real, albeit unbelievable, and out of a story so outrageous if a writer floated it as fiction he'd be laughed out of every publisher's office in America--except Judith Regan's
When you strip away all the posturing and finger-pointing and spinning and grandstanding and punditry--- basically the Democrats ratified the war plan W laid out in his Jan 10th speech, complete with the benchmarks.
And the little baby is still stamping his feet and throwing tantrums the likes of which his parents haven't seen since the maid let Jeb finish off the extra dessert while gramps was having cigars and cognac in the parlor with the rest of the board of Brown Brothers, Harriman Bank, working out the details of their loan to Hitler.
You remember January 10th, don't you, where the press told us a 'humbled' Bush got on his knees and said 'just give me one more chance'---and 124 billion dollars---to continue the longest war in US history, a war they were claiming only months ago could last up to ten years, but now will magically end in a six-month surge? Six months, mind you, that illogically has no end, six months that the president refuses to except any 'arbitrary' pull-out date for, six months that is in actuality an eternity until such time Halliburton and Bechtel have gotten the oil and completed the world's largest embassy, at which point they will inform us, 'the war is officially over and now your thousands of soldiers in the line of fire will be called a stabilizing force.'
Does this seem 'humbled' to you?
Last week alone, Bush made it clear he'd veto a bill with a pullout attached that's supported by 60% of the country, told the Supreme Court he'd find other ways around the EPA regulating carbon dioxide pollution, and bypassed Congress during Easter recess by appointing three cronies so laughably inept their nominations would've taken up less time on the floor than such 'politically unviable' concerns as health care, labor standards, or the living wage.
Whew. If this is humbled, what the hell would 'emboldened' look like? Lining up senior citizens crossing the Canadian border with cheap prescription drugs so Cheney could shoot them in the face? I've seen rats caught in the glare of a flashlight more humbled, their jowls overflowing with pigeon entrails and used Pampers.
We have members of the Justice Department comparing Sen. Patrick Leahy to JOSEPH MCCARTHY for wanting to ask a few questions about lies Alberto Gonzalez made on national TV. We're not trying to unearth some secret memo here; the guy's lies were broadcast all over the planet, even sub-literate places like Uganda and Colorado Springs. This is the attorney general we're talking about, not some gay prostitute with White House press clearance like Jeff Gannon. He's the attorney for the entire country, albeit one that thinks the Geneva Conventions are quaint and torture is okay---when we do it.
If this is victory, then give me defeat. I wanted more out of the last election than Nancy Pelosi telling me impeachment is off the table and then touring Syria so she can wag her finger at the GOP like some PTA treasurer who discovered an accounting error at the bake sale. This is life and death we're talking about here.
Even Nixon and Kissinger--two of the most reviled gorgons in America's cavalcade of tyrants--would be embarrassed by these swine. At least Nixon knew when the jig was up and although he didn't bow out gracefully--he cried like a baby babbling about what a saint his mother was and how he loved his dog and never mentioned the millions of Vietnamese he napalmed--he knew what the law was and how sooner or later he'd have to answer to it. So he got out of town before the judge issued a warrant and appointed a successor he knew would pardon him.
But this crowd doesn't care about the law, and they'll never answer to it. Law is a quaint little thing for us to obey, not them. And truth? I defy anyone to find a single instance of Bush telling the American public the truth, about anything. Go through the entire public record--every word of it.
Lying to the public is a way of life for these people, something they only bother to do when they actually get called out by the peons out here they loathe---us. But in their day-to-day business, ensconced in the global criminal enterprise that is this administration, they don't even bother to lie--which is why they're obsessed with secrecy.
Victory, if it's even possible, will only come when the press and the Democrats--and the citizenry--stop pretending that the emperor is dressed, and instead acknowledge what it seems the rest of the world already knows; the man is naked and he lies every step of the way.
The time has come for people in office--of whatever party--to look their constituents in the face and say,'I'm stopping this now.' If they won't do it out of a sense of truth or honor or responsibility, then maybe they'll do it out of fear of being thrown out of office.
Or perhaps they'll do it out of fear of being pelted by crowds, a fear no doubt Karl Rove will be facing if he intends to speak at any more colleges any time soon.
Why continue a polite--and fake--'national dialogue' about 'humbling', and ' 'benchmarks,' and 'reinterpretations of misstatements' and 'Administration claims' and 'executive power,' when the truth is staring you in the face like a baboon's ass? It's all lies and they don't give a shit, and hundreds of thousands of innocent people are dying.
Burn me once and you're to blame, burn me 414 billion times, and, well...you know the rest.