Free Pass

St. Peter was near the end of his shift at the Pearly Gates. "God Charlie, I am really whipped", he explained to his pal. "I'm calling it a night." "Wait a second, Pete, we got one more", explained his cherubic pal. You can cloud sit tomorrow. "Allright", he muttered "who we got?" Charlie says "this ones a doozy, one George Walker Bush - 43rd President of the United States." "Oh hell Charlie, you know I hate politics..."

George Walker Bush has gotten a free pass from the vaunted leftist "mainstream media". Contrary to popular wisdom, the collective sins of this administration are on a par with any heretofore and almost Nixonian in scope and gravity. My mama always said to never attribute to malice what could better be explained by stupidity and what we have here may be a cheap cocktail of the two.

I have been running a quick tabulation or greatest hits of Bush malfeasance over in my brain and I offer them to you, my paltry readership, with my apologies. I am sure that I have forgotten quite a few and would welcome your corrections.

1. The War in Iraq. Current U.S. Casualty count as of 3/16/08, 5:32 p.m.est - U.S. Dead - 3987 U.S. wounded - 29,314, Iraqi casualties - 89,710. Now we were attacked on 9/11 by religious islamic zealots, based primarily in Afghanistan, Saudi and Pakistan, so what do we do, we invade Iraq, the country with the most secular freedom and woman's suffrage in the region, albeit one governed by a terrible murderous despot. A piece of crap much like Tito, but one of the few people able to rule a land governed by three major sects that hated each other. But Hussein had pissed off our president's dad, and we was fixin to give him a country boy whipping. Bring it on, make my day, blah,blah,blah. Brain injuries are at an all time high with our troops and the PTSD costs are potentially astronomic.

This protracted struggle will cost us about one to two Trillion dollars, according to Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winning economist. Remember the 50 billion dollar figure bandied about by Rosy Don Rumsfeld, he of the "they will be throwing flowers at our feet school."

Costs and casualties aside, this thing shows no signs of abating. A person that is willing to strap on a bomb will not be cowed into ever accepting western style mores or occupation. We are breeding many more potential enemies with every accidental civilian casualty in Iraq and these people have a long memory.

2. The War on Terrorism - Fact: This administration has been the gang that couldn't shoot straight regarding terrorism. I recommend that everyone read Richard Clarke's book and the final Woodward Book. On January 25, 2001 Clarke sent a memo in which he called urgently for a Principal's review on Al Qida (sic). he mentioned sleeper cells and Usama Bin Laden. The Bush Administration did not have a meeting for another 9 months and by then it was too late. On August 6, 2001, the CIA sent a now declassified letter to the White House warning that "Bin Laden wanted to use domestic airplanes like missiles" and attack the White House, Pentagon and CIA headquarters. The NIC warned about this as early as 1999.

How is it that the administration portrays itself as so macho and effective when their record has truly been so miserable? I won't go into yellow cake and Niger and all the other crap that has been post mortemed to death. I just know that they must think we are really stupid. And we are.

If these guys had any real cajones, we would have gone after the Pakistani enablers of Bin Laden and the Saudi moneymen.

3. Bringing us back to Jesus - One of the gravest sins of this administration imho is the breaching of the wall between church and state. It has allowed us to drain the money out of the public school system in some cases, cut off federal money internationally to any countries or organizations that teach, god forbid, family planning, and channel charity donations through primarily fundamentalist evangelical churches. The Air Force Academy has been sued for proselytizing and trying to brainwash Jewish recruits. The Justice Department's ranks are swelling with green snot nosed lawyers from Regent University, Pat Robertson's own law school. Creationism and intelligent design have raised their ugly stupid head and are taught alongside science. I better stop...

4.The Supreme Court - The Federalist Society has managed to take over the body with it's corporation driven slant and its quest for original intent. Its a wonder that we have any laws regarding automobiles on the books since they may not have been envisioned by the founding fathers. Seven of our nine justices are Republican and appointed by the same. They delivered the election when Scalia felt it prudent to shut down Florida vote counting and disallow the "felon count" for the sake of the country. All of the talk of stare decisis is balderdash as well, we have come to see. Alito and the Trojan Horse Roberts are company men after all.

5. The Environment - Abrogate Kyoto, clearcut the forests, snowmobile Yellowstone, drill throughout the Colorado and Alaskan plateaus, weaken air and water pollution standards, deafen and kill dolphins and whales, indemnify industrial polluters,etc. need I go on?

6.Civil Liberties - see trust your government post.

I think I am spent - thank god - I could go on and on. Don't give the Grand Old Party a free ride.

Robert