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| So? Who? |
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| The Scarring Continues |
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This is Dark Cloud on Wednesday, March 26, 2008. If our Vice President hadn’t totally passed over into the realm of self-parody, we’d probably be more scared of him. Normally, with a strong or even marginally competent President, he’d have been eased out earlier, possibly when he shot a friend in the face when posing as a hunter in Texas, possibly when he started repeatedly lying about WMD’s in Iraq, possibly when his former Chief of Staff was disbarred and convicted of felonies committed during that employment. Not since Dan Quayle, the Vice-President of Bush’s father, failed to correctly spell ‘potato’ in a children’s class, has a VP brought such disastrous publicity to any administration. And this before the substance. Last week, when informed by a reporter that two-thirds of Americans do not think the Iraq War was worth the cost, our beloved VP Cheney turned and said "So?" Days later, queried about the arbitrary benchmark of four thousand American deaths in Iraq, he again said ‘so?’ in many more words by pointing out they were all volunteers. Actually, that elevated my opinion of him. I’d have predicted, with the American people called to his attention, he’d have said "Who?" With Halliburton’s billing address now overseas, and with Cheney remaining its biggest stockholder, the memories of duty to his former homeland may have understandably receded, but he apparently thinks of us only as a client, no more and no less important that other Halliburton clients. And who might they be, you reasonably ask? Well, all the records being overseas, we won’t know, will we? After all, even compelled by decency, law, and subpoena to provide information to us, the American people conservative and liberal both, Cheney – Bush’s pubic face of experience to try and imply competence, as a gay man might marry to imply heterosexuality – has given the law the finger time and again. President Bush and his gap toothed Secretary of State are closing out an administration of no achievements, domestic or foreign, and much disaster this week. Bush has said the next administration will be dealing with his various snail trails of ick and adhesion into the foreseeable future. The last eight years have inflicted more actual harm on this nation than any foreign enemy in our history. Neither our judicial system, where Bush installed incompetent hacks loyal only to him; nor our military, which Bush has pointlessly weakened and administratively disturbed for his own self image; nor the Presidency itself, which Bush and Cheney want to be constitutionally superior to both Congress and the Supreme Court, will recover in our lifetime. Then, there’s the economy, the nation’s infrastructure, the nation’s previously reasonable assumption of competence in emergencies and good will towards its citizens. Gone. And that’s provided the key issue for our presidential candidates today: their ability to institute recovery. For no other election in our history had to install an administration with the disasters waiting the next one will. Of course, it’s our fault. We always elect the candidates who tell us the stories about ourselves we want to believe. We’re gifted by god, we don’t do bad things, we’re superior to other nations, we work hardest, we are compassionate. And history and religion was redone to institutionalize these contentions. America has been incredibly fortunate in location, our birthing cultures, and leadership in general. We have done and do many bad things, but in the past these were more than offset by the undeniable good. The nations we often denigrate – say, France – are often the ones that provided the intellectual and military aid that made us. We used to be compassionate, but now take sadistic pleasure in other’s pain as mere vengeance. Our current President has made us just another street gang, reacting as one, motivated as street gangs’ are. We used to operate for benefit of the Big Picture, but Bush said this week that we stay in Iraq as, in effect, mere vengeance for our war dead, because he can no longer meld his various and discarded definitions of what victory there would be. Bush hides behind this, as others did during the Vietnam War, because he’s daring people to say those soldiers died in vain. They surely did in Vietnam. We won’t know till all the facts come out, of course. But in Iraq, Mr. President, thus far it’s only your war dead. We’re only there because you lied to us all, citizen and taxpayer, Senator and infantryman. A President would never lie like that under guise of national security to start a war of aggression for economic gain. You did. Well. Since the Mexican or Spanish wars, anyway. And like your Vice President, when people got angry, you said in so many words: so? Which is why so many of your fellow citizens hope when your name comes up in the near future, the general response will be: “who?” But we’re no longer that fortunate. |
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