Tag: Bush

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Bush to Welcome Al Gore to White House Monday

Wow. This won’t be at ALL awkward.

From AP: Seven years ago, it was Bush v. Gore. Now, Bush is hosting former Vice President Al Gore at the White House – this time as a Nobel laureate.

The president has invited this year’s U.S. winners of Nobel prizes to the White House on Monday, Nov. 26.

Gore and the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shared the Nobel Peace Prize for efforts to educate and raise awareness about the effects of manmade climate change.

The other invitees:

— University of Chicago professor Roger B. Myerson, Eric Maskin from Princeton University and Leonid Hurwicz, an emeritus economics professor at the University of Minnesota. The three won Nobel prizes in economics for their work on how people’s knowledge and self-interests affect their behavior in the market or in social situations, such as voting and labor negotiations. Hurwicz is unable to attend.

— Mario Capecchi of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and Oliver Smithies from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, who were awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine. Their work led to a powerful and widely used technique to manipulate genes in mice, which has helped scientists study heart disease, diabetes, cancer, cystic fibrosis, and other diseases.

© 2007 The Associated Press.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Time To Get Out

The pro-war crowd has been emphasizing the recent drop in American casualties in Iraq, measured by the month, but the fact remains that 2007 has been the most lethal year of war for Americans, and it’s not over yet.

At this writing, 853 Americans have died in 2007, which tops the previous record of 849 in 2004. Altogether, 3,858 Americans have lost their lives in Iraq. The sad thing is that they are dying for nothing, because the cowardly Congress refuses to stop the war by cutting off the funds.

The administration defines “winning” as a stable, democratic Iraq able to defend itself. That’s really a definition of a no-win war. The only way to establish stability with Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites at each other’s throats is to find another dictator ruthless enough to force stability at the point of a gun. In other words, you can have stability with no democracy or democracy with no stability. Take your choice.

Either way, it is not worth the life of a single American.

It’s time for the American people to face the question, “What’s in it for us?” That’s not being selfish. It’s our blood and our treasure, so surely the American people have a right to expect some gain for this sacrifice. So what is it?

The answer is nothing. The corporate friends of the Bush-Cheney gang have gained plenty of profits, but they haven’t shared them with the dead soldiers — or with the American people, for that matter. Whether Iraq has a new dictator or becomes an Islamic republic aligned with Iran, Americans will have no friends in a country we wrecked while killing at least 100,000 Iraqis and displacing 2 million more. It will be a long time before any nonsuicidal Americans put Iraq on their places-to-visit list.

The Bush administration has been the most secretive and deceptive bunch to occupy the White House in history. The truth is, nobody knows for sure what the motive for going to war against Iraq really was. I read one theory that the neocons, the chief proponents and pushers of the war, envisioned the convicted embezzler and exile Ahmad Chalabi running the country and making peace with Israel. If it’s true, it was a pipe dream based on ignorance. Nobody in Iraq who had suffered through Saddam Hussein’s rule was going to turn the country over to some corrupt exile who had been living the high life in London and Washington.

Regardless of why we went in, it’s past time for us to get out. The Iraqi people don’t want us. As long as we stay, we will be looked upon as occupiers, and the insurgents will keep whittling away at our forces. Occupation cannot be sustained in a hostile environment, and bribery won’t change the way the Iraqis feel. We have done the people of Iraq way too much harm for them to forgive us.

There is no reasoning with President Bush. He’s as likely to attack Iran as he is to withdraw troops from Iraq. The only answer is to pressure Congress to find the nerve to cut the purse strings. There will be enough money in the pipeline to safely withdraw the troops. Keeping young Americans in harm’s way when their lives and limbs will be lost for no gains is not by any stretch supporting the troops. You support the troops by getting them out of harm’s way, just as Ronald Reagan did after we lost the Marines in Lebanon.

Iraq may or may not have a bloody war after we leave. That’s up to the Iraqis. It’s no skin off our nose whether they reconcile or draw their knives. It’s their country. Let them fight over it if that’s what they want to do. The Bush administration has not done one single thing right in the Middle East, and the situation in the whole area is worse and more dangerous because of these blunders.

America’s withdrawal would be a blessing to everyone concerned.

Charley Reese has been a journalist for 50 years.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

The Real Costs of War

Several newspapers and websites covered President Bush’s visit to Brooke Army Hospital in San Antonio earlier this week. The pictures were gut-wrenching. The president toured the facility, meeting soldiers who had lost arms, legs, eyes, ears, even faces in combat in Iraq.

Bush moved through the hallways, greeting the wounded with a wry smile and his typical bonhomie. As he watched one soldier — blind and legless — climb a wall, he turned to the soldier’s mother and said, “He’s a good man, isn’t he?” Yes, Mr. Bush, he is. And he was probably even a better man before an IED maimed him for life.

One hopes that Bush came away from his visit with some deeper understanding of the human costs of his administration’s unilateral and unnecessary war.

But it’s doubtful. As the president exited the hospital, impressed by the good medical work he’d just seen, he took a moment to advocate for better government support for wounded veterans. Apparently, Bush was unaware that the high-tech rehabilitation facility he’d just visited was entirely supported by private funds.

A new report on the financial costs of war was released this week by congressional Democrats. The report cited the costs to the United States of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at nearly $1.5 trillion — so far. It’s an amount that is nearly double the $804 billion the White House has spent or requested to wage these wars through 2008. The report estimates that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have thus far cost the average U.S. family of four more than $20,000.

The report also says that our war funding is diverting billions of dollars away from “productive investment” by American businesses. It adds that National Guardsmen and reservists are being kept from their jobs, resulting in economic disruptions for U.S. employers estimated at $1 billion to $2 billion. Gas prices, the report further notes, have tripled since the beginning of the war.

Critics say these figures are inflated. We say, inflated or not, it’s quite obvious that the cost of endless war on two fronts has depleted our economy, pushed our armed forces to the breaking point, and inflicted immeasurable human suffering on our soldiers and their families — not to mention the Iraqi people.

As has been demonstrated over and over again, the way to fight terrorism is through police work and our intelligence agencies. Invading a country under the guise of “keeping America safe from terrorism” makes about as much sense as the old Vietnam canard: “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.”

In this case, we fear, we are destroying our own village. It is time for congressional Democrats to do more than issue reports. It is time to stop the madness of this no-win war.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

GADFLY: Let’s Hear It for Barristers on the Barricades!

I sat, dumbfounded, as I watched a demonstration, en masse,
in Pakistan against the oppressive rule by that country’s strongman (and our
“ally”), Pervez Musharraf, by a group of outraged citizens. Who were they? Not
members of the typically rebellious masses (i.e., college students, factory
workers, union members, political dissidents, etc.), but a group of LAWYERS!

How could this be, I wondered. Lawyers (a status I proudly
claim) are usually part of the cosseted elite, beneficiaries of the status quo,
recipients of the government’s favors, and cogs in the wheels of justice,
government and societal processes in general. More often than not they go along
to get along as part of the power structure. They are usually well-paid,
respected (stereotype-driven prejudice to the contrary notwithstanding) and
comfortable members of the elite. Yet here they were, raucously demonstrating,
throwing rocks at (and

being beaten by) the police, and vociferously protesting the policies of
their government. Right on, brothers! Lawyers just don’t do this, I thought.
It’s contrary to their delicate constitutions, and their self-interest.

As it turns out, the Pakistani lawyers were righteously
indignant about Musharraf’s “emergency” measures, dictatorially imposed on the
country, including the suspension of the country’s constitution, cancellation of
elections, the arrest and detention of the country’s chief justice, the closure
of privately-owned broadcast media and the replacement of many of the country’s
high court’s judges with ones more to the dictator’s liking. Wow, I thought;
this sounds vaguely reminiscent of what’s happening right here, in the good ole
US of A. Bush has all but suspended the constitution (i.e., eliminating habeas
corpus, warrantlessly eavesdropping on American citizens, engaging in torture
and stacking the Supreme Court, and the inferior courts, with his ideological
kinsmen). But he doesn’t see the parallels. Indeed, in

a moment of supreme irony, Bush’s press secretary said (in reference to
Musharraf’s actions) that it was not reasonable to restrict constitutional
freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism.

Bush has relied on compliant (if not complicit) lawyers in
the justice department (headed, until recently, by the ultimate kiss ass,
Alberto Gonzales), to tell him what he wants to hear when it comes to bending or
breaking various laws and the constitution. And now it appears we will be
treated to another Bush lawyer/sycophant at the helm of that department, Michael
Mukasey, who

refused to say that a favored torture tactic, water boarding, is
unconstitutional. Nonetheless, can you imagine lawyers in this country
taking to the streets to protest our strongman’s infringements of
constitutional and human rights? I know I can’t. And yet, no one is in a better
position to protest our dictator’s policies, or has more at stake, than this
country’s legal establishment.

Musharaf has obviously taken a page from Shakespeare in
dealing with Pakistan’s lawyers. It is a favorite Shakespearean verse, often
quoted by people who hold lawyers in less than high regard, that, paraphrasing,
“the first thing we should do is kill all the lawyers.” I’ve heard this line
many times, once even from a now-deceased federal judge who uttered it,
astonishingly enough, in the courthouse elevator as several lawyers got on to
ride to the courtroom floor. I reminded him, as politely as I could, that in
addition to being a judge, he was also a lawyer and would probably go with the
rest of us (indeed, probably before us) if his prescription were to be followed.
But, the quote from Shakespeare is never cited in the context the Bard wrote it.
In fact, Dick the Butcher, a character in Henry VI, utters the remark as
part of a plot by another character in the play, Jack Cade, a rabble-rouser and
pretender to the throne of England, to take down the government. Eliminating
lawyers, according to Dick, was a necessary part of a successful revolt. Dick
and Perez obviously share the same philosophy.

In this country, far from protesting the abuses of law and
the constitution practiced by the current administration, lawyers have
shamelessly capitulated to, if not facilitated, the excesses of the Bush
administration. Whether it was John Yoo, the Justice Department lawyer (who
John Ashcroft referred to as “Dr. Yes” for his willingness to tell the White
House what it wanted to hear), who opined that whatever the president wanted to
do in a time of war (including torture) was permissible, whether or not it was
prohibited by statute or the constitution, or Scooter Libby (remember him?) who
outed a covert CIA agent in the service of his own “Dick the Butcher,” or now
Mr. Mukasey, who appears ready to immunize from prosecution for war crimes the
agents of our government who may have engaged in torture, and their superiors
(up to and including Bush) who authorized it, American lawyers (with some

notable exceptions) have been stunningly, deafeningly silent in the face of
the Bush administration’s abuses . And lawyers like Arlen Specter, Chuck Schumer
and Lindsay Graham (who also happen to be U.S. senators), have, by approving
Mukasey’s nomination, even as they professed outrage at his unwillingness to
declare water boarding torture, have ignominiously shamed their profession by
carrying the administration’s water on that nomination.

American lawyers have stood by and watched Bush nominate
candidates for the Supreme Court who swore, under oath, that they would honor
the principle of “stare decisis” (precedent), and then proceeded, in several
cases,

to violate that oath and decimate long-standing precedents. They stood by in
2000 when the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Bush vs. Gore,

one of the most political decisions in its 200 plus year existence (with the
possible exception of its DredScott pro-slavery opinion), which

robbed the winner of that election of his rightful victory. Sadly, American
lawyers have frequently been more a part of the problem in the decimation of the
rule of law in this country than part of the solution.

So I stand with my Pakistani brothers in law, in spirit if
not in body, and say, “I support your cause, because it is just.” But call me a
hypocrite, because I just don’t think I’ll be throwing any rocks (at least not
literally), manning any barricades, or suffering any police beatings over here
protesting Pervez Bush’s violations of the constitution or the rule of law over
here, anytime soon. When all is said and done, I’m afraid I’m just another
proud, and chicken, member of the establishment.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

I hate to give up, but on many levels I think it’s time to throw in the towel. I was going to write this for the younger readers out there, who may not remember Warner Brothers’ Henery Hawk cartoon. If you’ve never seen it or don’t quite remember it, it’s the one in which the tiny, puffed-up, overly aggressive chicken hawk ran around like a steroidal maniac looking for chickens to kill and eat but never succeeding because he just wasn’t quite mature enough. In fact, I found this description on a popular website for cartoon fans: “When their [Warner Brothers’] biggest stars found themselves in predatory situations, it was always in the latter role; they got their laughs by foiling those trying to hunt and kill them. Henery was a rare predator protagonist, whose laughs came from his inability to bring home anything to eat. It wasn’t that he had any inborn failings in that regard. His extreme aggression would no doubt make him a very competent chicken hawk, provided he didn’t starve to death before developing his skills. It’s just that he was too young and inexperienced to know a chicken when he saw one and far too small to do much about it if he did.” I was going to write about this as a way to explain the latest antics of the National Embarrassment (aka George W. Bush), but apparently I am behind the times and someone else already has laid rubber on the Information Highway before I could get to it. All of this is in reference, of course, to Bush’s latest insult to the intelligence of the human race by imposing his own personal sanctions on the people of Iran. Yes, according to Bush, it is the people of Iran who are the problem, make no mistake. He can veil it any way he likes — putting the blame on the country’s military — but the military will never bear anything near the brunt of these sanctions like the average Iranian citizen. Unless of course, Bush fulfills what appears to be his and Dick Cheney’s ultimate dream: starting World War III. All of these sanctions are based on the Iranian government having the “knowledge” to create nuclear weapons. No. My mistake — NUKECULAR weapons — as Bush continues to pronounce it, not caring how stupid he sounds. Yep, now we are punishing other countries for having “knowledge.” Guess there’s no real threat they will try to punish Bush. Cheney, maybe. But not W. Puffy. Why would anyone in his position of power even utter the phrase “World War III,” much less try to strike fear in the hearts of the great unwashed (read: those who still believe anything he says) about such a thing? Unless, of course, he really is crazy. I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt after he hosted the Dalai Lama and presented him with that big congressional honor. I thought maybe he had finally had a drink and chilled out. His eyes even seemed to separate a little so that they weren’t a half-inch apart. He came closer than he has in almost eight loooong years to bearing some slight resemblance to a human being. But no. Here he goes again. War! What is it good for? Absolutely something! It might make Blackwater another billion dollars or so and take our minds off the fact that he just vetoed health-care insurance for millions of children. And our Democratic-controlled Congress isn’t much better, in that they didn’t have the gumption to stand up to him. And they will probably confirm Michael Mukasey as the new attorney general, even if he does believe in torture. Of course, the National Embarrassment probably thinks waterboarding was a sport popular in California before the fires. I’m surprised it wasn’t addressed during FEMA’s recent “press conference,” during which employees of the agency tossed softball questions at their boss. But what does it really matter? If all keeps going as it is and the military keeps flying nuclear warheads around the U.S. and leaving them on military-base tarmacs for nine hours while everyone goes to lunch, we’re likely to bomb our own country and be done with it. Oops!

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

The Fruitcake Trade

I had been thinking recently that I might start a business that would export fruitcakes to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. That was the most appropriate export I could think of. But the president has put the kibosh on that idea with his tough new sanctions.

Sanctions imposed by President Bush or Congress are always described as tough, but they only apply to Americans. Anybody in any other country who might like to sell fruitcakes to the Iranians is free to do so.

My point is that sanctions are generally stupid, since they affect only American businesses. As much as the president and Congress might wish otherwise, U.S. laws apply only in the U.S. American businesses can be barred from doing business with a country that displeases American politicians, but the ban doesn’t apply anywhere else.

And it does seem to me that I have at least heard rumors that today there is something called a global economy. Americans can’t invest in Cuba or in any of the other countries on the politicians’ scat list, but Europeans, Asians, and others can and do.

Other than substituting empty gestures for real action and appeasing domestic lobbies, I really don’t see what good sanctions do. It’s no longer 1945. We are not the only surviving industrial power. No matter what product you desire, you can find it in lots of other countries.

This empty gesture is just part of the buildup to attacking Iran militarily. As some noted expert recently said, you have to be living on a different planet to imagine that Iran is or ever would be a threat to the world.

Unfortunately, the president and Vice President Cheney apparently do live on another planet, because after a number of lies, they attacked two countries that were even less of a threat than Iran could ever hope to be.

Never mind that the Israeli foreign minister just said publicly that Israel would not be threatened by a nuclear Iran. Never mind that Iran says it wishes only to enrich uranium enough to fuel its reactors for generating electricity. Never mind that Iran does not have the capability of attacking either us or Israel.

I’d bet a dog that the president has convinced himself that we can stage another “shock and awe” show that will take out Iran’s nuclear facilities and its military assets in one easy surgical strike. Strategic bombing has been overrated ever since World War II. The president might know a lot about baseball, but he knows practically nothing about war.

Ask an American veteran who sat on an invasion fleet for days while naval guns and airplanes blasted some small Pacific island to smithereens. He will tell you that when he went ashore, the Japanese were still there ready to fight.

Our bombing campaign against Serbia no doubt killed Serb and Albanian civilians, but when it was over, the Serb army forces came out of Kosovo virtually intact. The famous shock-and-awe show made for good television but missed its intended target: Saddam Hussein and his top lieutenants.

If you hope that bombing can take out Iran’s nuclear facilities and its military assets, you are hoping for something that only a magic fairy can deliver. And please, to talk about a “surgical” strike with bombs is like saying a sawed-off shotgun can be fired with pinpoint accuracy. You cannot bomb any urban area without killing innocent civilians.

Nobody can know for sure what will happen if our Great Leader decides to attack Iran, but anybody will tell you that it won’t be good. Come to think of it, maybe we all should send fruitcakes to the fruitcakes in the White House, if we can find the address of the planet they are living on.

Charley Reese has been a journalist for 50 years.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

GADFLY: Why Are We Still in Vietnam…er, Iraq?!

Let’s proceed from the assumption that there are winners
and losers in wars (although a case can certainly be made that wars create
nothing but losers).

Let’s further proceed from the assumption that every war is
fought for a purpose. And, let’s further proceed from the assumption (and,
sadly, it’s a big one) that the purpose of fighting a war is not to enrich the
people who inevitably get rich from fighting wars (in the case of Iraq, the
Blackwaters, Halliburtons, General Dynamics and Exxon Mobils of the world).
For a somewhat more contrarian thesis, read my article entitled

“Support the Troops?”

Given these assumptions, it is reasonable to assess the
success of a war by measuring it against its stated objectives. In Iraq, the
objective (supposedly) is not only to provide security and a stable, democratic
government in Iraq, but to prevail in what this administration likes to call the
“war on terror.”

And, since Iraq has been characterized by this administration
as the “central front” in that war, and since one of the stated purposes of
fighting on that “central front” is to “fight them over there so we don’t have
to fight them over here,” it is certainly valid to measure the success of all
those purposes and objectives against the results that have been achieved. That
measurement, and those standards, are sometimes referred to as “metrics.”

There is little question that the war in Iraq has, at least
thus far, failed to achieve the objectives the administration has set out for
it. Remember that, as a condition for implementing the “surge,” there were
“benchmarks” that were supposed to be achieved. Well, in September, the General
Accountability Office issued

its report saying that the majority of the benchmarks had not been achieved.

And it is generally acknowledged that the overarching objective of the war in
Iraq, namely political reconciliation, hasn’t been achieved, and, based on
statements made recently by Iraqi officials, isn’t likely to be achieved,

ever.

But there are other “metrics” by which the success of “war
on terror” may be measured. One of the standards by which that success must be
measured is the answer to the following question: is the U.S. being made safer
from terrorist attack by fighting in Iraq. If the “fight them there…fight them
here” slogan is to have any meaning, surely this is the first question that must
be answered.

Astonishingly, not even the folks who are in charge of
fighting the war, either on the battle front or on the intelligence front, can
answer that question. Who can forget General Petraeus’ startling admission,
during his

recent testimony before Congress, that he didn’t know whether the war was
making us safer.

Here is the man who is running this war, who is watching the
troops under his command be killed and maimed on a daily basis, and he can’t
even tell us whether their sacrifice is worth it. This is un-freaking
believable! Perhaps even more revealing was the recent interview conducted by
NBC’s Iraq correspondent, Richard Engel, with

the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Admiral Scott Redd.

This newly created agency is supposed to be, according to its mission statement,
leading the fight to “combat the terrorist threat to the U.S. and its interests”
When asked directly by Engel, “are we safer today,” and after a long,
uncomfortable pause (not unlike the one Petraeus exhibited in response to the
same question),

Redd replied: “tactically, probably not; strategically, we’ll wait and
see.”

What the hell does that mean? Wait for what, 3,800 more
American combat deaths? See what, al Quaeda continue to

use the war as a recruiting tool? Well, Admiral Redd won’t have to wait or
get to see anything (at least not at the NCTC): two days after he gave that
interview, he abruptly

announced his resignation from the NCTC.

Just another example of where
speaking truth to power gets you with this administration.

A

recent report issued by the American Security Project answers, with a resounding “no,” the question of whether we’re winning the war on terror. ASP is a
self-described “non-profit, bi-partisan public policy research and education
initiative dedicated to fostering knowledge and understanding of a range of
national security and foreign policy issues” (read: think tank) whose board of
directors includes Gary Hart (the former Senator), John Kerry (the former
presidential candidate), George Mitchell (also a former Senator) and General
Anthony Zinni (the former commander of CENTCOM, and long-time critic of the war
in Iraq).

It answers the question in cold, statistical fashion. Using ten
objective criteria for determining the results of the “war on terror,” the
report concludes, not surprisingly, that we are losing that war. From a
“massive and dramatic increase in Islamist terrorism since 2003” to “Al Qaeda’s
[expansion of] its reach globally,” to the increasing perception in the Muslim
world of the U.S. as an “aggressive, hostile and destabilizing force,” the
report paints a dismal picture of the effect of the war in Iraq on the “war on
terror.”

The report’s quantification of terrorist attacks is
startling. It finds that the number of such attacks, worldwide, has increased
exponentially. It does not suggest that just because the U.S. hasn’t been
attacked it is therefore safer, and therefore doesn’t need to worry about
terrorism elsewhere in the world, because those aren’t “American interests,” a
position espoused, either ignorantly or dishonestly (but most revealingly), by
the Vice President’s wife in a recent
interview with Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show.”

As the NCTC’s mission
statement acknowledges, even our intelligence community recognizes that our
“interests” go beyond our borders. And, of course, there is now the depressing
fact that the war in Iraq has resulted in the death of
more Americans than were killed on September 11th.

The mantra of the Vietnam era, equally applicable to the
current era, was most poignantly revealed in a song by the group known as
Country Joe and the Fish. The chorus of their song “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To
Die” included the question “And it’s one, two, three, what are we fighting
for…” My question is: Joe, where are you now that we need you?

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

MAD AS HELL: Bush Quacks On As Democrats Turn Tail

George Bush is no lame duck. You aren’t lame when you’re
getting your way on everything. At a press conference this week, instead of
quacking like a duck, he was strutting like a peacock, and warning the world
of how relevant he still is. The Decider Guy is dancing with the stars. A 24%
approval rating, a (still mostly) lapdog press and Orwellian delusions
continue to assure him that he can do as he damn well pleases. In other
words, he has another18 months to take this country farther down a rat hole.
And the one thing he knows for sure is the gutless opposition has no serious
plans to stop him.

Yesterday, the president and his party succeeded in
denying millions of poor American children healthcare by vetoing a bill to
expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. Never mind that the
money spent on forty days in Iraq would have paid for at least ten million
poor kids to be insured for an entire year. We have the money for funding
perpetual wars, but not for our nation’s poor, sick children. This
administration, with the help of Congress, killed the bill.

Even more appalling, Bush and the Republicans fought to
get legal immunity for the telecommunications companies who helped this
government engage in spying and criminal phone tapping of innocent, private
citizens. Never mind that protecting the criminals who colluded with the
right-wingers will destroy the individual privacy and hitherto protected
freedoms of all Americans. So where did Congress line up on this despicable
piece of legislation? Right behind the Republicans, of course.

Most alarming, however, was another bizarre “Bring-It-On”
display when Bush seemed jacked up when alluding to a possible third world war
involving Iran. (Excuse me, “nukyuler armed Eye-ran.”) Jocularly chuckling at
questions regarding a potential engagement of war with another country in the
Middle East, he sounded more and more like a petulant, dangerous child.

While Bush was flipping off sick children, ripping up the
Constitution and rattling war sabers, where was the opposing party– the
majority party that was sent to Washington last year explicitly to stop Bush
from doing further damage? Pissing up the proverbial rope, as usual. Since
the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, declared impeachment of this president
to be off the table, it is the Democrats who are quickly making themselves
irrelevant. Bush and the Republicans control the agenda, determine the course
of action, and dictate the outcome. The Democrats continue to believe that
simply keeping their heads down will somehow propel them into an electoral
landslide in 2008! While Bush continues to gain relevancy by finding new and
novel ways to continue his campaign to expunge the planet of any life form
that disagrees with him, the congress merrily assumes the
earthworm-on-dry-pavement position.

In all this mess, it is the American people who seem to be
the least relevant to the politicians. Predictably, the president will continue
to carry on the Iraq war, but the one thing voters were counting on last year
when they elected a Democratic majority was having that majority use the
Constitutional powers available to them to stop the funding of the war.

And while Bush continues to destroy our Constitutional
freedoms, the Democrats astoundingly still cower in fear of being called
unpatriotic. This administration has flagrantly flouted the will of the people,
but the people figured out a long time ago not to expect anything different from
Bush. Congress, however, in its failure to confront the president, is also
ignoring the will of the people; so it is no surprise that they, not Bush, have
the lower approval rating.

-Make no mistake, Americans are sick and tired of Bush and
the Republicans, but they are more exasperated with and sickened by
Congressional Democrats who claim to be Bush’s adversaries, yet act like never
ending enablers. Like parents offering nothing more than repeated empty threats
to a destructive, out-of- control adolescent, the Democrats are the ones who are
becoming increasingly irrelevant and dare I say –lame? Perhaps they should heed
the words of the last Democratic President who said the American people would
rather support someone who is strong and wrong than someone who is right and
weak.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

Letters to the Editor

Class War?

President Bush’s visit to Memphis this week was a real eye-opener. I have read that the war in Iraq being waged by this administration is a class war, but I had not seen it so blatantly played out.

I was holding a sign that read “STOP THE WAR” as I took part in a peaceful protest. Bush was attending a political fund-raiser nearby for Republican senator Lamar Alexander.  The ticket price was $1,000, and if you wanted to super-size, you could spend $10,000 and get your picture taken with the man himself.

Guests for the Bush event parked at the Pink Palace lot. I couldn’t help but notice that every car that pulled in was a brand-new BMW, Mercedes Benz, large SUV, or Cadillac. They were all luxury cars. And the occupants, in their expensive dark suits, starched white shirts, and red ties, all looked spit-shined and neat, just like their vehicles. The women were dressed to kill, hair just so, accessorized and tanned. It was really weird how neat and perfect they all looked. They all seemed giddy with anticipation and didn’t give us the time of day. They were there to support the president.

In contrast, the 60 or so people I was standing with looked very different. We were a bedraggled bunch, mostly college students standing up for our right to assemble and speak our opposition to this mess that has been created in Iraq against our will. There wasn’t anyone among us in a suit. Where we parked, there were no shiny cars, just used vehicles. And there were a lot of us on bikes.

Polls say that two-thirds of Americans are against the war. That means there should have been more of us standing on the corner than there were attending the fund-raiser, but we were outnumbered at least four to one. Maybe it was because people who have a lot of money have more flexible schedules. Maybe it was because we just weren’t organized enough and nobody got the word. Maybe meeting the president seemed more important than standing on a corner holding a sign for peace.

Whatever the case, I found myself very comfortable with the people I was standing with, even if we were the minority. I firmly believe that what we did was the right thing to do. But I sure hope more people show up to stand with us next time. Maybe even somebody in a suit.

Billy Simpson
Memphis

The “Seniorphobic” Flyer?

It has been a while since the Flyer has rattled my cage, because someone has decided that all of us at the Frayser-Raleigh Senior Center don’t need to read your paper anymore.

Has the Flyer become “seniorphobic”? I would find that hard to believe, but nevertheless, I haven’t had my Flyer fix in three weeks.

Now, I can’t sit in my easy chair and smoke my pipe while listening to “Axis Bold As Love” and reading the only Memphis newspaper that seems to truly care about this city.

Please correct this travesty and don’t leave this faithful reader and some of his friends out in the cold.

Frank M. Boone

Memphis

Editor’s note: We will look into the situation and make sure your senior center remains on our delivery list.

Bush and the Devil

Americans need to wake up to the fact that President Bush has been making deals with the devil.

We know how the State Department has protected the killers at Blackwater, but there are more sinister killers that are coming to light. Arms dealers like Tomislav Damnjanovic, who operated out of Belgrade under Slobodan Milosevic during the Bosnian conflict, is now being paid with our tax dollars to run arms into Iraq and Afghanistan. While doing this, he is also running arms to terrorists linked to al-Qaeda in Somalia. This is according to U.N. investigators.

Damnjanovic also helped supply Libya’s air force and army with illegal arms shipments. In fact, almost anywhere people are being murdered by rebels or their own governments, this dealer of death is shipping arms and making money.

This is the man that our professed born-again Christian president is doing business with.

If you support Bush, you might want to start asking some tough questions of your senators, such as, why they have not protested or asked why America is doing business with killers who have no respect for freedom or the American way of life.

Jack Bishop

Cordova

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

POLITICS: Beating Around the Bush

CREDIT: jb

U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander,
who has spent much of 2007 distancing himself from George W. Bush,
policy-wise, found himself in close proximity to the president on Monday, very
much by choice.

Bush was the guest of honor at an afternoon fundraiser for Alexander that
purportedly raised some $600,000 for the senator’s reelection coffers. The
$1,000-per-head affair was hosted by entrepreneur Brad Martin and drew a Who’s
Who of political. business, and civic leaders, some of whom crossed partisan
lines to attend.

The Bush visit also drew abundant numbers of protesters, most of whom were
bypassed by the president’s circuitous motorcade route to Martin’s Chickasaw
Gardens home.

Earlier Monday, after speaking at a morning assembly at East High School honors
assembly, Alexander was asked about
his point of divergence with the president.

The senator measured his words carefully. “My relationship with him is one of
respect,” he said before continuing, “I said to the people of Tennessee I would
be an independent voice, and I have been.” He went on to note that he had made
public his differences with Bush in several policy areas, notably concerning
Iraq and health-care issues.

As he noted, Alexander, along with Tennessee GOP colleague Bob Corker,
recently voted for an expansion of the federally funded State Children’s Health
Insurance Program (SCHIP) that would have benefited Tennessee and The
Med in Memphis, especially, but was vetoed by President Bush.

Alexander also took issue with the president’s No Child Left Behind program,
which decertifies schools that don’t meet performance standards.

Said the senator: “In No Child Left Behind it sounds like we’re giving out C’s
and F’s. I’d like to see us give out more A-pluses and A’s and B-pluses, because
75 to 80 percent of Tennessee’s students are meeting or exceeding standards.

Citing innovative programs that had just been touted at the East assembly, the
senator went on: “Id like to give more flexibility to schools so they could use
more programs like the tutoring program at East….. I’d like to see more A’s for
effort, as well as A’s for achievement. We ought to honor any school that makes
a grade’s worth of progress in one year.”

Alexander said he intended to introduce “a pilot program that would allow up to
12 states to create their own way of doing things within No Child Left Behind.”
The implication was that one of those states would be Tennessee.

As for Iraq, Alexander has co-sponsored a resolution, along with Democratic
Senator Ken
Salazar
of Colorado, calling for withdrawal of American troops from combat operations in
Iraq and for observance of other recommendations made by the Iraq Study Group,
presumably including the initiation of diplomatic talks with Iran and
Syria.

Alexander said he believed his efforts toward compromise may have borne fruit.
“I can see the effect of them in actions taken by the president,” including a
partial withdrawal of troops now advocated by General David Petraeus.
“I know the president has been a good listener to me. He’s let me make the case
that it’s time to finish the job honorably rather than to continue as we are.

Still, overt support for the senator’s resolution has been hard to come by.
Alexander cracked wanly, “I’ve unified the president and the Democratic leader
of the Senate [Nevada’s HarryReid],
but not in the way I’d hoped to. They were both opposed to my
amendment.”

Alexander was asked about his likely Democratic opponent in 2008, West
Tennessee businessman Mike McWherter,
son of former Tennessee governor NedMcWherter.

Alexander pondered. A thousand-and-one. A thousand-and-two. Then he said. “I
know him. His father was one of my best friends in Tennessee.” He said he and
McWherter had often worked together closely when the latter was House speaker in
his pre-gubernatorial days.

“I’ve known Mike and respect him as Ned McWherter’s son,” he concluded.