Bush Loyalists: A Nation of Traitors
And they all sound like David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, on last week's Diane Rehm Show. (requires Real Player)
I got no love for the thugs comprising the CIA, an organization which surely ranks as one of the most flagrantly evil gangs to ever scar the planet. If the United States wasn't so hellbent on subjugating the world for our own exclusive benefit - undermining & otherthrowing governments, corporate espionage, stealing resources and swapping access to illicit drug markets for intelligence - well, we probably wouldn't need 'em. But we are and we do and, unfortunately, as things currently stand, we are forced to depend on them for our security.
As much as Bush's fascist hordes have thrown around the word traitor for the last five or so years, there is absolutely a perverse joy in watching Karl Rove, Lewis Libby and The Boy King himself squirming as revelations about the Plame affair come to light. (It bears repeating, though, that expectations of justice will only lead to disappointment.) As mentioned earlier here and elsewhere, it won't be the least bit surprising if John Bolton also emerges as a player in this story. And, aside from the occasional impromptu Bush gaffe (such as closing Abu Ghraib or Camp X-Ray), everyone with a brain knows who has been pulling Bush's strings since Day One of his fake presidency. Nothing of any consequence goes on in the Cheney Administration without Dick's knowledge, which certainly explains his invisibility of late. When Cheney isn't making the rounds of television's Beltway bloviators, spewing unchallenged lies like a pantry full of botulism infected soup cans, something is amiss.
Less amusing is the spectacle of neoCon automatons reciting, verbatim, Ken Mehlman's talking points on the Plame affair. It's all Joe Wilson's fault. Riiiight. But that's what we can always expect of the Bush drones. They get an email or a blastfax and it's off to the races. Accountability is confined to frisky Democrats, outspoken celebrities and the occasional journalist endeavoring to commit journalism (no, I'm not referring to the laughably martyred Judith "Chalabi" Miller). Expecting today's Republican gangs to think with the tiniest grain of critical examination is woefully naive. They're ticket-takers and nothing else. Since well before Bush's installment by the United States Supreme Court, they have acted as a hive of killer bees, maniacally intent on strangling national dialogue like Ted Bundy on a hot date. This is what they do, and they do it well because theirs is a world of absolutes devoid of the shades of gray infusing the experience of the rest of the adult human race.
How ironic that Bush kicked off his presidency with Vincent Bugliosi's Bush v. Gore book "None Dare Call It Treason" making the rounds, and here we are, five and a half years later, talking about treason again.
One would think George W. Cheney would be content to leave a legacy of implementing a theofascist state, destroying the national economy and waging an unprovoked, illegal war against a sovereign nation. Who wouldn't be?
Their footsoldiers' dedication to All Things Conservative, to an America darkened by the long shadow of Fascism, has been on blinding display since Antonin Scalia stopped the counting of legally cast ballots in Florida, depriving thousands of Floridians and, by extension, the nation itself, of the right to choose its own president. Critics of that decision -- we who were commanded by lapdog media and RNC henchmen and the dreggs of our own gutless, unprincipled Democratic Party to Get Over It - - we knew what Bush v. Gore foreshadowed and we weren't wrong. It was the begining of the end of the rule of law, that lofty concept invoked by Clinton hunters again and again as they sought to reverse the will of the people. The Rule of Law, under George W. Cheney, became whatever they said it was, period. And the right wing squealed with a fervor once reserved for young girls at an Elvis concert. And they squeal today, always the angry victims of some imagined liberal wrong.
Where will it end? With a presidential pardon, of course, assuming the USSC doesn't get an opportunity to whitewash this whole episode. They've certainly gotten away with worse. There's not a dime's worth of difference between the USSC's Dirty Five and the democracy-haters at Little Green Footballs and Free Republic (sorry, no links to the fascist goon squads). It's Conservatives versus America, and they've been winning for a long time now.
At least Senator Frank Lautenberg called it what it is: Treason.
Lautenberg's statement, shocking for its honesty, is pretty much everything that passes for hope among the disillusioned, leaderless Left. At the end of the day, it isn't much to hang one's hat on, is it?
In the interim, it will be business as usual. Corporate looting. Wave after wave of disinformation. More killing and dying. More Them and Us. More whackjobs on the federal bench and, now, the Supreme Court. A nation divided by religion, politics, class and culture. And for this, the normalization of official crime, we can thank our Democratic "leaders" - many of whom are the same ones who refused to fight for the American voter in 2000 and 2004. They will refuse doing their duty until they are punished for their negligence.
I got no love for the thugs comprising the CIA, an organization which surely ranks as one of the most flagrantly evil gangs to ever scar the planet. If the United States wasn't so hellbent on subjugating the world for our own exclusive benefit - undermining & otherthrowing governments, corporate espionage, stealing resources and swapping access to illicit drug markets for intelligence - well, we probably wouldn't need 'em. But we are and we do and, unfortunately, as things currently stand, we are forced to depend on them for our security.
As much as Bush's fascist hordes have thrown around the word traitor for the last five or so years, there is absolutely a perverse joy in watching Karl Rove, Lewis Libby and The Boy King himself squirming as revelations about the Plame affair come to light. (It bears repeating, though, that expectations of justice will only lead to disappointment.) As mentioned earlier here and elsewhere, it won't be the least bit surprising if John Bolton also emerges as a player in this story. And, aside from the occasional impromptu Bush gaffe (such as closing Abu Ghraib or Camp X-Ray), everyone with a brain knows who has been pulling Bush's strings since Day One of his fake presidency. Nothing of any consequence goes on in the Cheney Administration without Dick's knowledge, which certainly explains his invisibility of late. When Cheney isn't making the rounds of television's Beltway bloviators, spewing unchallenged lies like a pantry full of botulism infected soup cans, something is amiss.
Less amusing is the spectacle of neoCon automatons reciting, verbatim, Ken Mehlman's talking points on the Plame affair. It's all Joe Wilson's fault. Riiiight. But that's what we can always expect of the Bush drones. They get an email or a blastfax and it's off to the races. Accountability is confined to frisky Democrats, outspoken celebrities and the occasional journalist endeavoring to commit journalism (no, I'm not referring to the laughably martyred Judith "Chalabi" Miller). Expecting today's Republican gangs to think with the tiniest grain of critical examination is woefully naive. They're ticket-takers and nothing else. Since well before Bush's installment by the United States Supreme Court, they have acted as a hive of killer bees, maniacally intent on strangling national dialogue like Ted Bundy on a hot date. This is what they do, and they do it well because theirs is a world of absolutes devoid of the shades of gray infusing the experience of the rest of the adult human race.
How ironic that Bush kicked off his presidency with Vincent Bugliosi's Bush v. Gore book "None Dare Call It Treason" making the rounds, and here we are, five and a half years later, talking about treason again.
One would think George W. Cheney would be content to leave a legacy of implementing a theofascist state, destroying the national economy and waging an unprovoked, illegal war against a sovereign nation. Who wouldn't be?
Their footsoldiers' dedication to All Things Conservative, to an America darkened by the long shadow of Fascism, has been on blinding display since Antonin Scalia stopped the counting of legally cast ballots in Florida, depriving thousands of Floridians and, by extension, the nation itself, of the right to choose its own president. Critics of that decision -- we who were commanded by lapdog media and RNC henchmen and the dreggs of our own gutless, unprincipled Democratic Party to Get Over It - - we knew what Bush v. Gore foreshadowed and we weren't wrong. It was the begining of the end of the rule of law, that lofty concept invoked by Clinton hunters again and again as they sought to reverse the will of the people. The Rule of Law, under George W. Cheney, became whatever they said it was, period. And the right wing squealed with a fervor once reserved for young girls at an Elvis concert. And they squeal today, always the angry victims of some imagined liberal wrong.
Where will it end? With a presidential pardon, of course, assuming the USSC doesn't get an opportunity to whitewash this whole episode. They've certainly gotten away with worse. There's not a dime's worth of difference between the USSC's Dirty Five and the democracy-haters at Little Green Footballs and Free Republic (sorry, no links to the fascist goon squads). It's Conservatives versus America, and they've been winning for a long time now.
At least Senator Frank Lautenberg called it what it is: Treason.
Lautenberg's statement, shocking for its honesty, is pretty much everything that passes for hope among the disillusioned, leaderless Left. At the end of the day, it isn't much to hang one's hat on, is it?
In the interim, it will be business as usual. Corporate looting. Wave after wave of disinformation. More killing and dying. More Them and Us. More whackjobs on the federal bench and, now, the Supreme Court. A nation divided by religion, politics, class and culture. And for this, the normalization of official crime, we can thank our Democratic "leaders" - many of whom are the same ones who refused to fight for the American voter in 2000 and 2004. They will refuse doing their duty until they are punished for their negligence.
posted by Arvin Hill at 7/18/2005 12:21:00 PM
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