Question, do you righties actually believe all of the drivel that
BushCo is lying about?

JON CARROLL

Jon Carroll
Thursday, June 24, 2004



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It was interesting to watch the Bush administration implode as I was
making my fossil-fueled trek across these United States. I was mostly
out of touch with that darned liberal media -- although some states,
like Wyoming, have unexpectedly good NPR stations -- so I picked up
the bulk of my data from USA Today and local newspapers.

The red states are getting exasperated with Bush. He's not the small-
government cautious-foreign-policy compassionate conservative that
they voted for, and he's almost beyond the benefit of the doubt now.
It may be true that, despite sophisticated Rovian techniques, you
still can't fool all of the people all of the time.

Meanwhile, the lies proliferated at such a rate that my eyeballs began
wobbling. In between the lies were the censored reports, the
high-level employees firing bazookas at their former employers, the
explosive congressional testimonies. Democrats didn't even have to
show up; the GOP brandished a sword and forced itself to walk the
plank. You go, guys.

Even worse: Not only were they billionaire-coddling
environment-wrecking, civilian-killing blowhards, they were inept
billionaire-coddling, environment- wrecking, civilian-killing
blowhards.

For instance: They knew they were going to invade Iraq all along, and
yet they had no plan for how to govern the damn place after they
conquered it. Then, realizing belatedly that they had no plan, they
decided to blow vast quantities of smoke and polish up their mirrors.

They airlifted a whole bunch of guys to Guantanamo and held them
illegally for two years, and they weren't even the right guys. They
hired Halliburton to make Iraq run better, and Halliburton responded
by robbing us blind. You'd think, seeing as how it was Cheney in
command, they could have gone a little easy on the graft, but no.
Steal while the stealing is good; it's the first rule of
kleptocracies.

You can't tell the scandals without a scorecard -- that's not a figure
of speech; that's true. Such a wonderful roll call: Cheney and
Halliburton, Wolfowitz and Chalabi, Rumsfeld and torture, Ashcroft and
detainees, you name it. That 2004 platform is coming into focus
nicely.

I suppose I should be taking more joy in seeing my enemies squirm, but
actually I'm not. I am a citizen of the United States. I am proud of
much of what it has done in its history. I am an admirer of its
Constitution. I want it to succeed.

And as I was driving across the open spaces, staring at America's
mighty horizons, I thought about the small people running the big
country. I'd say that most of the members of the Bush administration
are deeply silly people. They're stupidly ambitious and crudely
avaricious. They like combat in a way that no one who has ever
experienced combat could like it. They want quick payoffs; they like
easy answers. They give Christianity a bad name -- lots of very good
Christians do not think that "because God told me so" is a real good
reason for whatever actions ambition dictates.

And, like the most petty schoolyard narcissists, they want to be right
all the time. They want to be above criticism. They don't have
regrets; they have excuses. The dog ate my country.

A glossy new version of "The Manchurian Candidate" is going to be
released in theaters in a few weeks. I saw a trailer for it this week.
I don't mean to sound like an alarmist, but what if George Bush is a
plant? Have you thought of that? What if he were put here by shadowy
somebodies in order to undermine the United States?

Evidence? He has increased exponentially the number of our foreign
enemies. He has polarized the electorate. His agents have so cheapened
the political dialogue that cynicism is the national pastime. He has
subverted the Constitution; many of the legal protections against
unchecked government power have already been compromised. All he needs
is one more Supreme Court justice, and things will really start
rolling downhill.

You can ask, cui bono? Ah, there's a list: radical Islamicists,
international oil cartels, China, the Russian mob, North Korea, Iran,
the South American drug cartels, just about anyone who needs a
diplomatically inept, chronically weak U.S. administration to
consolidate its power.

Just one election left before the coup. Take appropriate action