Monday, January 31, 2005

Second Term and Who Cares?

Candi located an excellent article called Ho Hum, More War And Death by Mark Morford. Here are some excerpts but the entire article is worth reading.

Does it bear repeating? Are we too far gone? Do we even care that the WMD search has been quietly, meekly, officially called off in Iraq after two full years of ardent searching and after 1,200 of BushCo's own highly trained scientists and investigators -- not the U.N., not Democrats, not icky foreigners, not crazy liberals, not gay-marriage advocates -- but Bush's own people, preprogrammed to dig up the absolute tiniest shred of evidence of Saddam's gnarly intentions and hold it up and scream in giddy delight, and who found, well, absolutely nothing at all?


Yes, many Americans are "concerned" about Bush's handling of the war. Yes, his approval rating heading into Nightmare Phase II are the lowest of any two-term president in recent history. But, overall, Americans seemed to like him enough to give him another term and they think he's doing an OK job despite the economy and the deficit and the misogyny and self-righteous Bible thumping, and the nation as a whole seems to have assimilated the lies, the bogus war, the death and pain and economic violence.

Let's spell it out again, one more time, just for old time's sake. There was no "bad" intelligence. There was no evil Saddam plotting an overthrow of the world. There was only BushCo-branded coercion and misprision and traitorous presidential lies the scale of which make Nixon look like a pickpocket. The CIA and the FBI and the Pentagon said it outright: Saddam was harmless. No threat. No WMD. No reason to go to war. Period. Didn't matter.

And Saddam did not, as some Repubs whined and as the new reports -- again from Bush's own people -- prove, Saddam did not hide WMDs in Syria. Or Pakistan. Or New Jersey. He did not bury them underground or paint them over to look like circus tents or stash them in the back of the Winnebago Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie were driving in "The Simple Life 2." Bush's WMDs never existed. And he knew it. What's worse? We knew he knew it. And he got away with it anyway....

And now, all outrage has become muted and lethargic. All protests, in the wake of BushCo's nauseating fear-based win last November, have become pale and moot and limp. We are numb and resigned to the steady stream of lie and abuse. This is the sentiment, even among many fear-hammered red staters who insist on seeing Bush as their pseudo-religious dumb-guy Messiah: a sort of national teeth gritting, a dark period in America, a hunkering down and waiting for it to be over and for the light to emerge again.

Term II is under way. The vicious Republican PR machine is of such potent talent that Bush could now walk up to a live TV camera and jam his thumbs in his big monkey ears and wiggle his fingers and stick out his tongue and say Ppppbbbtthhtt, ha ha America, it's my gul-dang war and I knew all along Saddam was an easy mark, a pip-squeak tyrant, never had WMDs, and I lied to the whole stupid nation to make me look manly and to help my buddies in Big Oil, and in the military industry, and in my daddy's Carlyle Group, and for my rich Saudi pals.


And he could say: Too bad about all those dead 'Murkin soldiers. Too bad about all those soldiers who will be dying very soon. Too bad they can't go AWOL and skip out on the war like I did. Too bad they're dying for reasons no one can justify, and never could. Okey doke, I'm off to the ranch for even more vacation, the most of any president in American history. Bye now. Oh, yes, one more thing: ppppbbbtthhtt!

And most of America would apparently sit there and watch him, and sigh, and go, oh that Dubya, such an honest and God-loving man, so simple and plainspoken and not all that bright. Just like the rest of us. He's a Good Man, isn't he? He's sturdy and stalwart and on the side of righteousness. I mean, isn't he, Lord? Hello?