Let Go of the Desk, Donald

Donald Rumsfeld the headlines now read – offered to quite over Iraq abuse.
This is 21st century America.
Donald Rumsfeld – Secretary of Defense – in charge when our troops went mad and tortured prisoners for fun. Donald ‘General’ Rumsfeld who let his generals run his war just the way he told them to.
He offered.
Perhaps this is a nerdish, bureaucratic attempt to enter the pantheon of American heroes.
Rumsfeld claims Bush refused the resignation so – Donald went back to his desk and kept cranking out those ‘Sorry your son is dead’ letters. (He’s a hard worker.)
History will be written of the mighty and noble offering Donald Rumsfeld made – not once I understand – but three times. His tenacity is inspiring.
I think of our other American heroes and see how by offering to resign Donald is just like them.
General MacArthur offering to return to the Phillipines.
General Washington offering to cross the Delaware.
General Grant offering to defeat the Confederate Army.
General Lee offering to oppose him.
These were men that Donald Rumsfeld can stand with – not proudly – but stand with them.
His genius should be remarked upon.
Like Thomas Edision offering to invent the light bulb.
The Wright Brothers offering to fly the first plane.
But wait – they didn’t just offer.
They did it.
Rumsfeld didn’t
Looks like this is just one more thing in a long line that Rumsfeld couldn’t get done right – in fact, not at all.
Try again Donald – this time let go of the desk.

Social Security and the Press

Bush had apparently approved payments to write stories and produce commercials that supported his narrow minded social agenda.
That narrow minded agenda reaped some pretty wide financial benefits.
They bamboozled us out of more than 1 billion dollars in one year alone.
Using electronic systems groups like the ‘Arlington Group’ were able to streamline the manner in which they drew down Federal funds to their bank accounts.
People as varied as a Mexican church in Michigan securing money to buy houses for illegal immigrants to large commercial religious institutions like Jerry Falwell’s ministry were able to get right in and sink their teeth into the Faith Initiative.
Then he got caught.
For about a week we saw journalists admitting that they had ‘done wrong’ and Bush ‘promised’ to stop it.
He pushed an unpopular and corrupt system on us with propaganda.
Why believe that the same thing isn’t being done about the Social Security system? Do you think the Wall Street Journal would have any problem with running stories in support?
But George promised not to pay them to do that anymore, comes the retort.
Do you really think that they need to get paid? Bush let televangelists rip us off for a billion dollars. Wall Street is foaming at the mouth and government bond issuers are on their knees to Alan Greenspan.
Look for billboards, newspaper stories and direct mailings from banks, brokerage houses and insurance companies over the next two years. Listen for radio and television shows extolling the virtues of the Social Security system.
Who do we believe? Supporters of the system who are probably being paid to support it or the opponents – who George will say are angry because they didn’t get a piece of the pie?
He has gutted our treasury and undermined our free press and right-to-know in one fell swoop.

State of Disunion

It’s supposed to be an address by the President to the Congress talking about the State of the Union.
President Bush has turned it into a costume party.
The military was there all dressed up in their fancy uniforms - and for some reason it was apparent tonight more than any other night in recent memory - just how frail the palsied, old men are that are still playing army at ages when other men are retiring.
He ignored the past year’s failures and whistled into the wind about the future. Once again he dug up more snakes that he can or is even willing to kill. Just as long as there are a lot of snakes and no one is paying attention to what he is up to.
In truth - if he paid more attention to domestic issues he wouldn’t have had to spend 80% of his time explaining why he is poking his nose in other people’s affairs.
He explained to the country quite brazenly that he wants to take the social security money of anyone beneath the age of 55 and use it to pay into mutual funds that hold primarily government bonds. Government bonds are usually held in guarantee of future tax revenues. He is asking for a mighty piece of our paycheck to invest in bond issues guaranteed and paid by our taxes to support his continued abuse of our government.
His actions tonight have convinced me that he is a domestic tyrant and an international aggressor.
He spoke about ‘the force of human freedom’ being applied to spread liberty around the world. What is the ‘force of human freedom’
He described a plan whereby the United States would set up government after government around the world - but he also denied that we intend to force our form of government or way of life on anyone. Of course he didn’t say he wouldn’t force the British Parliamentary form and leave the people in chains and poverty - like in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He has improved his Glenn Ford impression quite a bit - but unlike other men who make their living imitating others his imitation is an insult to the acting ability of Glenn Ford.
After listening to him describe the manner in which he was going to force our military to use the ‘force of human freedom’ to knock down and set up governments around the world and how he was going to use the transforming power of economic witchcraft I began to wonder why he was talking.
Isn’t the State of the Union Address supposed to tell us about the State of the Union and not act as a vehicle for hair brained schemes?
I heard more about Iraq elections than I heard about our serious trade imbalance with Communist China. I heard more about the peace and security of the Iraqi people than I did about the illegal aliens and foreign nationals in this country stealing American jobs. I heard more threats from him to Iran but no information about why we have seen industrial accidents and explosions that appear to be terrorist actions increase over 100% in the last four years in the United States.
I heard nothing about the continued bankruptcy of American companies even as foreign companies take up permanent residence in our nation by buying land.
I am not seeing any leadership from him. I am beginning to feel he is more of a distraction and a worry than a President.
I felt a wide and black hole opening beneath my feet as he spoke and I realized that the hole is 4 years long and many lives deep.
Let me give this example of how disconnected he is from this nation he is pretending to lead.
He introduced the parents of Sergeant Norwood who was killed in , Falouja, Iraq.
Sergeant Norwood comes from Pflugerville, Texas.
President Bush mispronounced Pflugerville but he got Fallouja just right.
He used to be the Governor of Texas but obviously he paid as much attention to that job as he is paying to the one he has now.