Let The Co-Opting Begin

Rove pointed to unresolved questions about O'Donnell's financial practices, potentially dubious campaign tactics, and generally "nutty things" she'd been saying.

Former Bush Senior Adviser Staff Karl Rove today defended his earlier criticisms of Delaware's Republican Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell and insisted he supports her campaign, since she is now the Republican nominee.

Asked today on Fox News whether he would endorse O'Donnell, Rove said, "I endorsed her the other night -- I said I'm for the Republican in each and every case." - CBS News

As more and more teabaggers are nominated during the Republican primaries the new task for the Republican establishment and pundits is to try and make them appear “main stream”. Under normal conditions this would be difficult because the candidates would have to face the media, their opponents, and the voters. What we are seeing now is a new strategy being instituted by Sarah Palin and her ilk. The new strategy is to avoid the media except for Fox, the voters except for your supporters, and no debates. This election will be telling not just in the policies and visions of the teabaggers, but also a demonstration of the political strategy of evasion. Are the voters so angry that politicians are no longer required to answer tough questions or that their personal lives are no longer relevant?

I believe that former Senator Trent Lott said it best on one of the Sunday talk shows when he said that the Republicans have to figure out a way to co-opt the teabaggers into the larger Republican movement. I have a question why are the teabaggers a natural outgrowth of the Republican Party? If you follow the logic of the teabaggers which is difficult they are for smaller government and fiscal responsibility (among a host of other non-descript principles) then you would think that they would support the only Party in the last 35 years to reduce the national debt and recorded a surplus which would make them Democratic supporters wouldn’t it? So obviously the size of government or the deficits is not what is fueling the outrage.

I think what is troubling to Karl Rove and what should be troubling to the other so-called Republican leaders is that what the teabaggers are putting on display is what is at the heart of the conservative movement which is fear, racism, and tribalism. The teabaggers are like the crazy uncle that you keep in the attic. He is in the family but you don’t want anyone to know about it. The teabaggers are the raw nerve of the Republican Party. They are the ones who are the attack dogs for the Party. Let’s not be naive the reason the so-called Establishment Republicans are not challenging the teabaggers is because the teabaggers are the heart of the Republican Party. And now the trick that they want to play on the American public is to disguise this dark heart as being normal or main stream. These folks are not extremists. They are just angry main stream Americans who may go a little overboard but who could blame them during these revolutionary times.

The Beckster is even trying to talk the teabaggers into toning down the costumes, signs, and rhetoric. According to Mr. Beck now that the teabaggers have made a name for themselves it is time to clean-up their image. He is now offering fashion tips for the teabaggers. When I heard this I was instantly reminded of the Klan’s attempts to become main stream by placing David Duke on the public stage. The problem with managing a mob filled with hate, fear, and paranoia is that there is no managing it. Since a recent poll shows that 50% of the public does not have an opinion of the teabaggers their handlers have decided now is the time for a facelift. Their hope of course is that the public will not remember the signs, the rhetoric, or the racism. Or there is another opinion and that is they truly believe that the majority of Americans secretly share these intolerant views.

I can’t speak for the voters of Delaware, but what gives me cause for concern about Ms. O’Donnell and her shortcomings is simply this, if someone is dishonest in small things they will be dishonest in big things. Although the amounts of her misappropriations are small by Washington standards she has demonstrated a lack of basic honesty. If you will misuse a few thousand dollars how can you be trusted with millions of dollars? Ms. O’Donnell has learned that all Senators are millionaires and she wants to join the club. The fact that the teabaggers will support her or any candidate regardless of their personal integrity demonstrates to me that they are a red herring.

These folks are no more concerned about the deficits than they are concerned about death rays from Mars. You can’t say that you are concerned about the federal deficit and not have enough sense to do a simple history lesson and learn what Party has done more to increase the deficit. This isn’t rocket science a simple internet search will give you the details. But again this isn’t about knowledge or facts it is about a clash of cultures and a clash with the future.

I'm not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself. – Ronald Reagan

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That’s Right Sarah, You’re Not in Alaska Anymore

"I love her -- she's just like me," said Pam Moore, a minister who attended the rally in Green on Wednesday. Moore dismissed the latest reports of the RNC-funded shopping: "They are just trying to find dirt, and it's sad that people are stooping that low."[1]

That’s right folks we are no longer in the real world, but we have been transported into the land of Reputian in the Land of Oz What has always amazed me about zealots; whether they be religious, political, or social is their incredible ability to suspend reality at a moment’s notice. In order to be zealous about anything one must be able to ignore the reality they are in and transfer themselves to another place. Reality and facts are the hobgoblin of all zealots; they destroy the carefully crafted myths being parsed on the simple. For the zealot any facts that contradict the false narrative have to be reasoned away with utter nonsense to maintain the sense of outrage.

The more I witness this zealousness in any context the more I realize that we have come to the place where it is no longer the spinner of the tale who is completely at fault, but some fault also lies with the hearer. In order for us to be defrauded we have to dismiss all empirical data and established fact and believe something we know is false. If someone comes to me and says they have a magic oven that turns 100 dollar bills into 1000 dollar bills and they are willing to demonstrate it to me. At that moment I have to become willing to take some pretty irrational ideas and make them plausible. So we go to the oven and he puts a hundred dollar bill in it and presto he pulls out a 1000 dollar bill. There are some really rational concepts I have to be willing to throw out the window to believe what he has just shown me. In addition I have to also be willing to overlook these documented truths in order to receive the gain he is promising me. So there has to be some overriding concern that allows me to ignore what I know to be true. In this case it would be my greed, but there has to be some perceived gain to make me want to disbelieve what I know to be true to believe what has been proven to be false.

Such is the case for anyone who still believes that Sarah Palin is Jane six-pack or any derivative of that meme. The problem for me is not that she spent 150,000 for clothes. This is America you can spend as much as you want for your wardrobe, hair-cut, or 7 houses. No, my problem is the hypocrisy of these people. Have they no shame? First you present a candidate with 7 houses and 12 cars to a nation suffering from the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression (brought about by a man who also is abundantly wealthy) and claim that he represents the average “Joe” and understands your concerns. Then we send out a woman who claims to represent small-town America with its simple common-sense values and it turns out she has been spending 150,000 on wardrobe and make-up. I’m sorry but what hockey-mom do you know who has been able to get that “extreme make-over”?

The truly poignant part is what this type of hypocrisy not being only accepted but defended says about us as a nation. Are we so desperate to believe in something that we will believe in anything? If the curtain gets pulled back and you still believe the trick, then who is at fault? The people who are defending this from their hearts are not the rich, wealthy elite of the Republican Party but the average Joe’s, the ones who are making 40,000 a year. Think about this for a moment this woman spent 4 years of their salaries in a couple of months for clothes and they still think she is one of them. I guess then we have to wonder what “one of them” really means since it can’t be economic status?

Regardless of whether the con is for money, votes, or salvation there comes a point when the trick is revealed, fortunately there are enough of us who are not mindless zealots or “ditto-heads” who are willing to say look at your hypocrisy. The depressing phenomenon is the number of people who don’t care that they are being swindled as evidenced by George W’s 23% approval rating. What do these 23 percentiles see that I don’t?

My friends we are witnessing the end of an era. The days of Rovian campaign tactics are coming to an end. With the advent of the internet; the days of “swift-boating” to the masses has ended. The only ones that can be duped with false rumor and innuendo today are those who do not have or do not want the internet and thus have to be informed by the dupers. Today all one needs to do to debunk a false charge is to type Google in any browser. In effect they are ones who choose to be duped because it allows them to continue their feelings of false outrage and victimization complexes. What’s the difference between a zealot and Sarah Palin? It appears to be about a 150,000 wardrobe and some very expensive lipstick.

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/22/AR2008102203346_2.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2008102300047&s_pos=

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Not Another Compassionate Conservative

Here we go from the sublime to the absurd, John McCain in an attempt to repeat the Bush campaign strategy of 2000 is visiting the “forgotten places” in America. Presenting himself as a reincarnation of the compassionate conservative Senator McCain is on tour visiting the “Black Belt” of Alabama, Appalachia, Youngstown, Ohio, and New Orleans. Maybe Senator McCain has forgotten who has been in the White House these last 8 years while these forgotten places have been pushed to the breaking point. Hopefully, the American public has not forgotten and will see this obvious heavy-handed attempt to appear as something he is not. I am not counting on the media to point out the inconsistencies of McCain’s policies from his “listening tour”.

GEE’S BEND, Ala.—Senator John McCain opened a weeklong tour of the nation’s “forgotten places” in Alabama’s Black Belt on Monday by acknowledging the challenge he faces in appealing to African-Americans and admitting that “I am aware of the fact that there will be many people who will not vote for me.”

“There must be no forgotten places in America, whether they have been ignored for long years by the sins of indifference and injustice, or have been left behind as the world grew smaller and more economically interdependent,” Mr. McCain said to a largely white and friendly crowd that gathered to hear his remarks on the banks of the Alabama River.[1]

I guess just because you are visiting the “Black Belt” doesn’t mean you have to actually visit with black people. Mr. McCain obviously doesn’t feel like proposing tax-breaks for corporations and making the Bush tax-cuts permanent as being unjust or indifferent. The worst form of racism and injustice is poverty. I guess though if you buy a few quilts from old black women it makes up for all the rest. It makes up for ignoring the debates that were held at Morgan State University that was designed to highlight issues of concern to black voters. Someone in the McCain camp has come up with the brilliant idea of trying to exploit the current Democratic riffs and the electoral “bitterness” by having him appear as someone who cares about their discontent and as an alternative to the angry Democrats. I suspect the Senator will also make similar purchases in his other stops; maybe some moonshine in Appalachia, some tires in Youngstown, and some gumbo in New Orleans.

The truth is that Senator McCain and his campaign could care less about the forgotten places of America or the forgotten people they will find there. The real purpose of this trip is to collect commercial footage for the fall and photo-ops for the wing-nut commentators to proclaim Senator McCain as a different kind of Republican, a maverick if you will. Whoever the Democratic nominee is going to be they will need to be prepared for the same campaign tactics used by Bush and Rove. Regardless of what McCain says he is already mimicking the Bush strategies, this fall is going to be ugly. When you don’t have any popular policies of your own and you are promoting the unpopular policies of an outgoing President with a 30% popularity rating, you are going to have to rely on deception. I can hardly wait to see the campaign ads of McCain talking to blacks and poor people looking concerned with that patriotic music in the background.

At the very least, the trip is providing footage for Mr. McCain’s future campaign commercials, as occurred later in the day when the candidate was serenaded with old Negro spirituals by the quilters of Gee’s Bend, Ala., during a slow-moving ferry ride across a part of the Alabama River.

While a campaign camera crew recorded the scene from an accompanying pontoon boat, Mr. McCain stood on the ferry surrounded by a dozen African-American quilters who sang “Old Ship of Zion” to the vaguely embarrassed candidate. Mr. McCain had just come from a visit to their quilting center.[2]

With Iraqi surge footage already in hand, Mr. McCain’s campaign is replicating the infamous “Mission Accomplished” moments of George Bush. The more McCain proclaims his differences from George Bush the more his campaign resembles the Bush campaigns. The Republicans believe they have a winning strategy that they can still use despite all the evidence to the contrary. The reports of the Republican demise maybe be premature and exaggerated.

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[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/22/us/politics/21cnd-mccain.html?hp

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/22/us/politics/21cnd-mccain.html?hp

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She Couldn’t Help Herself

Just when I was almost ready to be proud of Hillary Clinton for not stepping into the mess that has been the Jeremiah Wright story, she goes and shows why she cannot unite this country. Rather than taking the high road and not responding to what is clearly a personal decision concerning one’s faith, she just had to weigh in. Once again self preservation has overruled prudence for Mrs. Clinton. In an effort to flip the script from her lying about Bosnia, she just couldn’t help herself from criticizing Barack Obama’s decision to remain a member of his church. It is precisely this attitude of Senator Clinton that has caused her to alienate and lose the support of blacks that she once commanded. It now seems that her campaign has written off the black vote for the primaries in the hope that they can regain it if she receives the nomination. The Clinton campaign continues to play politics as usual taking the black vote for granted believing come November they will have no place else to go.

"After originally refusing to play politics with this issue, it's disappointing to see Hillary Clinton's campaign sink to this low in a transparent effort to distract attention away from the story she made up about dodging sniper fire in Bosnia. The truth is, Barack Obama has already spoken out against his pastor's offensive comments and addressed the issue of race in America with a deeply personal and uncommonly honest speech. The American people deserve better than tired political games that do nothing to solve the larger challenges facing this country," said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.[1]

This strategy is dangerous and problematic for a number of reasons, while blacks may not support McCain in November that doesn’t mean they will support Clinton. Despite a record of supporting black causes if the Clinton campaign continues to attack the black community by attacking it’s institutions the Democrats could be in for a rude awakening in November. Rather than having a record turnout, I believe many blacks will remain at home than support a candidate they feel is willing to write them off in March only to come knocking in November. I can only speak from experience, but in my city we had a black Mayoral candidate who had the outgoing Mayor’s machine and supposedly the support of the black community. Support that the candidate took for granted believing that he was a shoo-in for the office, unfortunately he found out the hard way that this support was not forthcoming. He lost to an unknown city auditor because the black support he took for granted stayed home. This candidate with that support would have won in a landslide had he gotten it. If the black community will do it to one of their own make no mistake they will do it to Senator Clinton.

It is time for the Party leaders to grow some balls and step in and muzzle the Clintons. It is not like John McCain is not providing enough ammo to take aim at. But rather than attack McCain’s war stance or his economic policies that will surely lead to ruin, Mrs. Clinton would rather discuss an issue that according to our Constitution should not even be up for public debate. The personal faith of our elected officials short of human sacrifice should and has been a private matter. And according to my crack research staff Reverend Wright has never advocated the use of human sacrifices or the overthrow of the American government.

Senator Clinton’s win at all cost strategy has already begun to cause many Democratic leaders to line up behind Barack Obama, the Bill Richardson endorsement I believe is a direct consequence of this strategy. It would have to take a lot for a former member of the Clinton cabinet and a close friend to come out for Obama. Senator Clinton is surrounded by very politically astute personnel who must know that by attacking Barack Obama’s church they are in effect attacking the black Church as a whole and by transference the black community.

As a Christian it breaks my heart that in America we even have a black Church and a white Church. This arrangement goes against everything Christianity is supposed to stand for, but as a black man I also realize the importance of the black Church. The black Church has been the one constant in black America from slavery through the civil rights movement. Early on in our history in this country most of our leaders were clergymen who had the faith of their convictions to speak out against the injustice they witnessed. When the civil rights marchers needed a break from the dogs, water hoses, and the police beatings they found solace in the black Church. Is the black Church perfect? No, but they have provided support for blacks in a world that said they were not fully human and created for enslavement by their white brethren.

Taking pages from the Karl Rove election handbook may provide short-term victories, but in the long run it will end in a bitter defeat. This attack is eerily similar to the Bill Clinton attack on Sister Souljah, using another black to shore up the white bonafides. Bill Clinton compared Sister Souljah to David Duke and now Senator Clinton is comparing Reverend Wright to Don Imus. Throwing blacks under the bus seems to be a recurring theme with the Clintons.

"You know, I spoke out against Don Imus (who was fired from his radio and television shows after making racially insensitive remarks), saying that hate speech was unacceptable in any setting, and I believe that," Clinton said. "I just think you have to speak out against that. You certainly have to do that, if not explicitly, then implicitly by getting up and moving."[2]

[1] http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/breaking/s_558930.html
[2] http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/breaking/s_558930.html

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Cheney – George Bush’s Spine

If Karl Rove was Bush’s brain, then Dick Cheney must certainly be Bush’s spine. The rogue VP whose office is conducting its own foreign policy, domestic agenda, and war-mongering has been the architect of many of the debacles of this administration. The ever bellicose chicken-hawk continues to pump his chest with heroic prowess, yet when given the opportunity to display this warriors courage decided to dodge the war. He was needed in Wyoming to fight the local VC insurgents who were planning a behind the lines enemy offensive.

June 29, 2007 - Dick Cheney is like “Zelig,” the Woody Allen character with the uncanny ability to turn up everywhere. We always suspected his dark influence throughout the government, and now it’s been documented chapter and verse in an exhaustive series in The Washington Post. Cheney operates largely in secret, and because he is such a skilled bureaucratic infighter, he’s able to do end runs around everybody, including President Bush, who does nothing to rein in his evil twin.[1]

Dick Cheney articulates the Neo-Con wingnut philosophy in a manner that limits the choices George Bush is allowed to consider. A President is bombarded by information, opinions, and opposing views on every issue that crosses his desk. It would be a monumental task to keep abreast of all of this information for a very intelligent person, but for a C, legacy student it would be impossible. So like many of his predecessors that have lacked intellectual curiosity, Mr. Bush relies on close allies to direct his decisions. This is why loyalty is valued more than competency in his administration. It is more important to protect the President’s incompetence than to be qualified to make correct decisions. This is why Mr. Bush has never held anyone accountable in his administration for anything, no matter how calamitous the results.

Cheney, 66, grew up in Lincoln, Neb., and Casper, Wyo., acquiring a Westerner's passion for hunting and fishing but not for the Democratic politics of his parents. He wed his high school sweetheart, Lynne Vincent, beginning what friends describe as a lifelong love affair. Cheney flunked out of Yale but became a highly regarded PhD candidate in political science at the University of Wisconsin -- avoiding the Vietnam War draft with five deferments along the way -- before abandoning the doctoral program and heading to Washington as a junior congressional aide.[2]

Mr. Cheney personifies the tough western American image; he manages by fear and intimidation. He is what George Bush wishes he could be, someone feared and whose authority goes unchallenged. Cheney has shown a total disregard for any authority outside his own, as evidenced by his statement of being a separate branch of the government. It has been asserted that Cheney is the engine that makes the train goes, but I disagree. Cheney asserts a certain level of power over Bush, but not by overt means. He asserts this power through the limited choices he provides Bush and through his evisceration of any competitive opinions. By providing Bush with limited choices that Cheney has condensed through his input at the staff level, he focuses the President’s agenda to only the options he provides.

We should not be fooled; Cheney is providing the options to policies the President has signed off on in broader terms long ago. Cheney gives direction and targets for Bush’s overall agenda. An agenda that Bush brought with him to Washington, one that Cheney provides methods for implementation. It is in these methods that Cheney exerts influence over Bush. When a situation may offer two options; one using diplomacy and the other projecting American military power, these are the arguments Cheney has prevailed in. This is why I call him Bush’s spine; he emboldens Bush to become the “warrior President”. I just find it strange that when both men had the opportunity to display their warrior prowess, both chose to decline. It’s easy to be tough with someone else’s life.

The vice president's reputation and, some say, his influence, have suffered in the past year and a half. Cheney lost his closest aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, to a perjury conviction, and his onetime mentor, Donald H. Rumsfeld, in a Cabinet purge. A shooting accident in Texas, and increasing gaps between his rhetoric and events in Iraq, have exposed him to ridicule and approval ratings in the teens. Cheney expresses indifference, in public and private, to any verdict but history's, and those close to him say he means it.[3]

Many believe that Cheney’s influence is waning based on a number of calamities in the past year or so concerning his office and his lost of key personnel, I am not so sure. I think his influence is decreasing, but not because of any change in the relationship between Bush and Cheney, but because as Bush surveys his time in office and its place in history he is discovering he has little if any positives. Hence his willingness to sign off on the North Korea deal, even though Cheney and his wingnuts were totally against it. It’s strange how when a President finally acknowledges the finality of his presidency he wants to become the statesman he never was before. That whole legacy syndrome thing being played out on the world’s stage. Bush will need less spine and more brain to try to recoup any semblance of a successful presidency.

[1]http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19507575/site/newsweek/
[2] http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/chapters/chapter_1/
[3] http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/chapters/chapter_1/

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Conservative Reformers

It is sometimes alleged that Rove's arguments have not fully prevailed in the GOP -- which is true. It is further alleged that these arguments have been discredited by events -- which is not true. The complications of Iraq have obscured Rove's victories, not undone them. And his key historical insight is unavoidable: Republicans win as conservative reformers.[1]- Michael Gerson

Truer words have not been spoken. The end of the Rove era in the White House is not the end of the Rove era in America. Karl Rove has poisoned politics and our judicial system for years to come. The genius of Mr. Rove is that he remembered that all politics are local, it took him years but gradually at the local levels of government he built up the Conservative machine that took two national elections. Karl Rove took what he learned in Texas and expanded it nationally.

What did he learn in Texas? He learned that the way you build a movement is at the lowest level of the political spectrum. He started with the local elected offices and began getting elected those that shared his conservative agenda from the County Attorneys to the Municipal Judges. He realized that the way you build a movement is not with large televised rallies, but by developing support among the locals.

As those local politicians got elected to higher and higher offices the Conservative agenda grew through their loyalty to Rove. Texas went from purple to red and not just light red, but scarlet. With the help of Tom Delay and a group of conservative judges he consolidated a small Republican majority into a Conservative stronghold. Hopefully the courts will overturn the redistricting plan of Rove and Delay, but in the meantime the damage has been done. Texas is red.

With the same formula of divisiveness and “conservative reform” candidates, Rove was able to propagate his small majority (2000) into a larger Republican majority (2004). Once again, he used the loyalty of these conservative reform candidates and stacked conservative judges to politicize the Executive Branch and the Courts. Because of this politicalization, even if the Democrats win back the White House and expand their majority in the Congress, the effects of Karl Rove will reverberate for a generation. Loyalty was no longer to the Country or even to the President, but to the Republican Conservative agenda. Rove became the ultimate party boss, dispensing jobs and retribution to anyone who would have the nerve to stand up to him. With most Federal Appeals Courts and the Supreme Court under the Conservative influence, we are only beginning to feel the effects of Rove’s politics. I believe that whoever is elected will have a difficult time trying to undo the conservative tilt or initiate any progressive policy changes.

On the political front we are already seeing the effects, with more and more of the major candidates both Republican and Democrat emulating the Rove model. As the general election nears we will see his influence from both sides, especially if Hillary Clinton is the nominee. The onslaught they have waiting for Hillary will be like nothing we have ever seen in American politics and Hillary being who she is will use some of what she has learned from all of her previous experience to reciprocate. This should prove a most interesting election.

Was Karl Rove a failure being run out of town? Hardly, because of what he has done the conservative agenda is alive and well and will be played out in the courts of this country for years. Because he was able to turn back so many progressive policies, it will take atleast two election cycles just to get back to square one. In the meantime no new progressive policies will be enacted and the courts will be continuing with the precision of a laser to abolish the rights of the people.

This thing was never about the Congress and a majority; it was always about the courts. The courts are where the laws are interpreted and filled in. The Congress passes the legislation, but it is the courts that define the laws. Rove always knew that. The whole Republican majority for a generation thing was a smoke screen for what he was really after, the courts. Whoever controls the courts controls the agenda. Because we are a country of laws, whoever can define those laws controls the country. Think about what the Conservative agenda is and has been. What do the conservatives want? And then think who can give it to them, only the courts. The courts can do what the Congress and the President can’t do without Constitutional amendments or majorities. Don’t like Roe v. Wade, overturned. Don’t like Miranda, overturned. Want prayer in School, now legal. Want the Ten Commandments, now legal. Don’t like gay marriage, illegal. Don’t like affirmative action, illegal.

The ripples of this thing are only beginning to be felt. You watch how the things we once took for granted begin to disappear, as Karl Rove goes riding off into the sunset with the Bill of Rights firmly tucked underarm.

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[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/16/AR2007081601685.html

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Mission Accomplished?

It was four years ago that President Bush landed on the aircraft carrier with the infamous “Mission Accomplished” banner and announced the end of major hostilities in Iraq. I remember the day exactly, I was over my folk’s house and we were discussing what the President had just done. I had hinted that it was for the upcoming election to be run as commercials with the President all decked out in his flight suit landing on the carrier. You know all the things he was suppose to do in the Guard and didn’t, but that is another story.

That was truly a Karl Rove moment. Everything appeared so rosy and bright for Iraq and for us. Unfortunately, it was exactly at the moment that we lost Iraq. It was at the height of their arrogance that the deal was sealed. Because they had not done their homework, which seems to be a recurring theme for the President, this administration believed and still does that liberation is about military force. Whoever has the most sophisticated weaponry and the most troops wins. Well, four years later we continue to pour in more sophisticated weaponry and more troops and we are no closer to accomplishing the mission.

Which leads me to a question that we should have asked four years ago, what was the mission? Was our mission to disarm Saddam of his “weapons of mass destruction”? Was our mission to enact regime change? Was our mission to liberate the Iraqi people? Was our mission to bring democracy to the Middle East? Was our mission to secure the rights to permanent military bases and oil concessions? What exactly was our mission Mr. President and what is our mission today?

Until we know what the mission is we cannot know if it has or will ever be accomplished. It appears right now that our main mission is to support our troops. Well, that to me is sort of like saying, “Do you support Iowa or Rhode Island?” The question or mission is not whether we support the troops; the question should be why our troops there are? By framing the question in patriotism this administration has framed the answer. If you want to control the answer you do it by the questions you allow to be asked.

If we really supported the troops we would want them to have a mission they can accomplish and a plan to get them home. At this time we have neither of those, but we support the troops. Because of the bullying tactics of this administration and the atmosphere of “McCarthyism” that they have created, they have in effect silenced all critics with the “unpatriotic or soft on terrorism” label. We, the people must rise above this demagoguery and foolish rhetoric and begin to hold this President accountable for this debacle. They have everyone afraid to admit that this mission is beyond our scope to repair. They say this is defeatist talk. They said the same things about Vietnam and all the rally behind the flag boys rhetoric did not change the circumstances on the ground. We are actually harming our troops and the Iraqi’s by prolonging this occupation. We cannot wait for this President to acknowledge he has made a mistake. This goes against everything he has shown us about his character. We have a better chance of pigs flying than for this President to admit he was wrong.

We are at a crossroads as a nation. We are at one of those pivotal moments in human history when we get to decide who we are as a nation and as a people. Do we believe in those principles we espouse? Continuing to support a failed policy based on lies is not patriotism, it is tyranny. Before we can teach others democracy maybe we should have a refresher course ourselves. We may not be able to save democracy in Iraq, but we can begin to save our democracy here in America. Let’s make that our mission for today.

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