Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Bush and his cronies sought to demolish the "truth" as their primary interest became glaringly apparent that they were "hell bent" to launch the Iraq War.  Anyone standing in the way must be dealt with in the severest terms.  The scandalous act of vengeance for daring to tell the truth was to reveal the name of Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA agent.  This could expose her to enormous danger and it did.  Valerie received death threats and hate phone calls.  All the while this was going on, the president who makes the audacious claim that he consults with his "other father" when asked if he consulted with the Elder Bush on potential war issues, made a damning declaration:  "Anyone who reveals the name of our CIA agents will be found and punished."

This is now interpreted as a "laugh line" by Bush's critics, who have his number.  Everything conceivable has been done not to reveal where the leak came from and to use a Veterans Day speech to lash back at his critics who have exposed his lies in a rush to an illegal war hasn't helped him one iota.  His popularity has sunk to as low as 36 percent and continues sinking.   "You can fool some of the people all the time, but you can't fool all the people all of the time!"  Didn't Bush learn that in grade school?  Or was Bush a slow learner, apparently never learning this fundamental precept as he tries shabbily to carry on about his critics being at fault?

This launching of the Iraq War is not a political issue; it involves a simple issue of right and wrong.  It is an issue that should place Bush squarely in The Hague where he can be tried for violating the Geneva Code pertaining to acts of war as a war criminal suspect.

Peace has not been brought to Iraq.  Instead we have launched a war without required proof that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and constituted a clear and present danger to US security.  Now with the record of the dead and proof that the Iraq War was unnecessary, what kind of man can stand before war veterans and claim that the Iraq War was parallel to World War Two?  Does this president need a history lesson?  Or does he need truth serum?  And what about the people who voted for Bush the second time around when they knew full well that this Iraq War was launched on phony claims?

Now that the documents Colin Powell dramatically read to the UN in a presentation that received rave notices from Faux News have been proven to be forged, and now that Condoleezza Rice has spoken, claiming on TV that the US had no idea that terrorists might strike the US by driving airplanes into buildings when numerous such warnings had been received by government sources, it is time for accountability.  We are faced with individuals in charge of the future of the USA whose word leaves much to be desired.  

Unable to properly protect and assist New Orleans citizens in an emergency was a revelation of calamitous ineptness.  Shocking scenes of what happened to victims along the Gulf Coast, who apparently fantasized that government officials were properly prepared for such emergencies, were horrifying.  After Hurricane Katrina and the resultant tragedies in Louisiana and Mississippi informed the world of the Bush Administration's colossal failures on the home front, Hurricane Wilma surged into Florida, providing double proof that FEMA provisions were totally inadequate.

This is the same Republican Administration that is spending billions of US taxpayer dollars to ostensibly bring democracy and peace not only to Iraq, but in their fantasy-laden thinking imagine that the entire Middle East will be switched over to a form of democratic government.  

This would all be very funny if it were not so tragic.  Through it all this Republican Administration has proven what dangerous individuals they are.  In the November 13 Miami Herald it was revealed, "The Senate vote to strip rights granted to Guantanamo Bay detainees by the Supreme Court has stunned legal experts."

In the Miami Herald article by Frank Davis it was further stated:

"For almost eight centuries the `great writ' of habeas corpus has been a bedrock principle of English and American law, from the Magna Carta, to today's jails and courts.  It's the means for a prisoner to contrast his imprisonment before a judge.

"That's one reason legal experts were stunned when the Senate, after an hour of debate and hearings, voted Thursday to adopt a measure that, if it becomes law, would overturn the Supreme Court's extension of habeas corpus protection to 500 plus detainees at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba."

For the Senate to take only one hour to demolish protections in American and English law that existed for eight hundred years demonstrates what a frightening collection of individuals are demolishing almost everything decent that this country has stood for.  

The name of each Senator who voted for this tragic demolition of civil liberties should be published in every local paper where they come from.  True patriotic American citizens should vote them out of office before they scrap every facet of freedom this nation has fought for.