From Our Fear Monger-In-Chief

You don't see much of the vice president these days. It used to be a joke that VP's were only visible at funerals and conventions - kept in the background. Some were actually political opponents within the party, like Lyndon Johnson. The job disarmed them, so to speak.

But Cheney came to the Bush administration fully armed and seemingly obsessed with a long-brewed neocon scheme to conquer Iraq and install an oil-rich democracy in the Mideast. To that end, he has twisted the truth and blatantly lied many times to the media - it seems to be his function in this administration. And yet nobody seems willing or able to hold him accountable for pushing blatant propaganda on the American public. The following are snips from various interviews with Tim Russert on NBC's Meet the Press.

It's now public that, in fact, [Saddam] has been seeking to acquire... the kinds of tubes that are necessary to build a centrifuge. And the centrifuge is required to take low-grade uranium and enhance it into highly enriched uranium, which is what you have to have in order to build a bomb. [9/8/02]

"We do know, with absolute certainty, that [Saddam] is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon." [9/8/02]

"Well, I think I've just given it, Tim, in terms of the combination of his development and use of chemical weapons, his development of biological weapons, his pursuit of nuclear weapons... It's only a matter of time until he acquires nuclear weapons." [3/14/03]

"We know that he has a long-standing relationship with various terrorist groups, including the al-Qaeda organization." [3/14/03]

"We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda." [9/23/03]

None of the above statements were true, and he knew full well at the time. No wonder he stays in his bunker.

Impeachment and the State of the Union

Nobody I know is seriously considering the impeachment of our stealth president, Dick Cheney, and his sidekick George Bush. But like a lot of people, I've read the list of possible offenses, and they seem pretty valid, especially when considering the human carnage and suffering they have exacerbated - and I also remember vividly the Clinton impeachment with all its sordid drama and moral outrage. It was an embarrassment. A Bush/Cheney impeachment would be incredibly ugly. I'm wondering if the American people have the stomach to expose the world to the inner workings of their crooked, corporatized executive branch.

As Gore Vidal says in his essay, President Jonah, "Not since the glory days of Watergate and Nixon's Luciferian fall has there been so much written about the dogged deceits and creative criminalities of our rulers."

I ran across this article from The Texas Observer by Ronnie Dugger, and it's better than anything I could write on the subject of a possible Bush/Cheney indictment or impeachment. He touches on crucial questions about America - the values of its leaders and the people who elected them. I think there's a little embarrassment down in Texas - that they helped grease their favorite son's ascendance to bungling leader the free world. I don't blame them.

This country has taken a path under the Bush/Cheney administration that is a radical departure from life as I knew it growing up here in god's country. Our representatives to Congress, for instance, have never been so brazenly connected to big corporations and party fundraising as is Roy Blunt.

"Our elections are bought, and our government is run by and for the major transnational corporations," Dugger writes, and our boy Roy is right there making it happen with a wink and a nod from the Bushies. Everything's cool, the money is rolling in.

On Bush's grab for unconstitutional executive power, Dugger says "Bush announced in 2002 his illegal presidential policy that the United States can and will attack other nations first, waging war on them, when he so decides. He is now waging, as if he were doing it in our names, a bloody war of aggression against Iraq . . ."

And here we are four years later with 2,200 American soldiers dead, 35,000 Iraqi's killed (give or take 5,000), a terrorist group winning election in Palestine, U. S.-run secret prisons overseas, condoned torture by the military, warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, a massive national debt, $250 billion sucked away in Iraq, an emboldened, antagonistic Iran with nuclear capability . . . and let's not even talk about solving our considerable problems here at home with perhaps the most corrupt (and certainly the most corporate) Congress in history.

I remember talking to my neighbor out in the driveway before the 2000 election. We both thought the presidential election would be close, but we figured Gore would win. And he did, but that's another issue entirely.

Remember how people used to say it didn't matter who was president? "Six of one, half dozen of the other." Right. I may be grasping for a silver lining here, but do you think it's possible the disastrous Bush presidency might persuade more people to participate in the choosing of their leaders next November? Are enough people even paying attention? If not, I guess we will continue to get the leadership we deserve.

Do you ever wonder how a Gore administration would have dealt with 9/11?

On Tuesday, George Bush will take the podium and tell us how great things are. Just Pretend It's All Okay. But there's no telling what else is coming down the pike with these guys. I understand Bush is poised to solve the health care crisis in America, and we'll hear all about it Tuesday night. "And now, from the same folks who brought you Homeland Security's Rapid Response Katrina Team, Social Security Reform and the War in Iraq . . ."
Everybody knows this will go nowhere.

Speaking of state of the union addresses, here's a link to Bill Clinton's last State of the Union speech, just a reminder of what life was like before 9/11 - before all the fear-mongering, the lies, the corruption that the Bush/Cheney team and the Republican Congress have brought to the table.

Images of the Dead

Abortion will once again be a huge distraction in coming weeks as legislators wrestle with the parental consent issue - yet another attempt by fundamentalists to strip away by layers the laws that protect the privacy of pregnant women in America. A big anti-abortion rally is scheduled tomorrow in Washington with a plan to march on Congress and the Supreme Court, placards raised high.

The politics of life and death in this country are hard to understand. How the government, political movements and media deal with the images of death reveals an odd juxtapositioning.

Christian fundamentalists, for instance, revel in the bloody images of Christ, but they also use the image of an aborted fetus to bludgeon the public into understanding what they see as the true nature of abortion.

But where is the outrage when sensitized pro-life proponents come across images of Iraqi children whose bodies have been blown apart by bombs? Why are these images considered anti-war propaganda? A dead Iraqi child is just not their issue of choice, I guess.



And how can our government protect the rights of abortion protesters foisting obscene images upon women entering clinics but steadfastly refuse to let photographers capture the pristine image of caskets containing the remains of American soldiers returning from war overseas?

Three takes on Perception Management.

Apathy Paves Way For Blunt

It appears the upcoming House vote for Majority Leader will be a cake walk for our boy Roy. According to the Washington Post, congressmen returning to their districts for the break are finding that nobody much cares about the upcoming leadership vote. This is a big boost for status quo candidate, Roy Blunt, whose own ethical lapses involving Jack Abramoff's lobbying interests and Tom DeLay's tainted PAC money have made him the GOP's poster boy for extra-legal fundraising in Congress.

Blunt's ethical lapses have been neatly air-brushed by the our Gnews-Leader editorialists, but the Washington Post had this to say:

"The lack of grass-roots enthusiasm for broad changes on Capitol Hill may work to the advantage of Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), several legislators said. By most estimates, he is leading the race to become the next House majority leader -- despite his extensive connections to lobbyists, including some involved in the Abramoff scandal."

Everything I've read indicates that the Abramoff depositions to federal prosecutors will entwine a multitude of prominent Republicans in the legislative and executive sectors, so it seems very unlikely that our boy Roy will emerge from this with his squeaky clean, good Christian image intact. But these revelations are not likely to appear in the media until after the GOP leadership elections (and maybe never in Roy's fan club newsletter, the News-Leader). And even if Blunt is exposed as just another in a long line of corrupt politicians seeking money for special interests, does it really matter to the straight-ticket voters here in God's Country? I doubt it.

Fact is, voters here would more likely turn on Blunt for dumping his wife of 31 years to marry a younger woman than they would for him secretly inserting provisions in leglislation that helps his sweety's tobacco firm. I can just see the sleazy commericials . . . but wait, Roy's a Republican, not a Democrat. As disorganized and feckless as the Democrats are sometimes, they do have enough class and integrity not to stoop to GOP's level of personal smear.

My prediction: if Abramoff information starts leaking to the press in the next couple of weeks and there aren't any big terrorism stories in the news, Roy loses the secret ballot vote, and John Shadegg becomes Majority Leader. If nothing new emerges, Roy leads the chorus for lobbying reform and is home free to replace his mentor Tom DeLay.

"Perception Becomes Reality"

It seems the News-Leader is intent on "Perception Management" when it comes to supporting Roy Blunt in his candidacy for House Majority Leader. Editorial page editor Robert Leger became the official media apologist for Roy Blunt today, pointing out that . . .

"Rep. Roy Blunt's quest to become the House majority leader is a major local story for southwest Missouri. If he is successful, it will assure continued federal support for key Ozarks projects such as highway improvements, university research, water quality protection and Jordan Valley Park."

But isn't obtaining federal support for district projects what any good Congressman would do for his constituency? True, it would be a lot more fun for the local paper to cover a House Majority Leader than another bland party functionary like Gene Taylor, but is Leger really being completely open with his readers when he says . . .

"No evidence has surfaced that Blunt crossed legal lines like DeLay did. He doesn't make a habit of dining or traveling with lobbyists other than his wife. The amount Abramoff donated to Blunt's leadership PAC is relatively minor."

Technically, Blunt probably didn't cross legal lines, and he won't be indicted like DeLay, but his well-documented ethical lapses - his eleventh-hour addition to a Homeland Security bill to benefit big tobacco interests (not to mention his sleeping with a lobbyist working for said interests), his letters sent on behalf of Abramoff clients to protect their gambling interests in Mississippi, his shuffling of PAC monies to help his son's candidacy back home - does anybody really know how much tainted money ended up in ROYB's coffers?

But Leger shrugs off such questions. "For purists," he says, "any liaison with lobbyists is suspect. Perception becomes reality."

Perception has become reality for Roy Blunt. In reality, Blunt actually did do Jack Abramoff's bidding by writing letters to the Department of Interior urging them to limit tribal expansion that would compete with Abramoff's casino clients. In reality, Blunt did try to attach an after-hours rider that would benefit Philip-Morris, the company that employed his girlfriend. And, as far as we can tell, none of this directly benefited Blunt's constituency in the Ozarks.

Of course, Blunt is now calling for lobbying reform, but this seems a little disingenuous given the fact that he was the main GOP connection to K Street during the lobbyist feeding frenzy that has characterized this Republican-controlled Congress. In effect, Blunt is calling for lobbying reform to curb his own questionable behavior. I guess that's admirable.

Despite what the News-Leader would have its readers believe, Roy Blunt isn't the "aw shucks" former social studies teacher who was sent to Washington to inherit the GOP's 7th District seat. He has become nothing more than a very effective full-time fundraiser for the Republican Party - and what's worse, he has chosen to favor a new constituency while he was away. Blunt has represented lobbyists and PAC's more than his own people back here in Southwest Missouri - and that perception-turned-reality is precisely why his once promising bid to become Majority Leader is now in jeopardy.

Fight for Leadership Gets Ugly

Roy Blunt's campaign to permanently replace Tom DeLay as House Majority Leader took a couple of body blows this week from members of his own party. First, a new candidate for the post, John Shadegg (R-AZ) threw his hat in the ring, and many GOP conservatives appear ready to jump on his bandwagon as an alternative to the status quo (Blunt/DeLay).

A second blow to Blunt's ambitions came when a printed timeline depicting a series of Abramoff/Blunt connections began circulating among GOP house members this week. The timeline shows the following:

June 1999 - Abramoff donates $5,000 to ROYB fund.
February 2000 - Abramoff donates an additional $1,500 to ROYB Fund.
March 2000 - Abramoff donates maximum amount to Matt Blunt's campaign for Missouri Secretary of State.
April 2000 - Abramoff's Mariannas Island client donates $3,000 to ROYB fund.
April 2000 - Abramoff client, Juan Franco (Puerto Rico), contributes $3,000 to ROYB fund.
August 2000 - Blunt and DeLay host Republican National Committee events sponsored in part by Abramoff client, the Mississippi Band of Choctaws.
September 2000 - Blunt requests GAO study on tribal recognition issues and simultaneously seeks a six month moratorium on further tribal recognition - protecting existing casinos from further competition.
February 2002 - GAO report on tribal recognition issued.
March 2002 - Blunt writes letter to Department of Interior citing the GAO report and expressed specific concerns about the Jenna Band of Choctaws and their status in Louisiana. The Jenna Band would have been competition for Abramoff's client with tribal recognition approval.
March 2003 - Abramoff contributes to ROYB fund.
May 2003 - Blunt sends letter to Department of Interior Secretary Gale Norton regarding his concerns about Indian gaming and specifically the Jenna Band in Louisiana.
June 2003 - Blunt joins DeLay, House Speaker Hastert and House Majority Whip Cantor in penning another letter to DOI Secretary Norton regarding the opposed Jenna Band casino.

Isn't it nice to know that Roy is up there in Washington representing our interests here in God's Country? Here is a guy who needs virtually no money whatever to retain his permanent 7th District House seat, and he's up there throwing his influence around trying to protect a favorite lobbyist who is concerned about his client losing gambling revenue in Mississippi.

Further, here we are in socially conservative Southwest Missouri, where family values and high moral character are political euphemisms for "Republican" - yet we continue to elect a guy who goes to Washington and totally immerses himself in party fundraising - not that there's anything inherently wrong with that - but it gets to the point where the lobbyists become his primary constituents. And he gets so cozy with some lobbyists - is literally in bed with one Philip-Morris lobbyist - that he dumps his wife of 31 years and subsequently attempts to sneak a provision into the massive Homeland Security bill that would have aided the very tobacco firm that just happens to be represented by the lobbyist who shares his bed.

Where is the outrage here in God's Country?

Don't expect to see any of this on KY3 or the Gnews-Leader either. No, our local media has remained characteristically silent on the disturbing series of revelations regarding our elected representative to Congress. That's not to say there aren't folks in the local media who wouldn't love to run a big expose' on Blunt's ethical lapses. It just ain't happening, given the "walking-on-eggshells" approach local media has with their conservative reader/viewers. It would be like telling a small child that the Easter Bunny was a fraud (oh, for an image of Roy in bunny ears). Maybe the St. Louis and K. C. media will start making some noise about this.

Oh, and here's another little timeline I ran across in the New York Daily News that further implicates our boy-governor in this fundraising shell game.

March 30, 2000 - DeLay's ARMPAC fund donates $50,000 to Blunt's ROYB fund.
April-May 2000 - ROYB fund pays $40,000 to Alexander Strategy Group, which is run by DeLay's former chief of staff. Christine DeLay also works there. (ASG is closing its doors this month due to the Abramoff scandal.)
April 14, 2000 - Abramoff client from Marinna Islands (garment manufacturer fined by the U. S. government for sweatshop practices) contributes $3,000 to ROYB fund.
May 9, 2000 - ROYB fund contributes $1,000 to Cancer Research Foundation by way of political consultant Jim Ellis (indicted with DeLay), who runs ARMPAC.
May 24, 2000 - ARMPAC contributes $100,000 to ROYB fund.
June 15, 2000 - ROYB fund contributes $100,000 to Missouri Republican Party, which in turn eventually donates a total of $160,000 to Matt Blunt's campaign for Missouri Secretary of State.
October/November 2000 - DeLay's ARMPAC fund contributes $50,000 to Missouri Republic Party.
November 2000 - Matt Blunt is elected Missouri Secretary of State.
November/December 2000 - the Missouri Republican Party contributes $50,000 back to ARMPAC.
November 2000 - Abramoff charges Marinna Island client for meetings held with Trevor Blackann, an aide to Roy Blunt.
September 2001 - Abramoff lobbyist for Marinna Island client meets with Blunt staffer John Dutton to discuss strategies in fighting a minimum wage bill. The minimum wage bill never made it into law.

I'm just wondering how much tainted PAC money found its way to our boy-governor's gubernatorial campaign?

Abramoff "Just As Close to Blunt"

While our esteemed 7th District Congressman, Roy Blunt, is trying desperately to downplay his cozy relationship with indicted lobbyist/swindler Jack Abramoff, it appears that the Abramoff stain just won't wash out.

We ran across a November 2002 feel-good piece by John Bresnahan in Washington Business Forward that introduces mover-and-shaker Jack Abramoff as the lobbyist who is taking Washington by storm. The article begins:

"Greenberg Traurig’s Jack Abramoff is the most unlikely establishment Washington lobbyist: he made his bones producing a Dolph Lundgren movie, working with Indian casinos and doing a riverboat gambling deal that turned messy. Now Abramoff has emerged as an insider’s insider, with close ties to top Republicans and a hefty book of business. But even with his ally Tom DeLay poised to become House Majority Leader, Abramoff’s still found time to go into the restaurant business. Don’t bet against him."

The piece is pure fluff, with lines like: "It’s classic Abramoff: He’s a master at making money while pushing his conservative, free-market ideals." But there's an interesting quote near the end of Breshahan's little promotional that flies in the face of Blunt's earnest denials that he and Abramoff were fundraising pals for several years running. In this interview, Abramoff made an effort to downplay his close relationship with Tom DeLay by naming other associates who were dear to his heart and pocketbook.

“The DeLay thing is played up a lot in terms of our relationship. The fact is when I pitch a client, I never mention Tom DeLay. I never say I know Tom DeLay.” Abramoff says he’s just as close to other Republicans, like Reps. Roy Blunt (MO), Christopher Cox (CA), John Doolittle (CA), Phil Crane (IL) and Dana Rohrabacher (CA)."

The Washington Business Forward piece closes with this ironic little bit of smarm . . .

"Beyond the political world, it’s Abramoff himself who’s a bit unheard of, but that won’t last for long." I'll bet Ol' Roy is wishing he'd never heard of the guy.

Washington Post Links to Ozarks Angel

This probably isn't all that newsworthy, but I thought it was pretty cool that the Washington Post online edition printed a lead from the "Blunt, Inc." piece I posted here last night. It was one of several blogs in a "Who's Blogging About This Article" they feature each day.

I watched Matt Blunt trying to deliver a rousing State of the State speech tonight on public television. He did mention his 65% solution for fixing public education, but I don't think it's going to be high on his agenda this session - too much criticism of his little trial balloon last month.

Daddy Roy was on the tube as well during the evening news, trying to persuade folks that he didn't really know Jack Abramoff and that he'd already returned the measly $8,500 he'd received "over a six year period". Gimmee a break, Roy. This is the same Congressman who was on a short list of VIP customers treated to free meals at Abramoff's swank restaurant in D. C. And the "$8,500 over six years" is just laughable - maybe that was all the money that came directly from Abramoff, but this guy was a master at shuffling donations from one PAC or bogus charitable organization to another. My guess is that a careful look at the tortuous money trails these guys put together would reveal considerably more than $8,500 of tainted money resting in ROYB's political coffers. You can bet on one thing - the more air time the Abramoff scandal receives, the less likely it is that Blunt assumes his much-coveted Majority Leader spot.

Blunt, Inc.

Thomas B. Edsall, of the Washington Post, wrote an interesting piece last May on the rapid rise of Roy Blunt and the incredibly vast network of lobbyists and corporate donors that have made him one of the most well-financed representatives on the hill. The story, entitled House Majority Whip Exerts Influence by Way of K Street, outlines how Roy, his new lobbyist wife Abigail and sons Matt and Andrew have benefited greatly since Roy took office as our 7th District Representative in 1997 and began schmoozing around with big money interests.

Blunt's corporate and K Street connections have grown at an uncanny rate over the past eight years - to the point that his own financial holdings through PACs and re-election committees rival, or even surpass those of his mentor, Tom DeLay. In short, Blunt has become the GOP's "key liaison to lobbyists . . . who direct the flow of individual and political action committee contributions from the 1,600 corporations and 1,200 trade associations with PACs." Hence the moniker Blunt, Inc.

"Here in Washington, Blunt has converted what had been an informal and ad hoc relationship between congressional leaders and the Washington corporate and trade community into a formal, institutionalized alliance. Lobbyists are now an integral part of the Republican whip operation on par with the network of lawmakers who serve as assistant whips."

So, according to the Washington Post, at least, we can thank our boy Roy for helping to create the lobbyist feeding frenzy that has overtaken D. C. during the Bush years - a climate that has helped breed the likes of our favorite fedora-wearing shyster, Jack Abramoff.

Blunt's campaign committee has raised some $8.58 million since 1997, including $3.35 million to his (not one, but two) Rely On Your Belief funds (ROYB) from 2000 to 2002. Altria, SBC Communications, Union Pacific, Burlington Northern, Verizon, United Parcel Service and BellSouth are major corporate contributors.

Roy Blunt: Man of the People.

Within the next three weeks or so, House Republicans are going to elect a new slate of leaders in the wake of the DeLay indictment and the looming Abramoff scandal. One wonders if they have the will to really make some meaningful changes. If the GOP has any inkling of making true reforms in their party operations in Congress, they might want push ethically challenged fundraiser types like Blunt to the background and place some people with higher ideals in positions of leadership. I wonder, what's the likelihood of that happening?

Roy Blunt - Ethically Challenged

It will be interesting to see if the mainstream media will ever reveal what so many people in Washington, D. C. already know about Roy Blunt's trail of ethical missteps during his climb to Majority Whip and interim Majority Leader. Here are a few questionable activities that the good folks here in God's Country probably don't want to hear about:

*Blunt divorced Roseanne Blunt, his wife of 31 years, in 2003 to marry Abigail Perlman, a lobbyist with Philip Morris tobacco, now owned by Altria.

*Altria is the largest single contributor to Blunt's Political Action Committee (PAC), Rely on Your Beliefs (ROYB), giving some $270,000 to his personal PAC.

*Just hours after taking the role of Majority Whip (Blunt was hand-picked by his mentor, slimeball Majority Leader Tom DeLay), and before anyone knew of his association with Ms. Perlman, Blunt attempted to secretly insert a last-minute provision to Homeland Security legislation that would have benefited Philip Morris at the expense of their competitors. Exactly how this was to further protect the homeland has yet to be explained. An aide to House Speaker Dennis Hastert discovered the stealth insertion and Hastert immediately had it deleted from the bill. Blunt's bold move to aid a big campaign contributor without notifying House leadership surprised many in Washington, but little was said in the media.

*Altria also contributed $24,000 to Matt Blunt's gubernatorial campaign.

*Blunt's younger son, Andrew, landed a sweet lobbyist position with Altria in Missouri just a few years out of college. He is also a lobbyist for UPS in Missouri. Both UPS and Altria are major contributors to ROYB.

*In April, Blunt successfully inserted, once again without debate or Congressional review, a provision to a Senate bill that benefited UPS and FedEx shipping companies. The bill blocked expansion of a foreign shipping competitor. UPS and FedEx have contributed a combined $120,000 to Blunt since 2001.

*Blunt is the largest single contributor ($20,000) to the legal defense fund of Jack Abramoff's good buddy, Tom DeLay.

*Jack Abramoff's phony U. S. Family Network received $500,000 from the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), which was later fined $280,000 for this under-the-table transaction. Blunt's future wife, Abigail Perlman, was the finance director for NRCC at the time.

*Blunt's ROYB fund operated out of the same townhouse suite with Abramoff's U. S. Family Network and, for a time, was run by Tom DeLay's buddy, Jim Ellis, who now faces indictment.

Oh what a tangled web this is . . . and our boy Roy seems to be right in the thick of it all. It's no wonder that he's been listed as one of the thirteen most corrupt members of Congress by Beyond DeLay.

Missouri GOP's Dirty Money Trail

The coming months will be uncomfortable ones for many GOP politicians, including our own 7th District representative and acting house majority leader, Roy Blunt. I saw Roy's picture on the evening news tonight - it was right next to a shot of the nefarious Tom DeLay and beleaguered Ohio congressman, Bob Ney. Looks like good old Roy really has made it big this time.

Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff's guilty plea to three felony counts of conspiracy, mail fraud and tax evasion opens pandora's box to one of the worst cases of Washington, D. C. corruption in a couple of generations. So far, GOP leaders have been relatively quiet - perhaps waiting for another natural disaster to take the headlines - but they have managed to utter a few weak defenses, such as . . . "He gave money to Democrats, too."

Well, I checked into that, and here's a list of recipients of Abramoff donations since 2000 as compiled by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics:

Tom DeLay (R-Texas). John Ashcroft (R-Mo.). Frank A. LoBiondo (R-NJ). Eric Cantor (R-Va.). Arlen Specter (R-Pa.). John Ensign (R-Nev.). Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.). Charles H. Taylor (R-NC). Chris Cannon (R-Utah). Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). Mark Foley (R-Fla.). Richard Pombo (R-Calif.). Christopher S. "Kit" Bond (R-Mo.). Curt Weldon (R-Pa.). Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.). Doug Ose (R-Calif.). Ernest J. Istook (R-Okla.). George R. Nethercutt Jr. (R-Wash.). Jim Bunning (R-Ky.). Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.). Tom Feeney (R-Fla.). Dan Burton (R-Ind.). Eric Cantor (R-Va.). Suzanne Terrell (R-La.). Rob Simmons (R-Conn.). Charles W. "Chip" Pickering Jr. (R-Miss.). Connie Morella (R-Md.). Gordon H. Smith (R-Ore.). James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.). James M. Talent (R-Mo.). John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.). John Thune (R-SD). Tim Hutchinson (R-Ark.). Bob Smith (R-Fla.). Bob Ney (R-Ohio). CL. "Butch" Otter (R-Idaho). Carolyn W. Grant (R-NC). Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.). Elizabeth Dole (R-NC). Heather Wilson (R-NM). J. Randy Forbes (R-Va.). Jack Kingston (R-Ga.). James V. Hansen (R-Utah). John Cornyn (R-Texas). Kimo Kaloi (R-Hawaii). Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.). Mike Ferguson (R-NJ). Mike Simpson (R-Idaho). Ralph Regula (R-Ohio). Ric Keller (R-Fla.). Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.). Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). Thad Cochran (R-Miss.). Dave Camp (R-Mich.). Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.). Tom Young (R-Ala.). Bill Janklow (R-SD). Craig Thomas (R-Wyo.). Spencer Abraham (R-Mich.). William L. Gormley (R-NJ). Bill McCollum (R-Fla.). Bill Redmond (R-NM). Bob Riley (R-Ala.). Claude B. Hutchison Jr. (R-Calif.). Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.). Francis E. Flotron (R-Mo.). George Allen (R-Va.). Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.). Walter B. Jones Jr. (R-NC). Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). Bob Smith (R-Fla.). Joe Pitts (R-PA). Charles H. Taylor (R-NC). Bob Ehrlich (R-Md.). Charles R. Gerow (R-Pa.). Ed Royce (R-Calif.). Elia Vincent Pirozzi (R-Calif.). Jerry Weller (R-Ill.). Mark Emerson (R-Utah). Tom Davis (R-Va.). Van Hilleary (R-Tenn.).

Notice the "R" in each case. But where is Roy?

One of Abramoff's money laundering setups was a PAC called, cynically enough, the "U. S. Family Network", which was basically one employee manning a phone and computer in the backroom of a D. C. townhouse. Millions in illicit funds swindled from Indian tribes and shady Russian gas and oil magnates came through this office. And guess whose own personal PAC shared office space with the Abramoff front? None other that our own Roy Blunt's "Rely On Your Beliefs" (clever acronym - ROYB).

There's an interesting article in the New Republic about how warm and fuzzy Roy and Tom DeLay have become over the past five years - and how this association may eventually lead to our golden boy's fall from grace.

DeLay was instrumental in boosting Blunt's rise to power in Congress, but Blunt (and his lobbyist wife) also became involved in DeLay's fundraising network, which led him into the great political fundraising arena with none other than the master of slime, Jack Abramoff.

Abramoff also reportedly gave the Bush campaign $100,000 of his ill-gotten gains. The White House, of course, denies this.

Ah, don't ya just love the GOP with their high moral stand and Family Values? One can only hope that this scandal will be the beginning of the end of their nauseating brand of "Christian" ethics in government. Almost makes you wistful for the good old days when the Dems were in power, when we dealt with simpler transgressions like questionable book deals and using congressional postage meters for campaign mail.

Interested in finding out more about who contributes to candidates? Visit a new local blog called Granny Geek. Interesting stuff.

The 2005 Ozarks Angel

I started this blog back in May when I had a couple of days off from work due to a swollen nut. That healed up nicely, in case you were wondering, but I'm still paying the $800 bill. Gotta love our healthcare system - oh, and my wonderful school health insurance covered a whopping $82. Anyway, that was an unlikely topic to start a blog, but there it is. Now, some 3,400 clicks later, we're still plugging away. Here's a review of the year 2005 sifted through some of the Ozarks Angel posts.

Of course, the really huge story that christened this crazy year of 2005 was the slow discovery of the devastation incurred by the killer tsunami that swept away some quarter of a million lives in Asia. Here at home, president Bush was characteristically distant and, despite daily briefings, seemingly uninformed about the magnitude of this disaster - a foreshadowing of his lackadaisical response to the Katrina disaster seven months later. It seems Bush can only get himself worked up if there's evil afoot. These natural disasters just don't move him much, whether foreign or in the "homeland". There's no bad guy involved. It does seem odd, though, that a man who feels called of God to fight tyranny (at least in oil-rich parts of the world) can be so indifferent to cataclysmic acts of God that dwarf his man-made crusade in Iraq.

By March of 2005, the American public and media, which we now can confirm suffers from acute Attention Deficit Disorder, had turned its attention to the plight of Terri Schiavo, whose feeding tube was finally yanked after numerous judicial appeals and a great gnashing of teeth from the Christian right - but not before a special session of Congress was called by Republican leadership as they sought to keep her brain-dead body alive for still more court appeals. President Bush, at the urging of his handlers, leaped to action this time and cut his vacation short in order to get the federal courts to deter Ms. Schiavo's natural departure from this life. Talk about skewed priorities. The Ozarks Angel spoke briefly to this issue when we reviewed an article from an Assemblies of God. Strange, we don't get mail from A/G anymore.

Pope John Paul II died in April - like Schiavo, another case of a person living too long. Not to be disrespectful, but this once vital and energetic man, who will be regarded as one of the greatest popes of modern times for helping to bring down the Soviet empire, was reduced in his final days to muttering unintelligible homilies and waving at pigeons from his balcony. Some of my best friends are Catholic, but I've never understood the appeal of this religion. I see Catholicism, from my vantage point here in the hills, as a male-dominated, authoritarian, superstition-filled holdover from medieval times. I don't think the new pope is going to do much to alter that view, but we mentioned back in July how folks here in God's Country seem to like Pope Benedict, particularly for his stand against homosexuality.

In May, we wrote about how the Springfield police had busted Mayor Carlson's son and fast-tracked the lab work in order to beat the mayoral election. Chief Rowe brought in a buddy from Miami, Florida, of all places, to oversee the internal investigation. This intense search for the facts, of course, turned up no misdeeds whatsoever by SPD. Was anybody shocked? The story was basically buried, and Carlson's son pleaded guilty a few weeks ago.

In Middle School Mind, we see a teacher trying to explain the Iraq invasion to a class of inquisitive adolescents. Some seven months later, the concluding statement still stands true.
"So, based on the newspaper day discussion in Exploratory class, one could conclude that we are at war in Iraq more out of ignorance than duty and that our busy lives won't allow us the time nor the inclination to find the truth behind the spin."
Some of the Bush spin on Iraq has come unraveled a bit since then, but even the most obvious truths become a hard sell when lies and half-truths are so persuasively marketed by those in power. Here in God's Country, Bush still gets high marks for his handling of the war - but Vlad the Impaler would get high marks around here if he was a Republican.

Probably the most frequently downloaded image from Ozarks Angel is the Hammons Field photo from May 30. I still maintain the return of real minor league baseball was the most significant event in Springfield in the last fifty years.


Another very popular download (even though I stole it from another website) is the photo of Washington girl-about-town, Jessica Cutler, whose between-the-sheets blog, The Washingtonienne, revealed the secret sex lives of certain anonymous diplomats. My favorite line: "Oh my god, I'm fucking six different men, ew." Ms. Cutler has a new blog called Jessica Cutler Online.

In July, I found myself whining about the mainstream media and wondered if the Valerie Plame scandal might finally get some people looking at the unethical and unconstitutional activities of the Bush administration. I speculated that Cheney and Rove were behind the whole thing, and that has turned out to be accurate. It looks as though Rove lied to the grand jury, and Cheney's little toady, Scooter Libby, was chosen as the one to fall on his sword to protect our stealth president from indictment.

In mid-July, we featured a story criticizing Bush's war on terror, pointing out how he and his neocon pals ignored advice from nearly every quarter in pressing for war in Iraq. One of our dictator allies in the Middle East, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, who "won" re-election in a fixed vote this fall, was one of many world leaders who tried to dissuade Bush & Co. from invading Iraq. He warned that such an invasion would create 100 Bin Ladens and turn even moderate Arabs against the U. S. His warning proved to be true - the invasion of Iraq has inspired tens of thousands of young Islamic men to join the jihad against the infidel invaders from America. Our own military, however, is having trouble meeting recruitment quotas.

In late July and August we started posting some cartoons from the springfieldian, a little underground newspaper that circulated around town during the early 90's. These turned out to be some of the most frequently downloaded images from Ozarks Angel, especially SPD Blues and cartoon parodies of Charlie Brown and Garfield that had a local twist.

Another frequently visited story was the strange and twisted tale of the "Self-Abduction of Tim Carpenter", the James River Assembly associate pastor who chose to fake his own abduction rather than face up to his wife, family and church that he was carrying on with a Jezebel in Memphis. It would be funny if it weren't so sad.

In mid-August, right before the first day of school, our brilliant school board chose to roll back a much sought after tax levy, which sent all kinds of wrong signals to the community and to R-12 teachers. It was an awful start for new superintendent, Norm Ridder, but there will be much more on the education front in Ozarks Angel this year. Among other things, there's a new quality initiative being pushed by Dr. Ridder that could lead to some real changes at the administrative level and in the classroom. I'm hopeful but skeptical.

By September, we were talking about the Drowning of New Orleans and how warnings of impending disaster had been ignored for years. Of course, nothing was going to happen on that front during the Bush administration. Yer doin' a great job Bushie!

If hurricane Katrina exposed the administration's indifference to the poor, the nomination of Harriet Miers exposed Bush's blatant arrogance and ignorance when it came to high-stakes judicial appointments. Our Girl Harriet generated the most heated comments from readers - mainly because of my description of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas as an Uncle Tom. It's never helpful to bring race into the discussion, but I've always felt it was a very cynical appointment by daddy Bush. The Miers appointment surprised everybody - and the fact that conservatives were the most vocal critics sure surprised me. She would have done anything they wanted - but the nomination seemed so cavalier and disrespectful to the court, even the faithful stepped back from this one. The emperor's clothes were starting to unravel a bit.

In October we wrote about the Community Safety Initiative that would have funded a new crime lab and, more importantly, a program aimed at providing education services to poor children in a cooperative effort with the school system. The local citizenry were predictably wary of this "big government" approach to helping poor kids. "Let the parents take care of this," they wrote in letters to the editor. "It's big government taking over the family". The sad truth is, a growing number of parents aren't taking care of their children - it's a huge problem that nobody wants to talk about. Early childhood development is simply not a major concern here in God's country. We simply invest in bigger and better prisons to later house the large segment of under-educated poor folks who end up turning to drugs and criminal behavior to get by. Who will take up the slack and help the growing number of children born into poverty? Apparently nobody. Where do we look for help in dealing with poverty-related issues like this? Jefferson City? D. C.? Nothing there but cutbacks and vaccuous rhetoric. Maybe Jesus will come and save the children, you suppose? This local initiative was relatively small, but it had the potential to pay huge dividends in lowering crime and providing early basic education for poor children in our community. I was one of the minority of Springfieldians who were willing to invest an additional penny for every four dollars spent on this plan. The CSI initiative was, of course, summarily squashed by local voters in November.

Merry Christmas, Yada, Yada

I gave all my classes a test on the last day before Christmas break. Humbug! One kid asked why I was such a Scrooge, and my answer went something like this:

The original cause for celebration was suppose to be the birth of a spiritual being whose life and teachings changed the entire world and inspired countless millions of followers to love their neighbors as themselves, pursue peace over war and violence, protect the innocent, take care of the poor and sick and to spread love and understanding among all people, regardless of their social standing.

And what do we now do to celebrate this spiritual being's birth? We get out our credit cards and shop like madmen . . . we measure the season's success by keeping a close eye on consumer spending, credit card debt and whether or not massive department stores match their earnings estimates. We erect quaint little prop-up manger scenes outside fast food restaurants - I saw one manger scene in front of a Baptist church that had Santa Claus kneeling with the wise men. Aww, how precious.

It took generations to bastardize the Christmas season into this blind orgy of mass consumerism, but here we are, lining up like lemmings trying to get in the mall, deluding ourselves into thinking this is a spiritual holiday.

The best thing I can say about the holiday season is that, for better or worse, it brings families together. True, we dutifully buy gifts for people we don't care about much, but we also take time to give of ourselves to those we love immeasurably, and that is no small thing to remember. It helps get me through it all.

Oral Arguments for Impeachment

from Lady Bunny Blog

No Surprise From Gov. Blunt

As if on cue, the morning after yesterday's Ozarks Angel post about how a Washington, D. C. political action group is supplying talking points for Republican politicians on education "reform", our esteemed boy-governor Blunt stepped right up and submits a News-Leader guest editorial that parrots virtually every point we wrote about last night. How wonderful it must be to have other people do your thinking for you.

As predicted, Blunt spoke of supplying 65% of funding "directly to the classrooms", and then went to bat for raising teacher salaries, which he called, presumably with a straight face, "the most important part of any school district's budget". Blunt then went on to describe how appalled he was that Missouri teacher salaries are ranked 44th in the U. S.. (If you can find a Republican governor or legislator who has called for teacher salary increases in the last 25 years, I'll buy you lunch.)

Last night I wrote that this 65% solution aims to pit teachers against administrators and teacher organizations. Blunt obligingly says "as pay for teachers lags, pay increases for administrators have been nothing short of massive . . . the average Missouri superintendent has received three times the additional compensation that has been found for teachers . . . I certainly value the work of superintendents," Blunt writes, "but I value teachers more."

You can see that the governor is going directly to the voter with these arguments and is likely to get little, if any, support from school boards and administrators.

Let me again excerpt a memo from the Washington, D. C. political action group (First Class Education) that is pushing this proposal:

"With the First Class Education issue on the ballot, Republicans will have a viable answer to 'in the classroom improvement of education' without the need to call for a tax increase, offsetting budget cuts in other popular programs or gimmick accounting and deficit spending." The memo also states that there are other "tangential political advantages," such as pitting teachers and administrators against each other and building support for school vouchers."

Blunt has chosen to call this push "Putting Our Students First". He estimates that cuts in administration, libraries, counseling, bus transportation, janitorial services, cooks and other jobs and services will net over $270 million for the classroom (books, technology, resources and teacher salaries).

And all this without one dollar of additional taxes . . . that's the part that will play well to the GOP faithful here in the 7th district.

There was an excellent editorial rebuttal to Blunt's piece by former Nixa superintendent Terry Reid.

65% Solution Media Blitz Coming Soon

Be prepared for the next big thing in politically-motivated, GOP-backed bullshit regarding public education - the much-heralded and very controversial "65% Solution". It's coming to you via our esteemed boy-governor, Matt Blunt, in the form of a statewide referendum which is tentatively schedule for next November. I can almost hear the television commercials already.

This new educational shell game comes to us by way of a Washington, D. C. lobbying group called "First Class Education"(FCE) - an organization founded by millionaire entrepreneur Patrick M. Byrne, president of online shopping spot Overstock.com. Byrne, who is into martial arts and is a former boxer, fashions himself as the Robin Hood of public education. The 65% plan would supposedly improve classroom instruction by guaranteeing that 65% of all education revenue be directly targeted to teachers and students in the classroom. Sounds simple enough. This should play well here in God's country.

The idea is that educational bureaucracy promotes the mispending of education revenue on needless administrative fluff that is not directly related to the classroom. This sounds great on the surface. I've been one of the many teachers who believe there is a great deal of waste at the administrative level - not to mention some ridiculously high salaries. (The raise given Springfield's own superintendent last year represented 150% of my annual salary.)

Columnist George Will describes Byrne and his plan in an April Op-Ed piece in the Washington Post:

"Patrick Byrne, a 42-year-old bear of a man who bristles with ideas that have made him rich and restless, has an idea that can provide a new desktop computer for every student in America without costing taxpayers a new nickel. Or it could provide 300,000 new $40,000-a-year teachers without any increase in taxes. His idea -- call it the 65 Percent Solution -- is politically delicious because it unites parents, taxpayers and teachers while, he hopes, sowing dissension in the ranks of the teachers unions, which he considers the principal institutional impediment to improving primary and secondary education."

Politically delicious - yes indeed. This is why so many Republican governors are salivating at the idea of presenting this highly-marketable idea to the voting public. But is a referendum even necessary? Why not just present a bill and get it passed? Robert Leger, editorial page editor for our own News-Leader, questions Boy Blunt's motivation in his November 27 editorial. Leger wonders:

"So why a statewide vote? The top race on the November ballot will be the hotly contested campaign between Sen. Jim Talent and his Democratic challenger, Auditor Claire McCaskill. The issue conceivably helps the Republican.
Blunt, who has his own challenge from Attorney General Jay Nixon looming in 2008, would likely be featured in television ads supporting classroom teachers. That could help boost the image of a governor saddled with some of the lowest approval ratings in the nation."

Leger also mentions a memo emanating from the D. C. headquarters of "First Class Education which states:

"With the First Class Education issue on the ballot, Republicans will have a viable answer to 'in the classroom improvement of education' without the need to call for a tax increase, offsetting budget cuts in other popular programs or gimmick accounting and deficit spending.

The memo also lists other "tangential political advantages," such as pitting teachers and administrators against each other and building support for school vouchers."

Aha! The Trojan Horse has been exposed! This big initiative begins to look and sound very much like a Republican marketing plan to undo public education. How clever - plus, as an added bonus, it could also place teachers at odds with their own professional organizations like the NEA. FCE founder Byrne does little to hide his disdain for the nation's largest teacher's union. He once said that if he had one silver bullet he would use it to eliminate the NEA, an organization he views as a haven for "educrats". My experience, however, has been that the NEA has fought administrative over-spending and fluff in order to put more money into the classroom and increase teacher salaries, which is precisely what the "65% Solution" purports to do.

It's all very interesting. And I have to admit, even as an active NEA member, that the idea of cutting our top-heavy administrative positions and salaries in order to increase teacher pay and reduce class size makes perfect sense.

You can see how this will be marketed, and you can be sure the debate over this 'solution' will be loud and rancorous. Missouri NEA president, Greg Jung, has already issued a pointed rebuttal to the proposal, calling it "the 65% deception." Most opponents point to what they believe will be huge cuts in school libraries and counseling services, just for starters.

Though there are aspects of this 'solution' that appeal to me, I don't trust the GOP to back anything regarding public education because I strongly suspect their underlying long-term effort aims to promote a voucher system that will further stratify our society. On the other hand, I've been calling for education reform, particularly in the form of administrative cuts, for as long as I can remember.

Governor Blunt's little trial balloon on this issue sailed into town a couple of weeks ago, and it was routinely punctured by local school board officials, who criticized it as a "one size fits all" measure that imposed statewide standards indiscriminantly on diverse school systems - and diminishes local control. We'll be hearing more on this, you can bet on it.

Busch Stadium Going Down

I was in St. Louis a couple of weeks ago for a conference. I hadn't been to any such event in a long while - not since library days. Now that's a whole 'nother story, partying librarians. More on that later.

I shared a room with another teacher from a school across town. We got along just fine except for the fact that I had trouble sleeping both nights - probably due to the fact that it was just a strange place, and I'm a light sleeper.

Anyway, I was wide awake both mornings at the crack of dawn, and proceeded to explore downtown St. Louis before the city was awake. It was surprising how few cars and pedestrians were out and about at 6:00 a.m. I swear I saw a coyote walking around down by the arch, and several rabbits hopping around the hotel grounds.

No matter what direction I walked, I was always drawn toward Busch Stadium. Crews were working around the clock wrecking the historic landmark. Though I have never been a big Cardinals fan, I have spent many an hour watching some great baseball at Busch. The arch was a glistening backdrop to perfect symmetry of stadium roof. The pictures don't do it justice.

Next door to old Busch is the new Busch - a stadium built on the model of Camden Yard, a brand new vintage-style baseball field that looks older than the one it replaces. I guess it's a sign of the times that the new stadium will actually seat fewer baseball fans, but stadium revenue is expected to increase due to the construction of larger corporate clubs and boxes. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Missouri taxpayers footed a good deal of the bill for this demolition/construction - but fewer of them will be able to buy tickets to watch a game.

So, here are the early morning pics of the old space-aged Busch coming down. The wrecking ball was banging away, crushing concrete into dust clouds.

CIA Provided Bush Accurate Intel on 9/21/01

On September 21, 2001 - ten days after the 9/11 attacks - president Bush received a highly classified report from the CIA regarding possible links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. I read about this interesting bit of pre-war intelligence in a piece written by Murray Waas for the National Journal.

While the CIA and FBI took a lot of heat for not doing a better job of tracking the 9/11 terrorists before the attack, the CIA did provide what turned out to be very accurate information regarding the absence of a Saddam/Al Qaeda conspiracy leading up to the 9/11 attack.

It is becoming clear that the Bush administration was intent on cherry-picking their intelligence reports to back up their call for war. When the largest intelligence organization in the world didn't give them what they wanted, Cheney and Co. took their sources from wherever they could. Their groping around for threads from foreign spy networks led them to base some important pieces of their pro-war propaganda campaign on forged documents that somehow circumvented CIA inspection and were sent directly to the White House from some shady Italian spy-for-hire. The document was suppose to confirm that Saddam Hussein was trying to purchase yellow-cake uranium from a contact in Niger. This was the basis from Bush's dramatic "mushroom cloud" warning in his state of the union address (and the beginnings of Plamegate).

Another source was an Iraqi citizen who was interviewed and given a lie detector test by the CIA (more on this in a interesting Rolling Stone piece). This individual, code-named Curveball, supposedly had worked in the Iraqi chemical industry and was desperately trying to obtain a German visa. In his efforts to ingratiate himself with American and German authorities, he gave them what turned out to be totally fabricated information about Saddam's mobile chemical labs and plans to stockpile chemical weapons. Some of this guy's tall tale found its way into Colin Powell's speech before the United Nations - a speech he now regretably describes as "a real low point".

Here's another interesting snippet from the National Journal piece:

"One of the more intriguing things that Bush was told during the briefing was that the few credible reports of contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda involved attempts by Saddam Hussein to monitor the terrorist group. Saddam viewed Al Qaeda as well as other theocratic radical Islamist organizations as a potential threat to his secular regime. At one point, analysts believed, Saddam considered infiltrating the ranks of Al Qaeda with Iraqi nationals or even Iraqi intelligence operatives to learn more about its inner workings, according to records and sources."

According to the CIA, not only was Saddam not working with Al Qaeda, he was trying to figure out ways to keep militant religious fanaticism out of Iraq. The irony is thick when we now see how George Bush and Co. toppled Saddam's secular (albeit unfriendly) regime only to inspire the movement of thousands of Al Qaeda recruits onto Iraqi soil - and for his effort, Iraq is now the terrorist capital of the world.

(For more thoughts on selective intelligence - how the Bush Admin. sliced and diced intelligence leading up to the invasion of Iraq - take a look The Misleaders from Slate.)

Words of Wisdom from Jimmy Carter

I remember when this guy was president. He was basically run out of town by his own party when he tried to buck party traditions - sort of backfired on the dems when Ronald Reagan swept to power in 1980. Carter came to Springfield on that election day, and I went to see him at the airport. Not many people showed up, of course. Everybody knew he was going to lose, including Carter himself.

I've always respected old Jimmy. He was a knowledgeable and thoughtful man - an honest man. He was ridiculed for his beliefs at a time when politicians didn't wear their religion on their sleeve. Now, he is starting to speak out about the mixing of religion and politics and the lack of moral and ethical leadership from the GOP and the Bush administration. Here's a link to his editorial in the L. A. Times entitled: This Isn't the Real America.

State of the Union

A friend at work who happens to be a Republican said an odd thing to me the other day.
"I guess you're feeling pretty good about all the trouble Bush is in right now," he said. I felt a little insulted, since he was attributing what I consider a Republican character trait to me - petty political vindictiveness. It always seemed to me that the GOP was the party that would stop at nothing to destroy political opponents - ala Bill Clinton, whose own "scandals" (Whitewater - in which he was accused of losing several thousand dollars in a screwed up land deal; Travelgate, where Clinton appointed friends to White House travel office positions, gasp!); somehow evolved, through the office of special prosecutor Kenneth Starr via office gossip Linda Tripp, to a case that eventually had the leader of the free world lying about blow jobs in the Oval Office. The result: for only the second time in American history, a president was impeached. Over what? Tell me again how many lives were lost in all these terrible "scandals"?

I remember the frothing indignation that reigned supreme in the halls of Congress during Clinton's second term. The GOP literally put their own political agenda ahead of national security during those years. I blame them for distracting an entire nation over petty political vindictiveness - and all this while Osama bin Laden was building a terror network centered in Afghanistan.

Then, after the Supreme Court awarded the presidency to George Bush (even though he lost the popular vote by more than 500,000 votes), we see an opportunistic group of shadowy right-wing foreign policy wonks take control of an administration and set about to knowingly dupe Congress and the American public, utilizing trumped up fear-mongering and forged intelligence documents, into an unprecedented pre-emptive war against a third world dictatorship that posed no threat whatsoever to this country (but did possess huge oil reserves).

This could only happen under the weak and blissfully arrogant "leadership" of a man like George W. Bush - a man who, according to the chief of staff of his own State Department was "not well versed in international relations and not too much interested in them either".

Even before 9/11, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their little cadre of neoconmen were hard at work planning the Iraqi invasion. They sold the idea to our clueless leader with remarkable ease ("He tried to kill my dad"), and the die was cast. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who was later fired for not towing the party line, was astounded by how, just ten days after the inauguration, discussion of regime change in Iraq monopolized the first cabinet meeting. "For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the U.S. has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap," O'Neill later told an interviewer.

As the Bush administration ignored urgent warnings from counter-terrorist expert Richard Clarke and Arab leaders like Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Cheney and Rumsfeld and their neocon buddies remained steadfast in their push to invade Iraq. They were confident, given past marketing successes, that the case for war against Iraq would be easy enough to sell. The war machine that they helped assemble during the Reagan/Bush years would easily and swiftly crush the Iraqi army, no problem there (Shock and Awe/Mission Accomplished, right?) - and the Iraqi people will welcome us with open arms. The problem was, the CIA was not able to produce any definitive evidence of immediate threats posed by Iraq.

What to do . . .

And then came 9/11 - the day that changed everything. A shocked nation looked to their president for leadership, and he filled this role well in the first few months. The invasion of Afghanistan made sense - this was the center of the terrorist universe, and the U.S. was universally supported in this military action. The Taliban was quickly defeated, terrorist bases were destroyed and Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants were on the run - and somebody in the Bush "braintrust" realized the window of opportunity had flown open. Would there ever be a better time to launch the assault on Baghdad? Many Democrats and even a few Republicans in Congress (not to mention Bush's own Secretary of State, Colin Powell) were instinctively against such a potentially disastrous foray into the heart of the Middle East, but only a few had the balls to speak up - many, like John Kerrey, chose to back the war out of political expediency, fearing their objections would be seen as unpatriotic.

Now, years later, we see the truth beginning to filter out, as it always does in time. No, I don't gain any satisfaction whatsoever that Bush is in trouble. I wish he had never gained high political office. He's a weak man who has always been bailed out when things didn't work out for him. This time, however, the stakes are just a bit higher. It just saddens and scares me that the American public can be so malleable, so easily duped, so easily led astray by a bunch of political ideologues linked to a very effective GOP propaganda machine. The end justifies the means with these people. They now openly condone torture, operate secret prisons, arrest and hold suspects without charging them - and think nothing of slaughtering politically anyone gets in their way. This is precisely how police states are manufactured, how tyrants gain power. I now know, without a doubt, that it can happen here. No, I couldn't care less what happens to George Bush. I worry about the world my kids will inherit.