Wednesday, November 12, 2003

…Go to Google and type in "Bush hatred," and you will be "shocked and awed" by the number of entries. I love it when the Right Wing describes it as a "mental illness." They should know. As a young girl, I witnessed years of Republican villification of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and never believed that such fury and frothing and shaking of well-fed pink jowels could be duplicated, until I saw how they savaged President Clinton.. The Far Right is accustomed to having the exclusive franchise on rage. They rail when they discover there is rage out there to match their own. What we Liberals need is an intelligent, empathetic, informed, street fighter. Especially a street fighter who knows how to fight dirty like the people we are up against. I think, perhaps, Howard Dean, could handle it.                                         *** 6:57:35 PM    comment []

In his NYT column today, William Safire refers to the war in Iraq as"Iraq's liberation." So now we shall be known as that country's liberators. I had no idea that this was a war of "liberation." I thought it was a defensive war, launched to save us from W.M.D., Al Queda and, as Tony Blair put it, an Iraqi attack that could befall the U.S. in less than an hour's time.                                                 *** I admire the way Mr. Bush has eased in the phrase "central war" when referring to our occupation of Iraq. It carries the hint that we are now fighting terrorists in Iraq by choice. As if we had chosen a "central war front, and perhaps we did. Yet, if that's so, the question still looms large: Whose idea was it to attract terrorists, like flies to honey, and then swat them in somebody else's country? It's not playing leapfrog to imagine that terrorists, paid by Saddam Hussein's billions, are now encouraging insurgency among Iraqis.                                                               *** It's truly amazing how words and phrases get implanted. Another example is the phrase "Medicare reform." To me, anyway, "reforming" means righting some kind of wrong. Yet, today, this description is accepted, without question, by all of us. Medicare doesn't need "reforming; it needs to be extended to cover more people and pharmaceuticals. "Medicare Extension" sounds more like good PR. Even if there is a hidden agenda, and you can be sure that there is. 3:47:26 PM    comment []

You vill become a democracy like us in our beloved homeland or you vill face the consequences. 9:07:28 AM    comment []

*** (Funny thing, we never seemed very interested in importing democracy to countries where we helped install dictators.)                                                    *** ...In a speech to the Heritage Foundation, Mr. Bush once again declared: "Our men and women are fighting terrorist enemies thousand of miles away in the heart and center of their power, so that we do not face those enemies in the heart of America."  One has to wonder if the man understands what he is saying.  If so, and if he means it, he might just as well lay it out with something like "We attacked Iraq and spilled blood on foreign soil, so it won't happen here at home." Or, more clearly: "We attacked and put our men and women in harm's way so that we may be safe in our corporate towers and behind our white picket fences." What a thoughtless, insensitive, dumb thing to say to the American people.  And the sad part is that Mr. Bush surely knows that smashing Iraq won't stop terrorists from attacking us here.  One also fears that many Americans applaud this twisted pronouncement.                                                ***                    8:59:50 AM    comment []