Will Durst (56)
Oh for crum's sake, people. It was a joke! "If you don't study in school you'll end up getting stuck in Iraq." Get it? LIKE THE PRESIDENT! He can't get out of Iraq. He didn't study. He's stuck. John Kerry was talking about George Bush. He wasn't talking about our troops. John Kerry was a troop. Anybody who can't figure that out is either a cynical oaf hiding their scurrilous ass behind the troops or pretending they're dumber than they already are, and from all appearances, the President falls into one of those categories, and if its the latter, that's a very scary proposition indeed.
If you need more proof that President George Bush is as clueless as a goldfish on a leash in a space shuttle, you obviously didn't see him in all his counter-intuitive glory this week adamantly refuting the slogan of "staying the course" while keeping its policy EXACTLY THE SAME. That's right, George Bush is cutting and running from "stay the course." This doesn't mean he's a Defeatlican, though. Because “we are winning in Iraq and will continue to win." And you'd better hope we do, because if this is winning, you really REALLY don't want to see what losing looks like.
WINSTON CHURCHILL: "Democracy may be the worst form of government known to man, with the possible exception of every other form."
I don't know if you got your head screwed on tight right now, but if not, you might want to pull out some eight penny nails and a claw hammer and place them in the ready position. Because chances are, after you hear this, you're going to want to nail your skull onto your spine before it spins off into the ether like a runaway flesh colored helium balloon. A bi-partisan commission, headed by James Baker, is investigating options to George Bush's strategy of "staying the course" in Iraq. And it seems pretty apparent that, as soon as possible, (i.e., hours after the midterm election) wholesale changes are in store. Although, it's yet to be determined whether any of the strategic plans call for the President to step down and accept the position of greeter/shoveler at the official stables of the Arabian Horse Association, as is my suggestion.
"If you don't watch out, the Boogeyman is going to get you."
When we were young, every one of us suffered a grandparent or a creepy weird uncle or a fat pimply faced cousin who planted similar irrational fears in us. A psycho adult who got his jollies off by gleefully magnifying the shapeless dread of monsters lurking in the dark to susceptible children. Monsters who waited to gobble us up and skulked everywhere. Under the bed, in the back of the closet and pretty much the whole of the entire basement especially behind the furnace. And still, that creepy weird uncle continues to frighten us with tales of the Boogeyman. And that psycho adult's name is George Walker Bush.
Hubris. (Hyoo-bris) -noun. Excessive pride or self-confidence. Arrogance.
That's the dry dictionary definition. But if you want to see hubris in all its gooey partisan glory, check out the machinations Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, is going through as he twists and turns like a Chinese acrobat in zero gravity reacting to the Congressional page scandal. His first vault into the Olympics of sleaze was picking up the phone. Why? To express his outrage at Florida Republican Mark Foley's inappropriate overtures to young boys? Unh, no. Okay, to console the families of the children ensnared in these lurid imprecations? Well, no, not precisely that either. Then, to demand an investigation into why the report on Foley's behavior was buried by his office? Well, unh, no, no, not really, no. Wait! Wait! Let me think. Unh, no. No. 'Fraid not.
I always tremble like a hamster duct taped to a roto-tiller when George Bush struts into the spotlight on the world stage as he did this week when addressing the UN. The same feeling I get when San Francisco Giants closer Armando Benitez takes the mound in a save situation. It's a cover-your-eyes and peek-through-your-fingers sort of thing. A breath-holding whispered-prayers kind of time. Exciting, but not in what you call your good way. In a sweaty way.
Now that Labor Day is over, it took stores about 14 seconds to get rid of their "back- to- school" displays and replace them with shelves of Halloween regalia. And never missing a beat, Karl Rove had George W Bush take advantage of his Secret Service Platinum Card to get an early start on the pagan celebration by donning the most frightening disguise available and heading out to spook the countryside in a week long variation on the old "trick and treat" trek. This "fear and smear" tour featured the President digging deep into the pockets of his Pumpkin King costume, tossing seeds of dread and horror to all who watched while in the cross hairs of the media deluge of mourning in America on the 5th anniversary of 9/11.
Monday is the fifth anniversary of IX-XI and President Bush has apparently decided to prepare us for our national day of mourning by delivering a week long series of seminars on fear mongering. Okay, okay, maybe "fear mongering" is a bit much. Perhaps a better phrase would be "PR campaign of cheap political calculation," or "systematic exploitative pandering" or "a typical sleazy example from the Karl Rove electioneering handbook." Or as we have to come know it during the last six years: "business as usual."
A lot of trees died in vain as newsprint this week, reporting details of President Bush wasted, desperate attempt to float a new trial balloon in his tortured six year war against logic, reason, gravity and physics. Apparently he's in need of a new sack of gas to tie his failed Iraqi war plan to. Due to the fact that his most recent verbal bag of helium, "stay the course," has been tossed onto the same discarded pile of shriveled rubber as "dead or alive," "smoking gun as a mushroom cloud," and "welcomed with flowers and candy."
What a surprise. Republicans feverishly exploiting their echo chamber to pound out the familiar percussive drumbeat that Democrats are weenie girly men who can't be trusted to keep their frilly underwear unsoiled much less protect this country from terrorists. GOP mole Joseph Lieberman parroted the same crass cross party line when he nasally whined that Ned Lamont's win over him was a victory for the kind of people involved in the British Pakistani airline bomb plot. One news anchor on Fox News called Democrats "the Al Qaeda Party." And in response, Democrats have vowed to mount a vigorous defense. Soon. Maybe. Once they rinse out their underwear.
