Real Terrorism - Rice-In

Colin Powell, the only level-headed non-neocon chicken hawk of the Bush Administration's first four years officially resigned yesterday, leaving a huge opportunity for the president to continue carrying out his antiquated, anachronistic foreign policy by naming National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice as his successor. This is truly the coup de grace for Bush and the final nail on the coffin for the any chance of international agreance on anything. Rice, who served a naive and disastrous term in the NSA will serve as the Cheney/Wolfowitz pawn for Bush, but because she's smart, witty, and pretty, she poses as a nice front. Here's the kinder, gentler Orwellian nightmare that we've feared. Rice, as exiting AG John Ashcroft, turned a blind eye to the threat of terrorism until all hell broke loose, pushed, like Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, for the illegal Iraq War, and then consistently flip-flopped publicly on the issue of Iraq's exact threat to the United States. On the public record, Rice's gaffes caused some serious questions to be raised by anyone in the independent/progressive/foreign media, yet her comments were sidelined by the mainstream American press. Anyone doing her/his homework will find that anytime Condi Rice was given the chance to speak 'off the cuff' in interviews often challenged the oft-pushed Bush lies with further lies or statements challenging official Bush policy. Now, I'll forgive Condi the Freudian slip of publically calling the president 'her husband' (she's single and has always been), but her purportion of lies I can not.
I don't think I am alone; unless viewers of CNN.com are a bunch of liberal wing-nut pinko commies (which I find extremely hard to believe), a majority cast its vote stating that Rice's nomination to head State would have a negative effect on U.S. foreign policy. Approximately 60% believe this. Now that's a mandate. If only Bush listened to the majority of Americans. Let's review the number of times he's done that:

Gun control/federal ban of assault rifles? No

Multi-national coalition to persuade the Hussein regime to comply? No

The use of the United Nations to further press sanctions on Iraq? No

The support of the democratically-elected president of Haiti to remain in power? No

The creation of a Department of Homeland Security? No, but gave in to Congressional and public pressure. So, yes. Flip-flop.

The creation of the 9/11 panel to investigate the attacks on the U.S? No, but gave in again to Congressional and public pressure. So, yes. Again, flip-flop. Someone on the Kerry Campaign truly failed to press this one.

The creation of a national system of health care that allows seniors to purchase drugs either from other countries or the ability to purchase generics at the same price as in other countries? No.

I could go on, but I would probably actually use up the entire world wide web which technically has no limit. Neither will my ranting, so I hope that WWW keeps expanding.

On an interesting side note: Vice President Dick Cheney was in the hospital experiencing chest pains. The White House's press statement noted that Cheney had a cold, but did not experience chest pains which of course, is a non-denial denial. Let's consider this: Cheney dies in the next year or so (let's hope for his sake as a human being that this doesn't happen). A man with health issues like Cheney, this game has to be played here. Cheney dies, which means Bush is out of a veep. While he does have the power to appoint, the Senate has the power to ratify the nomination. Who would Bush be able to nominate that the super-majority would approve of? I guarantee that it wouldn't be another Cheney-type politician. The veep would have to be much more open with his business affairs, past and present, not connected to the war in Iraq or any other big business that's currently screwing the country out of hundreds of millions of dollars or blackmailing other nations' governments, and be socially liberal enough to sense that any further knee-jerk movements to the Right would paint the GOP into a corner that it wouldn't be able to get out of without the creation of a military state or a theocracy. The country hasn't lost a veep since Agnew (oh, the comparison there!) and it's about time for the Constitution to actually be dusted off and read by the Administration. However, since Alberto Gonzalez will now be the new Attorney General, there's a small chance that this will actually happen. Do your homework on Gonzalez; the man unofficially sanctioned the use of torture on Iraqi soldiers and "enemy combatants", the first time the U.S. has included torture as a means of foreign policy. God bless the U.S. Speaking of God, his Son had better shut up about rich people giving their money and possessions to the poor; commanding the pious to stop being so self-righteous; serving God instead of paying Him lip service; following the edicts of the government whether they like the government or not; and remembering that the true children of God are those that wage peace. If Jesus were alive today, he'd be arrested and detained, and since he's from the Middle East, probably branded an enemy combatant and tortured.