Calm Before the Storm

For the last two days I have enjoyed listening to Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committe rail on National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice over her role in the Iraq War. This morning's panel hearing, lasting less than an hour, was music to my ears as Barbara Boxer and Joe Biden (while ultimately splitting their votes) castigated Rice, and essentially, the Bush Administration, for her poor efforts in the initial al Qaeda attacks and the subsequent Iraq quagmire. Listening to two Democrats admonishing an executive official like they held the power to do so was not only a comeuppance to the Bushies but also a noise that I have been waiting to hear for four years. While John Kerry voted with Boxer in opposing Rice's nomination, he was silent in most of her hearings. Understandably, he kept quiet as to not appear the sore loser in presidential race, yet the Democrats had the opportunity to take the Bushies to task and many chose to sit idle. Praises to Biden and Boxer to finally speak what a growing number of Americans feel (not by my intuition but a number of Gallup polls) that George Bush has failed in Iraq. To hear Senator Boxer in more words than none call the NSA CondoLIEzza Rice was brilliant; a woman with a Ph.D. in international government relations, most of her adult life in leadership roles both in the private sector and the federal government did one of two things regarding the evidence the Bush Administration used in promoting its war with Iraq: she showed a clear amount of ineptitude in deciphering poor intelligence or she pushed a fabrication of evidence. For a person of her caliber to demonstrate sheer cluelessness is not convincing, even to the most avid Bush supporter; Rice's acceptance of evidence even as shady as the Niger yellowcake line smells like the 21st Century Gulf of Tonkin and yet the American public bought it hook, line, and sinker. We deserve this mess in Iraq because the majority of voters wanted Bush. The Pottery Barn motto is now coming back to haunt us greatly.
Tomorrow, George Bush will take the oath of office in the fifty-fifth inauguration ceremony of this country's history. He will begin his second four-year term pushing for the eradication of Social Security, a furtherance of the privatization of the responsibilities of the federal government, and the claim of striking success with Iraq's national election though the greatest insurgence of violence in the last two years is upon us. God help us if we as the U.S. of A. wish to remain not only the world's dominant superpower but also the beacon and model of hope for the world as this president will do all he can to wipe out all means of strength, hope, and success this country still clings to.
God bless Seymour Hersch for reporting in this week's New Yorker about the clandestine military efforts in Iran. Iran has been the greatest problem in the Middle East yet the Bushies fouled up Iraq so bad that most public support has now been lost. Had Bush successfully toppled the Hussein regime and installed a democratic, free nation, the overthrow of the mullahs in neighboring Iran would have not only widespread support but also a fighting chance. The Bush Administration claims that Sy Hersch's story is total bunk. We should look into this man's journalitic past to expose the lies and fabrications he has printed: My Lai, Iran-contra, Iraq, Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib. Yep, this guy's lying. Look at his record; he hasn't been right yet.
May these States that are not United find the courage to stand up for the true tenets of the modern American ideal - a people, working for individual improvement but participating in aiding the opportunity of all, striving to spread democracy, liberal ideas and free markets, who wish to see themselves free and safe as well as their children and the children of all nations, guiding a nation that serves as a benevolent leader with a clear vision and hope for the future.