With a tendency to mangle spoken English,
“I swear to unfold and bend the Constitution of the United States”
may be what George W. Bush really said at his swearing-in ceremony.
By Thomas Hutchings
Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam – Talk among expatriates here usually centers around ways to make life easier in dealing with the rain, current cold temperatures of 72 degrees and traffic jams. On many occasions, talk swirls around the sad, desperate political state of affairs in America with a “President gone wild;"
Loose cannon may be the more appropriate term.
SECRET PRESIDENTIAL ORDER
In my last article, “Criminals in the White House,” it wasn’t even pondered that a crime against the revered Constitution of the United States was being committed secretly by order of George W. Bush. He has committed an act of terrorism against this hallowed document with his secret presidential order after the attacks on the World Trade Center, attacked predominantly by Saudi Arabians, yet Afghanistan and Iraq paid the price. To that list of entities under attack, we now add the Constitution of the United States and US citizens. In retrospect, not only US citizens are under surveillance, but anybody who resides on this planet.
CONGRESSIONAL MEMBERS KNEW AND CLOSED THEIR EYES
Members of Congress, lacking testicular organs (with all due respect to the Honorable Women of Congress), knew of the program and turned a blind eye in blatant disregard for the Constitution. As reported in the New York Times, “Some officials familiar with it say they consider warrantless eavesdropping inside the United States to be unlawful and possibly unconstitutional, amounting to an improper search. One government official involved in the operation said he privately complained to a Congressional official about his doubts about the program's legality. But nothing came of his inquiry. "People just looked the other way because they didn't want to know what was going on," he said.
BLOW JOB VERSUS CON JOB
I may be pushing a limit here, but a sex act engaged in by President Clinton in the White House was minor given its relevance, yet a Republican majority House decided to impeach Clinton because of a stained dress. Now, a Republican majority House repeatedly refuses to bring any charges against George W. Bush who admittedly last week acknowledged that approximately 30,000 Iraqis have died in the “George W. Bush and Neo-Cons War Against Iraq." Over 2,100 American lives have been lost and the reasons for his war, as he now admits, was based on faulty intelligence. Let’s face it; George W. Bush wanted the war and
LIED (bold, italics and underlined so as the reader knows exactly what I mean) to the American people to sell it. He is now caught shredding the Constitution of the United States. Which is worse, Clinton’s oral sex or the killing of human lives and civil liberties? We know where Republican hearts lie.
REPUBLICANS CONTINUE PARANOIA
The New York Times story was delayed for a year because of investigations, it claims. The release also coincides with Congressional repudiation of the Bush Administration’s urging to reauthorize key surveillance sections of the USA PATRIOT Act. Republicans love to play on building paranoia in order to get what they most greedily want – power over the lives of others.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is reported to have said in a BBC article, “We have a clear choice before us today: Do we advance against terrorism to make America safer or do we retreat?" Senator Frist is merely frightening people into getting what he wants.
Sen. Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican, stated, “God forbid that there be a terrorist attack that could have been prevented by the Patriot Act after it has expired." This is Kyl’s scare tactic.
Americans should realize that individuals like Frist, Kyl and George W. Bush are advancing an agenda to make America contain the most frightened and paranoid of all peoples in the world, including its law enforcement, which now operates with a hair trigger.
Only a complete political revamp of American government can restore some sensibility to the country. In personal conversations with other nationals who reside or pass through Saigon, America is not seen as a moral and ethical standard, but rather, America is suspect in its foreign policy and seen as completely immoral in its governance.
CONGRESS NEED A HEALTHY DOSE OF CALCIUM IN ITS SPINE
A cowardly Congress is finally finding its much-needed calcium supplements by those who are denying George W. Bush and his ilk the reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act, but they need more. They are finally beginning to question the illegal and unconstitutional secret presidential orders. Nothing less than an impeachment of George W. Bush can help Congressional members recover and display an unprecedented courage in repudiating a President with a penchant for denying civil liberties and lies.
The American people have been at the crossroads for a long time, staring like scared rabbits caught in the headlights of a juggernaut driven by Bush and the Neo-Cons. America, take your country back. Urge immediate impeachment and removal of George W. Bush and the Dick Cheney from office.
