Saturday, December 11, 2004
Bush delivers on national security
"w" keeps faith with the voters -- the Kerry voters
The election was like a blow to the head that caused me to lose political consciousness for several weeks. I'm not the only one who experienced news blackouts from the election trauma. Experts tell me that I may have to learn to live with permanent intermittent news blackouts -- or more correctly, with permanent, intermittent phases of caring about current events.
It's not like I've been reading the papers, but certain news items filter through, in the manner of rumors.
Like, how about Bush’s recent national security accomplishments? Bush’s first class nominee for Homeland Security chief, former NYC Police Kommish Bernard Kerik, has a massive conflict of interest in the form of millions of dollars of stock options in a taser-manufacturer that does big business with... the Department of Homeland Security. He then abruptly withdraws – on a Friday, of course, to minimize its impact on the news cycle – because he has a nannygate problem. You remember Nannygate: it’s the under-the-table employment of household help in violation of social security, tax or, in this case, immigration laws, that derailed Clinton’s first two nominees for Attorney General.
The White House was “caught off guard” by Kerik’s withdrawal, because... well, because violation of laws (or massive conflicts of interest) have never been considered a detriment to holding high-level posts in this administration.
In addition to bumbling the Department of Homeland Security, the administration we re-elected because it’s making us all safer tasked Donald Rumsfeld with publicly looking flummoxed when it was pointed out that U.S. transport vehicles sent into combat zones in Iraq are so poorly armored that American troops are sifting through Iraqi garbage dumps hoping to find scrap metal to put on our trucks.
Oh, well. At least our army is using Napalm on Iraqi insurgents. That's what passes for security policy in the "w" administration -- flouting international law and human rights.
There should be a way of grouping all the news stories in the next four years when the Bush administration performs absolutely to expectations in this way. How about a special section insert in the newspaper called “No Surprises Here,” or “Well, Duh!”
The election was like a blow to the head that caused me to lose political consciousness for several weeks. I'm not the only one who experienced news blackouts from the election trauma. Experts tell me that I may have to learn to live with permanent intermittent news blackouts -- or more correctly, with permanent, intermittent phases of caring about current events.
It's not like I've been reading the papers, but certain news items filter through, in the manner of rumors.
Like, how about Bush’s recent national security accomplishments? Bush’s first class nominee for Homeland Security chief, former NYC Police Kommish Bernard Kerik, has a massive conflict of interest in the form of millions of dollars of stock options in a taser-manufacturer that does big business with... the Department of Homeland Security. He then abruptly withdraws – on a Friday, of course, to minimize its impact on the news cycle – because he has a nannygate problem. You remember Nannygate: it’s the under-the-table employment of household help in violation of social security, tax or, in this case, immigration laws, that derailed Clinton’s first two nominees for Attorney General.
The White House was “caught off guard” by Kerik’s withdrawal, because... well, because violation of laws (or massive conflicts of interest) have never been considered a detriment to holding high-level posts in this administration.
In addition to bumbling the Department of Homeland Security, the administration we re-elected because it’s making us all safer tasked Donald Rumsfeld with publicly looking flummoxed when it was pointed out that U.S. transport vehicles sent into combat zones in Iraq are so poorly armored that American troops are sifting through Iraqi garbage dumps hoping to find scrap metal to put on our trucks.
Oh, well. At least our army is using Napalm on Iraqi insurgents. That's what passes for security policy in the "w" administration -- flouting international law and human rights.
There should be a way of grouping all the news stories in the next four years when the Bush administration performs absolutely to expectations in this way. How about a special section insert in the newspaper called “No Surprises Here,” or “Well, Duh!”
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