Where Are The Swift Boats Now?

I supported John Kerry for president in 2004, and, in retrospect, I’m pleased that he did not win. The smearing of Kerry because he would be weak on defense and would precipitously withdraw from Iraq was sad to watch and truly outrageous.

But the calamity that George Bush created in Iraq had to become far more apparent to the American people before we could ever hope to change course. It’s the old adage: things have to get worse before they get better. Had things not become catastrophic under George W. Bush, there would be no hope for release from the war’s deadly embrace. Virtually everything that has come to pass under Mr. Bush would have happened under a Kerry presidency, and the howling from the right wing cheerleaders would have been deafening, and his impeachment would be demanded.

Bush salivating apologists like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Oliver North, and a hundred others would be frothing at the mouth at the stab in the back by Kerry and his liberal ilk. Even now they tell us how well things are going and how rapidly the Islamic world is leaping to join us in a liberal capitalist dream world.

But daily it is blowing up in their faces. Horror stories abound. American enlisted personnel are charged, convicted and jailed for torturing and abusing Iraqi prisoners while their superiors walk away unscathed. One third of returning soldiers and marines are being treated for psychological problems caused by the stress of serving in Iraq. More than a thousand Iraqis were killed this week alone in sectarian violence.

On and on the stories roll over us like surreal revisitations of Vietnam, but each day Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, the talk show claquers, and the neocons tell us that the insurgency is in its last throws. Except for the feeble minded, even those viewing the situation in Iraq on FOX News can see that things are not going as we are told in that sad land.

And all of this would have been Kerry and the Democrats’ fault because they’re weak on national security.

Yet even as the Republicans rail that the Democrats care little for defense, the administration permits operations of our largest and most important ports to pass from one foreign company to another, but this one is not a private company but rather one owned by a national government. The president threatened to veto any law stopping the deal even as it was admitted that he knew next to nothing about the deal.

The Congress has been deceived; it was told that there were no security concerns raised during the review by federal agencies. Yet we find out that the Coast Guard did raise questions. The administration explains that these questions were resolved but won’t share the basis for that stance in open hearings or why they didn’t answer forthrightly.

Now the Republicans on the Hill are turning on their president and their leaders. George W. Bush and his close advisors led us into this mess and they were cheered on by the Republicans in Congress.

It is too late for the Republicans to backtrack. We must fire them all. Vote these slackers out in November; they’ve led us to tragedy.

Thank goodness John Kerry was smeared into defeat!

Blog on!

Wild Bill