They done him wrong

It was the deep thinkers who did George in. Obviously, heavy ponderers have been telling men of action what’s wrong since the newcomers moved into the cave next door and ruined the neighborhood. Plato had a fascist solution and Marx a commie one. None of these catchall means to enlightenment and progress was too terrible until doers decided that the thinkers were right and moved to implement programs for mutual betterment.

Most utopian solutions aren’t very dangerous and go away without having harmed too many folks in the process. The small ones such as Brook Farm and the Amana Community just withered away, but occasionally, as in the case of the Bolsheviks, the efforts to save the rest of us from ourselves can get downright frightening and vast nations and their neighbors can be devastated in the name of good, or at least their version of it.

So it was with our friends the neoconservatives. Like Marx, the neocons read history carefully and, like Karl, saw an inevitability in their reading of the past that would lead to a new nirvana. Much like one of their heroes, Ronald Reagan, they saw before them a city on a hill and the certain spread of democracy, capitalism, and globalism to the unwashed of the world. But aside from flag waving and sloganeering, their view of history wasn’t very important and certainly not harmful until their man in the White House – George - had a real problem.

Obviously, September 11, 2001, was one of the defining days in our history. The attacks on New York and Washington and the downed plane in Pennsylvania galvanized the American people like nothing since Pearl Harbor. Retribution was demanded, and George Bush was open to suggestion on how to act decisively.

The first steps for the U.S. were very simple: follow the trail to those who had conspired with the perpetrators of the attack, kill or capture them, topple governments that were aiding and abetting those who had attacked us, and call upon all of our contacts in the world to otherwise undermine this group of killers. Virtually all Americans were on board with these and any other reasonable actions.

But there were men and women about with bigger and better ideas on how to deal with this world wide conspiracy of Islamic fundamentalist killers and at the same time advance the interests of the United States by spreading the neocon world view. While the military and security forces of America went about their tasks of justice and retribution, the neocons saw an opportunity to spread democracy and prosperity to the heart of Islam from whence the attacks had sprung.

This is not to say that the neocon view of history is invalid but just because they might have been right in their analysis that doesn’t mean that by applying outside pressure the tipping point could be achieved and the inevitable creation of free, independent, and prosperous nations across the great swath of Islam would be the fruits of America’s labor.

While I won’t argue that things don’t look good for capitalism and democracy, it’s my view that by buying into this neocon dream, George Bush created a hornets’ nest of problems for us. Instead of encouraging the acceleration of history with carrots, he was happy to apply the birch switch and therein lay his doom as a successful president.

From all that I have read and the little I’ve seen, Mr. Bush has a messianic personality and it took little prodding for him to buy into this solution to many of the problems he faced. In retrospect, the invasion of Iraq is seen clearly as a blunder without peer in American history, but the confluence of so many needs and opportunities for so many sectors of society was almost irresistible to a person of Bush’s type and tens of millions of his followers.

It’s Bush’s war and Bush’s blunder, but he was tempted by so many interests: military efficiency, energy independence, Middle East pressures, the pleas of Iraqi expatriates, the need for national vengeance, and many more. But he needed a rationale for the attack on Iraq that answered a higher calling, especially after the WMD and the Iraq/al Qaeda conspiracy fell through, and the neocons with their offer of a chance to tip history in favor of the president’s messianic view provided it.

So, while George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld will get the most of the ink when the histories of this failed presidency are written, the neocons will get very few column inches on their fateful role in this blunder. Too bad, they deserved far more.

One week to go. Turn out the enablers of this fiasco. Be sure to vote; the enablers will be out in force.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Words to Ponder

There are just fourteen days, a fortnight, two weeks, until judgment day. I’ll be running silent for a few days as I’ll be spending time in the land of liberals, capital of the Left Coast, the stomping ground of John Kerry and Ted Kennedy - as el Rushbo names it – with a smile.

This morning a word association game popped into mind:

WORDS - REPUBLICANS - DEMOCRATS

Iraq - Progress - Disaster

Schiavo - Life - Exploitation

Stem cells - Living Beings - Cure

Congress - Values - Losers

Katrina - Tragic - Incompetent

Estate - Death Tax - Fair

Rumsfeld - Incompetent - Bingo

Leaks - Levees - Woodward

Gays - Bash - Tolerance

Flag - Protect - Huh?

WMD - Fear - Lies

Stay the course - Flexible - Flip Flop

Enough already. It looked a lot funnier when it was laid out in my mind, but when the rubber hit the road - words in the columns - I'd struck out. But you get the picture. It's something you might try at your next party.

Had enough? Vote Democrat!

Get your friends to the polls: fourteen; 14; fortnight; two weeks, right around the corner.

VOTE!

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Social Security Redux

The Bush administration has openly signaled that it intends to revisit Social Security when the new Congress convenes in January 2007; this is both welcome and frightening.

Given demographic trends, there can be no doubt that Social Security and Medicare are not completely sound for the long term. That the president is willing to tackle this thorny process again says something positive about his resiliency, if not his judgment.

Since the point at which benefits as defined in the Social Security program will be unable to be paid in full is a generation in the future, this is a difficult problem for sitting legislators to face. Sadly, the president’s rigidity in his unwillingness to consider options that much of the population favors makes negotiations between the parties extraordinarily difficult. For example, you may recall that during the last debate on the subject, Mr. Bush would not entertain any option involving greater contributions by the most affluent in the workforce.

Social Security shortfalls should be addressed as soon as possible since the costs of making the trust fund sound for still another generation only grow with each day the problem is put off. But it is clear that if there is going to be a reform package passed in the next two years, all options must be on the table and that both parties are going to have to put themselves on the line.

If the president is serious about this debate, he must have a Congress that represents a broader spectrum of the population. Entitlement reforms undertaken by the Republicans, the party that has wielded most power since the nineteen-seventies, have generally favored the affluent at the expense of the middle and lower economic classes. Mr. Bush’s proposals to reform Social Security last time around also favored higher income workers capable of making greater contributions to their individual SS accounts, this is another good reason to turn out the vote among lower and middle income segments of society and for electing Democrats.

There should be no doubt that the Republicans have a great capacity for turning out their base supporters. Sadly, many among that base will be voting against their own interests when they vote for the Social Security reform favored by the GOP.

It is absolutely essential that those with positive ideas on how Social Security should be reformed which are different from those of George W. Bush and his Wall Street cronies work hard to get out their voting block too. It is also essential to attempt to engage anyone in the Republican base damaged by the administration’s program for SS reform and to make an effort must to debate them on the points of their personal interests.

Had enough? Vote Democrat! Only two weeks to go: VOTE!

It’s definitely time for change!

Blog on!

Wild Bill

White House Beautification

As you regulars know, Wild Bill is a resident of the Washington area so an occasional word or two about what’s happening in the capital should not be surprising.

I’m beginning to think that the Iraq War, tax cuts and budget deficits are having an effect on our fair city. In walking past the White House the other day, I noted a very unusual sight: maintenance of the beautiful and historic grounds just isn’t what it has been historically. Any of you who have been in the mansion and on the grounds knows that it has traditionally maintained to the highest possible standards.

As I strolled along the fence line of the gorgeous estate, I noted a hole that had been dug on the inside by an animal. Since it appeared freshly dug, I thought little of it and assumed that the damage would soon be repaired by the large crew always on duty. But as I continued along the perimeter, it became obvious that there was a significant infestation of the grounds by badgers or other digging animals, and I became truly concerned.

With less than half of the fence line walked, it was apparent that the holes and digging were happening at intervals of perhaps only ten feet. Some of the sites had been recently filled but it was obvious that there was a race on between the animals and the grounds crew. There could be no doubt; a creature was attempting to dig out and the crew was working overtime to repair the damage and prevent the escape.

I made up mind to write the White House Foundation and call for a stepped up program of eradication of the pest. But at almost that instance I came upon a docent just saying goodbye to her tour group as they looked upon the south front of the grounds. I stopped her and asked if she’d noted the damage to the grounds? “Oh, that’s just Barney trying to get out. He’s withdrawn his support for the president’s Iraq War and just wants out.”

I’m not going downtown again until after election; I’m afraid I’ll see a sign in the bedroom window indicating that Laura is looking beyond the fence.

If you come to Washington, please don’t be too critical of the level of care being given the White House. This will all be taken care of in the near future.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Saving Face

As a youngster - long long ago - I learned that when China or Japan committed grave errors of policy requiring significant correction, they did everything in their power to save face while retreating from their errors. If one of these nations made a disastrous misstep and was forced to back down from the blunder before face could be saved, the Gods would be outraged. Neither of these great cultures and powers could be seen as having created a fiasco before they could withdraw from the field of diplomacy – or battle. There was no way that the error could be admitted; there had been no mistake; surely those observing the situation were wrong. My world history teachers snickered at this primitive requirement of the oriental mind. How backward could a mindset be?

Today, the great nation of the United States of America is caught in a trap of its own making. It attacked a smaller weaker nation for reasons that did not pan out. American citizens were told that that Iraq posed a mortal danger to them, that the national leader, Saddam Hussein, had an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and was ready to use it against our personnel or facilities or those of our allies in the region, or, just as importantly, he would sell or transfer these weapons to our deadly enemies, al Qaeda or its surrogates, with which he had been working against the U.S.

If anything, the war went far better than expected and the government of Iraq was overthrown within a few short weeks, but the basis for the invasion, WMD and conspiracy with al Qaeda, was never proved. Great shuffling of reasons was undertaken and it was determined that we hadn’t just attacked to disarm Iraq but, more importantly, we would deposit upon them an almost carbon copy of Western democracy which would deliver Iraq into the family of free and prosperous nations. This was good since the citizens had been suffering under the painful yoke of Saddam and his henchmen and they yearned to be free and were prepared to welcome our troops as liberators.

I won’t go on with this baloney. We’re occupiers; they hate us and, while terrified of the possibilities, want us gone. We’ve tried many different strategies to set up a democratic regime to deliver peace and prosperity to Iraq but no matter how hard we’ve worked it simply hasn’t happened as anticipated.

The vast majority of the American people have wised up; the Republican leadership which enabled this fiasco is rising from its slumber, and even George Bush is acknowledging that the adventure is not going as planned or as it was recast a dozen or more times. Our Iraq adventure is the greatest foreign policy blunder in American history.

The Republican majority has quietly determined that it no longer has confidence in the president of the United States and his administration. Signals are everywhere. U.S. Senator John Warner, Chair of the Armed Services Committee, returned from Iraq with a message that the situation was not going as advertised and quickly had to be changed. The U.S. Army flat out stated that its pacification program for Baghdad was not successful, even Virginia Senator George Allen, one of Bush’s great sycophants, admitted that a change of tactics was needed.

It’s a mess and a failure.

We’re now in a great waltz to the exit. But we just can’t admit we were wrong and get the hell out. If we did that, our great rivals, China, Russia and the European Union and our enemies in the Axis of Evil, Iran and North Korea, might get the idea that we failed and were just rushing for the egress, weaklings dragging our tails. We couldn’t let that happen because we’d lose face.

But we have failed, and if you think that China, Russia, France, Germany, Iran and North Korea aren’t completely aware of our predicament, there’s a bridge over the East River from Brooklyn to Manhattan in which you need shares. We’re in the process of changing our strategy at warp speed. There is a commission preparing options for the administration to disentangle us from this fiasco. But the report won’t be available until well after the elections that are coming up in less than three weeks. The bottom line – take it to the bank – we’re going to begin disengaging from Iraq in a New York minute starting in early 2007.

All of this commission b.s., all of this waltzing, all of the options will be designed to get the neoconservatives and evangelicals who encouraged these incompetent fools who got us into this quagmire to get through the election with some semblance of their dignity – and a minimum of lost seats in Congress.

Hundreds of additional soldiers and thousands of innocent Iraqis will die or be maimed so that we can get out in a face saving manner. More billions of dollars will be squandered and our military forces will be weakened so that a small coterie of fools and a large number of their enablers can save face. And our real war on terrorists will continue to be operated at half speed while it happens.

How quaint that these backward oriental civilizations that I studied as an adolescent had such profound influence on modern America. Whatever, we must endure what we must to get out of this mess. We’ve got to save face!

Vote Democrat! The Republicans in Congress have walked in lock step with these fools who have taken us down the awful path; they must be punished for their folly.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

State Of Denial

State of Denial, Bob Woodward’s new best selling book, will be the fodder of historians for generations. This is not due to its examination of sources but because everybody who has had anything to do with Iraq needs a confessor and Bob’s the man. As the fullness of the folly becomes part of the consciousness of the vast majority of the citizenry, those with even tangential connection to the massive blunder feel the need to thumb through the rolodex to `W’ and explain how they were the only ones who saw the freight train bearing down and tried to warn the president not to gun it through the crossing.

Sadly, bad people stood in the way of all these good folks. Naturally, we all know by now that the Darth Vader of this unhappy galaxy is Don Rumsfeld, but there are lots of other incompetents who stepped forward to assist the great man in bringing ruin to the presidency. Dick Cheney – who delivered Darth in a basket to the back doorstep of the White House, Scooter Libby, Gerry Bremer, George Tenet, and Condoleezza Rice get key speaking roles on the dark side.

But there are good folks who did their damnedest, too; Jay Garner, Richard Armitage, Andy Card, NATO Military Commander James Jones and many others net out positively, but they didn’t stand a chance when matched with Dick and Darth.

On the balance point, the tragic figure of Colin Powell who saw the train but still helped gun the truck through the flashing lights shares that side of the stage with lesser performers like Steve Hadley.

This is a book that will have no legs, most of the names and whisperings will be forgotten in short order when this sad chapter of history ends leaving only George, the ever in the shadows Dick, and the ever hovering Darth to share space in the history books as the villains.

While we won’t be talking about State of Denial ten minutes after the polls close in November 2008, what a tasty read it is. I loved it. Woodward, as other reviewers have noted, pounds away with endless delicious details. His writing style is plain and he never loses control over the long complex narrative, and only because I’m old was I able to put it down to get my beauty rest.

As Woodward drops the whispered bonbons that prove that what the bad guys said in public was more the anxious wishes of a single man in deep denial and the lamentations of a Greek chorus of his lackeys trying to support him.

But this is journalism – what, where, when, how and why. Woodward does very little editorializing for a man with sufficient facts to make solid judgments. He leaves it to Arthur Schlesinger to condemn the president for leading the nation in a preventive war. And he lets the other characters do the opining. As late as this summer he catches the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Peter Pace connecting the dots between 9/11 and our attack in Iraq.

Rumsfeld comes off as the arch villain. He emasculates the officer corps and hides behind his second to none debating style. The president and even Cheney come off as being unable to deal with the bureaucratic infighter nonpareil.

In the end, this is a sad book that does little other than to condemn the Bush administration for gross incompetence and not being square with America. It lets the president off by deflecting its laser onto Rumsfeld. To me this is a tragic error. The person responsible for this historic blunder is George W. Bush. In the book he comes across as uninquisitive and messianic as he does in most of the books pouring into the market. He operates on will power and it is not enough.

George Bush made the fatal error that sank his presidency when he took the advice of the head of his vice presidential search committee who could find no one better than himself to run with Bush. George Bush placed Dick Cheney on the ticket. Almost at that moment Bush came under the spell of a stronger intellect and personality. Cheney brought Rumsfeld along and the rest is tragic history.

Both opponents and supporters of Bush should read this book; there are cautions and opportunities for both. If the Democrats win the Congress next month and do not act responsibly, they may lose the prize on ’08.

Republicans can take heart from this mess and this book about it. Woodward can be read to see this not as a great policy blunder but rather a comedy of errors by the Keystone Kops. The kops will be gone on January 20, 2009, and with careful packaging, the GOP can claim to have done the right thing but with incompetent people. Both parties had better beware for the next two years and three weeks.

Read this book before it gets too old.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Mark Warner for President

Draft Mark Warner! Yesterday former Virginia Governor Mark Warmer dropped out of the race to become the 2008 Democratic nominee for president. This cannot stand.

Warner’s reasons for ceasing to run like a madman were that the effort was too taxing on his family and that he wanted a real life. A real life – really?

It is very clear that this contemptible person is claiming normalcy as an excuse for his inability to maintain the heroic façade necessary to pose as General Washington in the Oval Office. Obviously, as George Bush would say, “This is unacceptable.”

Those of us who have long observed politics, especially at the presidential level, are used to candidates willing to push their mothers under the wheels of busses and to have their children deprived of drugs and teen sex just so they can puff up as their wives gaze adoringly on their magnificence.

Only two presidents in my lifetime had the audacity to claim authentic and normal personas, Harry Truman and Gerry Ford. Goodness gracious, neither of these men sought the White House. That makes Mark the first person in modern history to begin a run and to abort it because he’s too normal and wants to be a real person.

While I’ll support the Democrat nominee, no matter whom, in ’08, the very idea that a flesh and blood human being might have actually had an outside chance at the dubious honor is too much to fathom. Clearly, this glitch demonstrates just how dysfunctional the Democrats are.

Be that as it may, those of us who say we’re for normalcy and authenticity in our own lives – hypocritical as we may be in our humility – have no choice but to demand a Mark Warner for President Campaign, starting this minute.

I’m okay. Are you okay?

Whatever. Charge!

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Strike Three

Three strikes and you’re out. Both Houses of Congress have been controlled by the Republicans for more than a decade. George Bush has been president for almost six years. Early in his tenure Mr. Bush identified Iraq, Iran and North Korea as the Axis of Evil. It has been more than five years since 9/11 and, sadly, his record in dealing with the Axis is abysmal.

Iraq’s government was toppled in 2003 and it was discovered that the stated reason for the U.S. attack could not be supported. There were no WMD and no connection could be made between Saddam’s government and al Qaeda. We are now going on four years of occupying the country and even the Republican Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, John Warner, views the situation on the ground as dire and approaching civil war.

Iran is alleged to have supported Hezbollah in its attack on Israel and is perceived to have been the big winner in the Middle East situation. The Iranians are thumbing their noses at President Bush and our European allies as Tehran marches toward the development of what the U.S. alleges are nuclear weapons.

North Korea is reported to have set off a nuclear weapon test last night. This is stated by the president to be unacceptable to the U.S. He’s writing a strong letter to them telling them they can’t do this. Better post date it!

We have 140,000 troops bogged down in Iraq. The situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated over the past six months. We are 3,000 American deaths into these two conflicts with more than 20,000 wounded. We are spending $2 billion per week in these wars and have a long term obligation of $2 trillion as a result. Almost 50,000 innocent Iraqis are dead and countless thousands are homeless.

We now face a national referendum on Bush and the Republicans and their control of both the Executive and Legislative Branches of the federal government. The position of the Republicans is that they are the party of national security.

Have I missed something? Vote Democrat! They have to be able to do better than the sorry job the Republicans have done over these past six years.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

My Garden Jungle

There’s a bright cardinal knocking on my window. I’m sitting less than three feet from him; still he bangs away. He’s been at this drumming for about a week now, and I’m both sick of his antics and intrigued by his persistence.

Thirty or more years ago, this fellow’s great grandfather used to tap away each day in similar fashion at another of my houses just up the road from here. I began to think that he was trying to call me, and I’d rush madly to our nearby feeder with a fresh supply of sunflower seeds. There seemed almost to be a direct correlation between the tapping and feeding, but I found out from fellow birders that he was simply challenging his image in the looking glass. No Pavlovian response here, at least by the bird. Brilliant Bill!

Last year we installed new windows in this house that are far more reflective than most, and now I have a daily show by this bird brain demonstrating to his image just who’s boss in this territory. At this moment he’s perched in a nandina bush about six inches from the glass. I rose from my chair and only when I got within a foot from the window did he sense my presence and hop to another nearby bush waiting for his buddy to appear again. Never have I been so close to a wild animal without startling it.

One winter – again about a generation ago – a mocking bird took up residence in a small pear tree on the sidewalk strip in front of my house. Emerging each morning to await my carpool, I would strike up a conversation with this very tough little fellow. We got so we’d shout back and forth from a distance of about five or six feet. This time I was even more certain that I’d struck up interspecies communication and only gave up on the idea when I saw that he was just defending the tiny fruit from other feathered friends and probably from humans fools like me walking too close by. Brilliant Bill!

On more than one occasion, flocks of starlings descended on the pear tree, but even fifty or more of these tough, aggressive and nasty little beasts had to back down in the face of the screaming and enraged little mocker. All of this took place in the winter, and as with those ancient events, I thought it strange that my new cardinal resident was becoming as aggressive as we head for the colder weather. Strictly counter intuitive as far as I was concerned, as I thought they’d defend territories only in breeding season, forgetting they have to eat. Brilliant Bill!

Last week, I opened the door to my patio and a middling sized Black Rat Snake exploded in panic. My trash barrel stands just to the left of the entrance, and I was startled by the gong as the poor beast banged its head in a panic on the empty plastic container drum. He froze and recovered to quickly coil for a strike as I emerged. Not to worry, he was a good four feet long and twice as thick as my thumb, so it had little to fear from me, the fraidie cat of the neighborhood. After a moment to collect wits and dignity, it slithered slowly away under my fence.

A couple of months ago, my wife took some great photos of a small garter snake trying make a living by moseying around the garden and sliding through some prostrate junipers that line the front of our largest bed. She’s petrified of snakes but was able to force herself to get very close and to compose some great shots.

Even tiny gardens are teeming with wildlife. Henry Thoreau would be pleased at our observations but perhaps not at my hasty conclusions.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Remove Denny Hastert

Hey! They’re politicians; what do you expect? Politicians at the highest levels – congress, president, governors, etc. – are the best in the business at what they do: compromise and pretend to lead. They’re our champions, so like football players and rock stars we turn them into celebrities. But their business isn’t catching passes from star quarterbacks or making them at our surrogates, it’s compromising on legislation, pretending to be outraged and waving the flag.

There are no compromises in zero sum games. The running back flies through the hole, runs for hundred yards every week and streaks into the end zone at least once per game: standing `O’ every time he comes out. The wide receiver loses a step or develops short arms and no longer makes the big plays. Boo! Gone!

The star, slim, sleek and sexy, sings directly to us: two albums, please. A little flab here, a tiny sag there: hey, who’s she kidding? Off to the trailer park with her butt. Get me a newbie.

But with big time pols there are two tracks: big enough – committee chair, and up or out – to the Senate, the State capital, and – ultimately – La Casa Blanca.

While that halfback’s scoring touchdowns or the rockette’s a rocking, we don’t care what they’re doing on the side. More than a few of us rather enjoy reading about their escapades, jetting to exotic getaways with glamorous consorts.

But pols are celebrities of a different sort. They’re us as we’d like to be – with nice suits and great hair – even if it's not their own. They’re us as our idealized notion of ourselves: Jimmy Stewart off to Washington. To be big time pols, they must play the role, and whenever they’re being observed – which is a lot of the time – they’ve got to be on stage and in costume. In effect, they’ve given up their humanity to succeed in their chosen field.

As you well know, everybody’s up in arms about the Mark Foley scandal. It seems that Foley was known to many on the Hill and in his home state of Florida to be gay. That was no big deal, but he also liked to over-communicate with under age Congressional Pages in a less than proper manner. It eventually caught up with him and he was gone within twenty-four hours.

The question is rightly turning out to be about the action of the Republican leaders rather than about the disgraced former congressman. It is very clear that more than a few very important House Republican leaders knew about the activities of Foley for a long time and did less than the American people expect in such cases.

In today’s Washington Post, Joe Califano describes how he – a Dem – and Rudy Giuliani – a Republican – were called upon by the late Speaker Tip O’Neill to investigate a not dissimilar page scandal a generation ago. Joe righteously calls on the Republicans of today to get with the program and out the damned spot as they did.

But it’s not as easy as it appears. Tip had it made. The Dems don’t and didn’t represent the goody goodies of the country who know how we should all behave and want it enforced by the government. Poor Denny Hastert and his minion represent God. While O’Neill and his sidekicks may well have been God fearing men, they really didn’t see that they were his representatives on the Hill, so they let the chips fall where they may and went on after the mess was cleaned up.

But the poor Republicans are doing God’s work. They don’t condone gay marriage, abortion, gay bishops, stem cell research, euthanasia, congressmen writing hot letters to kids and host of other issues entrusted to their care by the Christian right. Sure, it’s easy for the Dems to get past peccadilloes; everybody knows they’re human – sex fiends and wastrels all. They’re pigs; so what can you expect?

But despite the fact the Denny and his boys knew they had a problem with Foley, they had another even bigger tsunami bearing down on them, the fall election – which they knew was going to be close even without their bad boy perp. What were poor humans masquerading as heroes to God’s children to do? They had no damn clue, so they did nothing.

Now a humungous posse of God’s other representatives is out for the scalps of Hastert and everyone else who covered up this outrageous scandal. Never mind that the leaders of this pack are simply other humans with a long history of having similar outings from within their own group – Jimmy Swaggert, Jim Baker, and the fictional Elmer Gantry just to name a few.

I’ve got compromise. I want Denny out too. How about we just un-elect his hypocritical butt and those of the other poor slobs pretending to be what they ain’t? The fault of the Republicans in Congress lies in this scandal and a lot more. They’ve had too much power for far too long, and they’ve been corrupted by it.

Let’s get some people who know how to be corrupted without all this guilt. We don’t want people to check themselves into rehab when they’re caught; we want extensive medieval discussions hanging on the conjugation of the verb `to be.’ Then when they’re fully vested in their corruption, we’ll send them packing too.

Vote for Democrats; they’re not quite such hypocrites!

Blog on!

Wild Bill