Recently I asked, in a letter to the editor, how people who voted for this administration could justify their vote, now that we’ve taken a budget surplus and turned it into an astounding national debt and have sacrificed and maimed thousands of our young for nothing.
A friend of mine replied that we had no choice. He admitted he had some reservations about Boy George but did not think he was suckered.
How could we not have a choice? We had a decorated war hero who in the face of enemy fire turned around and pulled a buddy from the water, saving his life, a man experienced in the Senate, vs. a guy that didn’t complete his tour in the National Guard (a cushy position that his daddy secured for him so he didn’t have to face combat). This man was a cocaine-snorting boozer and a failure at every business endeavor he tried. How could this not be a choice?
Two books clearly spell out what kind of people we have in the White House today: “Bush’s Brain” and “The Price of Loyalty,” about Paul O’Neill, Bush’s former treasury secretary, who said after his first meeting with George W. that he realized the president didn’t understand a thing O’Neil said.
But while Bush isn’t too bright, his main advisor is. “Bush’s Brain” refers to Karl Rove, the power behind the throne, the epitome of Machiavellian cunning and conniving. The book details all the dirty tricks Rove has used to bring Boy George to power.
When John McCain, a war hero and frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2000, was campaigning, a whisper campaign began about McCain having an illegitimate black child. It wasn’t remotely true. He and his wife had adopted a child from India. It was also rumored that he was unstable from his long time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam – another falsehood.
It’s time to put clothes on the emperor who has no clothes, time to reveal the true nature of our nation’s leader. Again, this isn’t George W., it’s Rove, a brilliant man with no conscience. He sized up Boy George way before he became governor of Texas and concluded he was the perfect clay to be molded to achieve Rove’s ends. He saw a person he could manipulate, an amiable roll-up-hissleeves Christian, Joe Six Pack-talking, easily guided but amoral guy.
Rove and his puppet used the tragedy of the Twin Towers to further their quest for world power. It allowed them to invoke the Patriot Act and Homeland Security, with unrestricted phone-tapping, government intrusions into our privacy, and the right to detain anyone without benefit of counsel or charges.
This is all done in the name of a better America. But are Rove and Bush and the compassionate conservatives really trying to help the average person? They’re against health-care reform, they try to weaken Social Security, they encourage laws that make it tougher for people to declare bankruptcy even if they’re drowning in debt. One senator said it is un-American not to pay your bills. I guess it is American for the CEOs of conglomerates to abscond with ill-gotten gains, leaving employees without jobs, homes, pensions, or any way to pay their debts. Salute the flag and vow “we will never forget” – then cut veterans’ benefits. Karl Rove and his administration, not one of whom has ever fought in a war, are sending our youths illequipped into danger.
Rove came up with the perfect method of local control: fear and religion. Fear of terrorists rising up; fundamentalist religion that raves about the Rapture to the point they believe there’s no need to preserve our planet — any day the chosen will all go to heaven. I believe we could have heaven here on earth, and the angels are our children and grandchildren.
The choir already knows about Rove. Those that don’t should go to the library and read “Bush’s Brain,” or buy the DVD of the same name. It’s nauseating but enlightening as to the choice we made in the last election.
Galen Larson is a Montezuma County landowner.
