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this article page no George W. Bush and
his cronies claim virtue but cling to the deadly sins of public life. Failures
in Iraq and corruption at home expose the great waeknesses of the
administarion. Rush Limbaugh Bill
OReilly and Bill Bennett noted radical Republican pundits are rank hypocrits.
DETROIT Deception arrogance greed hubris
corruption incompetence and isolation
the seven deadly sins of political life
snared President George W. Bush and his cronies long ago. Thats how they
gained and maintain power. While praying and thumbing their Bibles loudly
proclaiming their virtue and righteousness the faithbased Busheviks claim to be
the chosen and anointed carrying out Gods work on earth. In fact and in deed
they behave like the devils disciples. Now with inspired irony the sins theyve
served so well are their undoing. George W. Bush and his servants are being
singed with the fires of political damnation and they know an inferno is
coming. Alone and naked in their sinfulness they shiver in fear in the face of
truth and justice. The evil empire is crumbling. Praise the Lord Bushs
speechwriters use apocalyptic incantations all the time. Words like evil and
hate roll off his smirking lips with relish. Forgive me the style is
contagious. Bushs war in Iraq his supreme deception is a certain failure and
the only uncertainty is how much more blood will be shed before the inevitable
withdrawal. Now polls show only onethird of the American people support the war
and most recognize the great lie Bush sold when he conflated Saddam Husseins
Iraq with alQaeda terrorism and the Sept. 11 attacks. Bushs plan to march into
the heart of Islam with our British allies and then expect democracy to blossom
in the Middle East has proven to be one of the most monstrously bad ideas in our
nations history. That aggression has made us despised around the world. An
advisory panel to the State Department has concluded Americas image and
reputation abroad could hardly be worse. Bushs old friend and former flack
Karen Hughes just returned from a mission to improve the U.S. image in the
Muslim world and show them what swell folks we really are. Hughes who is now
undersecretary of state and responsible for public diplomacy made her first
venture into the Middle East with disastrous results. Hughes with no foreign
policy experience made a feeble attempt to cozy up to our critics. She told
women activists in Istanbul how wrenching it was for Bush to decide to invade
Iraq. Hughes told the gathering that no one likes war but to preserve peace
sometimes my country believes war is necessary. Unlike the handpicked town
meetings the White House typically arranges the Turkish women didnt smile and
cheer on cue. Feray Salman a human rights advocate stood up and told Hughes War
is not necessary for peace. Salman scoffed at the notion of imposing democracy
through war We can never ever export democracy and freedom from one country to
another. This week Bush plans yet another speech to explain how well his
arrogant vision for Iraq is working and how much safer our nation is. Hughes
began her diplomatic road show in Cairo where she tried to sell Bushs pipe
dreams for the Middle East. Her amateurism showed as she told the Egyptians
Many people around the world do not understand the important role that faith
plays in Americans lives. That must have been reassuring for the Muslim
audience. Hughes said Terrorists their policies force young people other
peoples daughters and sons to strap on bombs and blow themselves up. Robert
Pape a University of Chicago political scientist whos done extensive research
on the motives of suicide terrorists says Hughes is way off the mark and that
her trip actually comforts terrorists. Pape told the Guardians Sidney
Blumenthal If you set out to help bin Laden you could not have done it better
than Hughes. Pape rejects the view that suicide terrorism naturally flows from
Islamic fundamentalism. He argues that outside intervention and specific
circumstances set the stage. Pape told Blumenthal Of the key conditions that
lead to suicide terrorism in particular there must be first the presence of
foreign combat forces on the territory that the terrorists prize. The second
condition is a religious difference between the combat forces and local
community. The religious difference matters in that it enables terrorist
leaders to paint foreign forces as being driven by religious goals. If you read
Osamas speeches they begin with descriptions of the U.S. occupation of the
Arabian Peninsula driven by our religious goals and that it is our religious
purpose that must be confronted. That argument is incredibly powerful not only
to religious Muslims but secular Muslims. Everything Hughes says makes their
case. Not to be outdone by the State Department Donald Rumsfelds Defense
Department continues to aid and abet terrorists and provide them with young
recruits. More evidence of prisoner torture in Iraq is emerging showing the
horrors of Abu Ghraib were not isolated. Army Capt. Ian Fishback of the 82nd
Airborne Division and two sergeants have come forward to report that members of
their unit routinely beat abused and tortured Iraqi detainees. Fishback a West
Point graduate says he tried for more than a year to get his superiors to
listen but only got their attention when he brought his complaints to Human
Rights Watch and members of Congress. More photos of the abuses at Abu Ghraib
may soon be made public after a federal judge ruled the Pentagon could no
longer censor them. Gen. Richard Myers the freshly departed chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff had argued in court papers that releasing the photographs
would aid alQaeda recruitment weaken the shaky governments in Afghanistan and
Iraq and incite riots against American troops. The judge correctly ruled the
photos are the best evidence of what happened at the notorious prison. Myers
was a shameless toady who would parrot any lines the Busheviks fed him. He did
great and lasting harm to the U.S. military. He will be remembered as the most
thoroughly compromised and politicized commander of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
He should expect a big medal from Bush and a job with some military contractor.
Vice President Dick Cheney is worried about more than his health problems these
days. His chief of staff I. Lewis Scooter Libby has now been named as the
source New York Times reporter Judith Miller went to prison to protect. Miller
got out of the slammer last Thursday after doing a 12week stretch. I was a
journalist doing my job protecting my source until my source freed me to
perform my civic duty to testify Miller said after testifying before a federal
grand jury. Put aside for a moment the arguments about the need for a federal
shield law to protect reporters from being compelled to reveal their sources.
Thats a First Amendment issue that merits another column. But lets focus for
now on why Cheney and his henchmen sought out Judy Miller to share their
information about undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame. The Busheviks outed
Plame to retaliate against her husband former ambassador Joseph Wilson. He blew
the lid off the Bush administrations infamous deception that Iraq was shopping
for enriched uranium in Niger Africa. Cheney loved that big lie and repeated it
often. Bush used it in a State of the Union address. Wilson found the truth and
had the guts to tell the world. Retaliation came in an act of treason. Karl
Rove and Scooter Libby masters in treachery
another cardinal political sin
leaked to reporters Plames CIA connection and the suggestion that she
engineered her husbands assignment to check out the Niger story. Rove and Libby
may soon be indicted. Condi Rice is also up to her designer boot tops in the
scandal. Libby and Rove believed Judy Miller a faithful lapdog would help their
cause. They threw her the PlameCIA bone expecting shed use it. Since Miller had
been so reliable in peddling a bundle of Bush administration lies to make the
case for war with Iraq they expected her continued loyalty. Millers preinvasion
reporting largely based on leaks from
Cheneys office and the word of Ahmed Chalabi the Iraqi expatriate and notorious
liar described Iraq as having huge
arsenals of deadly weapons. Millers exclusives were spattered all over the
front pages of the Times. The inflammatory reports led the march to war. They
were also horribly wrong. The paper has since apologized for some of that
coverage. Miller never has. Others in the mainstream corporate media picked up
on Millers deadwrong stories. NBCs chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea
Mitchell would pounce on Millers crap and night after night repeat the lies Cheneys
boys had crafted. From Chalabi to Cheney to Libby to Miller to Mitchell and on
to a huge television audience the great deceptions echoed. In a recent
interview on Real Time with Bill Maher Mitchell admitted reporters did little
to question Bushs rush to war. And since 911 and after 911 there was a sort of
rallying around an understandable sort
of patriotic effect and I think
reporters were less challenging Mitchell said. No kidding. When Bushs people
couldnt coopt reporters they did it the oldfashioned way they bribed them. Federal auditors say the
administration broke the law when it paid conservative commentator Armstrong
Williams and others to churn out favorable news coverage about Bushs education
policies and the No Child Left Behind Act. Im sure House Majority Leader Tom
DeLay whos on a leadership sabbatical following his indictment on charges of
conspiring to violate Texas election laws would see no problem in using public
funds for political propaganda. DeLay looks up at the gutter. For years he has
literally sold his radical Republicans in the House to the highest corporate
bidders. Over in the Senate Majority Leader Dr. Bill Dirty Hands Frist keeps
lying about his blind trust that managed to have 2020 vision when it came to
unloading his stock that was about to tank. Frist is a fraud a Martha Stewart
in drag a greedy manipulator who should have had his medical license yanked for
the public health policies hes fostered that leave 45 million Americans without
health insurance. He uses his public position to protect private hospitals shocking as that is and the usual suspect drug and insurance
companies. In these trying sinlaced times Bush and his crowd usually would turn
to the holy trinity of radical Republican RR virtue for grace and salvation Rush Limbaugh Bill OReilly and Bill Bennett.
But alas the liberals have done them wrong and caused great consternation. Rush
is frantically fighting prosecutors seeking his medical records and the sources
of his illegal drugs. Fox News Channels Bill OReilly whose phone sex aggression
caused great harm to a female subordinate and cost Rupert Murdochs News Corp.s
shareholders millions of dollars is dueling with another demon. Media Matters
for America a Web site that reviews media accuracy has found Mr. OReilly spins
lies deceptions and distortions at the pace of a 9yearold in Bangladesh making
shirts for WalMart. OReilly is a serial liar plain and simple. Those who listen
to him expecting the truth dont get it. Bill Bennett the RRs chief custodian of virtue Ronald
Reagans secretary of education and Bush the Elders drug czar is on a new high after revelations about his
gambling addiction. Bennett admits he had a longterm affair with the onearmed
bandits in Vegas dropping millions in coins pumping and stroking the machines
for fleeting gratification. Its my money he said money made preaching virtue.
But now Bennett our vicar of virtue has a new theory which he preached on his
radio show. He sees abortion as reprehensible but says it might have some
societal benefits. I do know that its true if you wanted to reduce crime you
could if that were your sole
purpose you could abort every black baby
in the country and your crime rate would go down Bennett said. When the heat
followed the fliplipped Bennett whined he was quoted out of context and what he
said was only a thought experiment. My thought experiment is that Bennett
George W. Bush and their ilk reflect on their own sins and leave public virtue
to others. banking
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