by Bart Whiteman
posted June 19, 2005
It’s getting harder and harder to stay ahead of the curve criticizing our current president these days. Even his fellow Republicans are joining the chorus of boos in greater and greater numbers. The defenses of George W. Bush that used to appear with great regularity in our local media are getting sparser and sparser.
Once upon a time, speaking out against George W. was a lonely occupation, particularly around here. It may be time to move on to other topics when this sort of thing becomes acceptable behavior.
I guess you can chalk it up to the fortunes (won and lost) of war. You keep wars going year in and year out with the accompanying toll of regular death and no results, you should expect to slide down the pole of popularity. George keeps hooting about “victory,” like we would even recognize it now if it showed up. He’s already announced his “victory” once and had his parade. Why can’t he be happy with that? The kind of victory he is talking about now he won’t see in any of our lifetimes. When you are in an intractable part of the world, sometimes the best you can hope for is a stalemate.
Going from being “Man of the Year” with gobs of “political capital” to spend to being a relative beggar in a few months will take some explaining. Yes, Abraham Lincoln was criticized during the Civil War, and he emerged a national hero. He had help. Bush better hope he has a U.S. Grant up his sleeve.
There is the repeated howl that we cannot set a “timetable” for exiting Iraq because this would tip off the insurgents as to how long they have to hold out. Right now, it would appear that they have the timetable anyway. It’s January 20, 2009. (I was elbowing my way through Wal-Mart the other day trying to find a pair of shorts that would fit thinking how much those insurgents were envying our way of life.) Bush will never withdraw no matter what happens. That is obvious. His entire person, ego, claim of relevance, place in history, parental approval, etc. is tied into that. The mistake was giving him the power to get us into this mess in the first place. Congress and the media will have to answer for that at some point. Okay, the mistake was made. Let’s move on. What we have done, though, is like the story of the lady with the three round cheeses. She was walking along a high mountain path when she dropped one of her cheeses and it rolled down the mountain and out of sight. She decided to drop another to see where the first one had gone. She lost sight of that one, too. So, she dropped the third one hoping she would see where the other two had gone. It disappeared. So, she walked home with no cheese.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be the last cheese that gets tossed down the mountain.
Now, the Democrats, after sitting on their behinds and licking their tiny wounds for years, have what appears to be a cogent strategy emerging to take back at least the White House. Joseph Biden has tossed his shoes, belt, and wristwatch (and maybe a few other accessories), if not his hat, into the ring for a run at the 2008 election. This gives them a viable moderate voice to which a large number of the voting public of both parties might just respond with an “It’s about time.” Howard Dean should keep hurling his grenades at the Republicans. His “white and Christian” claim was mild compared to what could be said. This will draw all the “outraged” fire, along with Hillary Clinton taking all the “Hate Hillary” heat, which is a subset of the “Hate Liberals” crowd. The country needs a second Clinton president just like it needed a second Bush president. With this kind of interference running ahead, any reasonable moderate like Biden could walk into the White House.
John McCain could give the Democrats a serious run, but it’s hard to see the all the right-wing nutcases who portrayed McCain as the anti-Christ during the primary run against Bush in 2000 suddenly turning around and embracing him as their newfound Savior. Savaging the one guy who perhaps has the most indisputable claim to military credentials by the same crowd who preach “shoot first and ask questions later” as a solution to all problems is the kind of hypocritical dilemma that we have found ourselves in with greater frequency than ever before.
This leaves the gonzoidal freaks who are trying to keep Bush in power permanently, since he has so graciously served little but their purposes, by maneuvering to repeal the 22nd Amendment limiting the term of office the president can serve. If somehow America in a fit of pathological desperateness were to agree to such an amendment, then nothing would serve Bush better than for the people to rise up and say: “You are history and one we choose to forget.”
The race has begun.
Bart Whiteman
Bartwhiteman@aol.com
* * *
To Bart and all the other libs out there that are still whining about the "war" and how this country is so doomed:
Do you wake up mad every day, Bart, or do you have to work on it as the day progresses. First of all, can you not write a column that is limited to 500 words or less, instead of your "normal" of 2,000 to 3,000 ++++. We get it, Bart, you don`t like Bush. It would please you to no end to see the efforts of our soldiers in Iraq fail, then you could go, na na na...Bush did it.
Everytime you guys demean the president and call him names like little kids, you give the terrorists more ammo than they already think they have. Were it done your way, America would sit here thumbing around in the garden until we got whacked again by the terrorists, and who`s to say Chattanooga wouldn`t be a target. Wouldn`t that be nice, say the Federal Courthouse downtown getting leveled. Would that maybe sink in there Bart?
They want us dead...they hate us and on top of that will kill their own families just to make a statement. What our president has done is make a stand and stick to it. Unlike liberals when they are in power, when the "polls" aren`t in your favor, you change stratagies and can`t stay focused on what your original goal was. How about writing a nice long column explaining to all us "right wingers" how your liberal hero in Washington has just compared our soldiers to Hitler and compared "abuse" of terrorists to killing millions of people. It sickens me that we lost over 3,000 lives, and the liberals are worried if the air conditioning in a terrorist's cell is too cold, or if he doesn`t get to eat food that is of his country's origin.
Give me a break here. Remember those colorful beheadings of the contractors in Iraq? How about our soldiers being hung and then burned and drug through town? What if that were your son or daughter being burned and dragged around like trash? And, once again, I know you know the truth here, but I`m going to remind you again anyway. When the president said mission accomplished, everyone except the left knew what he meant. It meant that Iraq had just lost power, and we were there to begin the peace process. But, oh no, you and Kennedy, Daschle, Scary Kerry, all get on your soapbox and scream "impeach Bush", Bush lied, yadda yadda yadda! You need to sit long and hard and think of all the sacrifices soldiers past and present have made for you and me. My Dad fought on the beaches of Peilelu and other South Pacific campaigns. Many men died to protect our freedoms, and they are still doing so. A sitting president does not let a hack dictator like Saddam sit in power, holding WMD`s or even the threat of them over anyone's head. Everyone knows he had them, including those on your side of the aisle, including, Hillary and Bill Clinton, John Kerry, Jimmy Carter, on and on the list goes. They all knew, but when a Republican gets in office and finally says enough is enough, and he is sitting in post 911 America, he doesn`t read Time and Newsweek and read polls to see what the "world" thinks he should do. Were it left to them, America would be in ashes. He isn`t perfect. We all know from listening to Kerry that Bush can`t say nuclear or nucular. So that makes him stupid, right? No wonder the terrorists feel they don`t ever have to stop. They have your full support.
All I can say, is: THANK GOD Kerry didn`t win the office of the president. What the left needs to do is act more like President Kennedy did. He was a liberal of the old breed. He actually stood for something and made plans and ideas to make changes in our society for the better of all people. What and where is the liberal party today?
Bill Vick
b_vick@bellsouth.net
* * *
Mr. Vick,
Look beyond Fox News propaganda machine and the other "Fair and Balanced" news networks for the real facts on the world. Look beyond the flashy logos, terror alerts, "Shock and Awe" campaigns with the "Coalition of the Willing" and all the buzz words that could be thrown at you.
Who was arming Saddam in the 80s to fight the Iranians? In the recent interviews of the guards who were watching Saddam, the guard talked about how he was mentioning how Saddam mentioned he was an admirer of Ronald Regan, and how he sold him guns, helicopters, etc.
Does this not bother you?
Who was arming the Pakistan based Mujahadeen groups to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan? At one time Bin Laden was even being supplied by U.S. arms. Islamic extremism was fostered and encouraged in order to fight the Soviets.
Does this not bother you?
Salvador Ayende was ousted as Chile's president in a CIA instigated coup and Augusto Pinochet brought in. Ask the "mothers of the disappeared," how the next three decades went.
Does this not bother you?
For years Manuel Noriega was on the CIA's payroll while it was known he was a drug lord.
Does this not bother you?
Before you go on blindly about how morally superior we are in the world, take some time to reflect on how we may be paying for some of our past actions and policies.
Leo Mayfield
geomayfield@hotmail.com
* * *
Thank you for writing this article. I thoroughly enjoy this one and all the others you write for the Chattanoogan. When I read your articles I realize there is still hope for our country, in spite of our right-wing Republican conservative friends!
Vicki Hill
bouvierh@comcast.net
* * *
Reply to Mr. Vick:
At last, a single voice from the wilderness in defense of George W. I was getting worried. I was wondering what had happened to all that vocal support he had not so long ago, and it’s good to know he can still engender a little bit of praise for his efforts. Mr. Vick certainly told me where to go, didn’t he? All we have to do is read between the na-nas and the yadda-yaddas to figure out where exactly that is.
So, much of what Mr. Vick has to say to me is recycled, red-blooded sludge, and it is hard to sift through it all to form a meaningful response. Let’s start with accuracy. He says I write 2,000-3,000+ words in condemning Bush on a regular basis. My “offending” article was 854 words. His retort to me was 686. So, it would seem we are closer to one another in verbiage than he would like to admit and hopes that everyone out there will forgive his obvious hyperbole.
He’s right, though, in some ways. I could have just said “Bush stinks” and left it at that. That would have made it simpler for him to grasp, but my own literary standards would have been compromised.
Mr. Vick goes on to regurgitate all the anti-liberal tripe that we have been hearing for the past decade or so (hoping to hit me with some of it), as if he were suggesting that I cavort with these horrid folks on a daily basis. It might help if he would read beyond the first paragraph of my articles so he could have a shot at understanding that I hardly spend much time espousing the same agenda that his rogues’ gallery espouses.
Then, there is the idea that somehow the insurgents in Baghdad sit around reading my Chattanoogan.com articles, and this gives them sustenance. Flattery will get you everything. I think they have their own authors much closer to home who are doing a much better hatchet job on Bush than I could ever imagine.
What really jerks my chain is that Mr. Vick wants to presume and insinuate all sorts of things about me in the hopes of avoiding the issue that the nation and the good soldiers who protect and defend it are suffering right now at the hands of a seriously misguided leader. Those same soldiers are in harm’s way to fight his private war. At the same time, every aspect of our lives is slowing being eroded, and we are supposed to believe that somehow this is the price we must pay to save ourselves from terrorism at home.
I happen to believe there is a gap in this logic. Mr. Vick believes there is none. It is also clear that while he may claim I am “mad," he is very mad. He also likes George W. Bush a lot, which is fortunate for him since he may have a chance to vote for him again in 2008.
Now, I will stop with this vitriolic response to Mr. Vick since I am at 562 words, which is still well below the 2,000-word allotment or ration that Mr. Vick has given me for the time being. In fact, I didn’t go over it for both my original article and my response added together. Mr. Vick, do I get roll over words for next time?
Bart Whiteman
* * *
Bill Vick,
I can't speak for Bart Whiteman, but I read the Chattanoogan simply to read his 3,000-word musings; I
like his style. I think his writings should be available to a larger audience. Oh, that's right, you
apparently think the terrorists read the Chattanoogan and plan bombings based on Bart's commentary. Look,
if we stop voicing our opinions, and stop holding our leaders accountable, then we stop being a democracy.
If we stop being a democracy because of the terrorists, then they win. Think about it.
OK, so you're a diehard Bush supporter. He will need more people like you as time goes on. You are
motivated by hatred and fear - your writing explodes with it. Fear and hatred can motivate us to do things
that we should not do, as well as motivate us to protect ourselves. Bill, all I ask is that you try to
understand what different people are saying. It is not that liberals want to be attacked by terrorists,
or that they close their mind to the possibility. I believe that we must approach this problem very
carefully, because we can create terrorists more easily than catch them. Running into Iraq with guns
a-blazing just never sounded like the smart thing to do. More people are believing now that this was a
mistake. Actually, a series of mistakes. Never mind which ones you believe and which ones you don't, the
final results are that we are in a mess. We are so bogged down in Iraq that Bush cannot (or will not)
focus our attention on any number of other hot-spots in the world. It would seem that his Axis of Evil got
stuck in the mud. This is what happens when you leap before you look, when you shoot first and ask
questions later.
Piddling in the garden? I think not. Most liberals I know supported going into Afghanistan. I believe that we should have gone in in greater numbers and gotten the job done there. Unless you've forgotten, it was Osama who was behind 9/11. I want Osama. Instead, we have pretty much washed our hands of the Afghanistan situation, and it is deteriorating.
Only recently, we hear of terrorist attacks becoming more frequent, yet we deny Karzai much of the help and
power that he has asked for. Afghanistan is a garden where poppies and terrorists grow. You don't think
that garden needs attention?
I have tremendous respect for our armed services. I supported a retired four-star Army general for president. For all of George W. Bush's supposed 'support' of the military, it has not thrived under
his leadership. Recruitment goals are falling way short. Parents, faced with the realities of war
knocking on their own door, are deciding that the risk is too great. Our soldiers are linked to the act of
torturing prisoners. Not only does this tarnish their reputation, but it puts them at greater risk if they
are ever themselves captured, as revenge is an unending cycle. The thousands of soldiers injured and
disabled in Iraq are not likely to get the level of care that they deserve. Questioning Bush's leadership does not dishonor our military. By demanding that our
motivations to go to war are true and just, we honor our soldiers by acknowledging the level of sacrifices
that they make. Going to war with the wrong country makes them seem expendable, and they are not.
While the torture in Abu Ghraib, Bagram, and Guantanamo does not compare in scale to the Holocaust,
it does compare in spirit. We don't want to go down that road. It is against every principal that America
stands for. Whether we accidentally put sadists in charge of prisoners, or Donald Rumsfeld eagerly authorized torture, we are worse off because these things happened. Not simply because they happened, but because too many Americans think this is OK. I am reminded of the child's argument, "They started it". The patient mother says, "But that doesn't
make it right." If we sink to the level of the terrorists, and stop being a Democracy, they have won.
I have you tied at 707 words.
Ted Payne
theodorejpayne@yahoo.com
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