Bush’s stage-managers have decided it’s time for another “aw-shucks” speech about “folks needin’ to be patient” and about how sending Americans to die needlessly in the desert is “hard work.”
One disadvantage to being ever on-message and stubbornly “staying the course,” no matter how poorly plotted, is that the White House never has anything new to say. Once again we’ll hear how turning Iraq into a smelly, fiery hole of death has somehow been an improvement because Hussein is gone and Iraqis got to (drum roll please) VOTE.
Once again the administration will embarrass itself and the rest of the country with all those buffalo chips about democracy in the Middle East. The speech will be another example of how easy it is to drape yourself in expressions like "liberty," "freedom" and the like while laboring for completely different realities both here and abroad.
If there is any silver lining to Bush’s reelection it would have to be a record of comportment established over time and now difficult to deny. And that record has left believers in the Christian heartland and at Fox News only.
Below is a speech John Kerry gave in the Senate last week following Karl Rove’s remarks deplorable remarks about liberal America.
The “San Diego Union-Tribune” accused Democrats of “hyperventilating” over this idiot’s speech,
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050625/news_lz1ed25middle.html
but the paper’s editorial board could not be more wrong. The chat was both unbecoming and undignified coming from someone with pretensions of governing for the good of the entire country.
We here at highwayscribery have always held the view these guys are governing for one half of the country while hoping, and God knows how, to eliminate the other from civic life.
But here’s the guy who should have been president if not for another round of dirty electoral tricks in Ohio:
"None of us here will ever forget the hours after September 11... and the remarkable response of the American people as we came together as one to answer the attack on our homeland.... [I]t brought out the best of all of us in America.
That spirit of our country should never be reduced to a cheap, divisive political applause line from anyone who speaks for the President of the United States.
I am proud, as my colleagues on this side are, that after September 11, all of the people of this country rallied to President Bush's call for unity to meet the danger. There were no Democrats, there were no Republicans, there were only Americans. That is why it is really hard to believe that last night in New York... the most senior adviser to the President of the United States [was] purposely twisting those days of unity in order to divide us for political gain.
Rather than focusing attention on Osama bin Laden and finding him or rather than focusing attention on just smashing al-Qaida and uniting our effort, as we have been, he is, instead, challenging the patriotism of every American who is every bit as committed to fighting terror as is he.
Just days after 9/11, the Senate voted 98 to nothing, and the House voted 420 to 1, to authorize President Bush to use all necessary and appropriate force against terror. And after the bipartisan vote, President Bush said: "I'm gratified that the Congress has united so powerfully by taking this action. It sends a clear message. Our people are together and we will prevail."
That is not the message that was sent by Karl Rove in New York City last night. Last night, he said: "No more needs to be said about" their "motives."
I think a lot more needs to be said about Karl Rove's motives because they are not the people's motives... They are not the motives of a nation that found unity in that critical moment--Democrat and Republican alike, all of us as Americans.
If the President really believes his own words, if those words have meaning, he should at the very least expect a public apology from Karl Rove. And frankly, he ought to fire him. If the President of the United States knows the meaning of those words, then he ought to listen to the plea of Kristen Breitweiser, who lost her husband when the Twin Towers came crashing down. She said: "If you are going to use 9/11, use it to make this nation safer than it was on 9/11."
Karl Rove doesn't owe me an apology and he doesn't owe Democrats an apology. He owes the country an apology. He owes Kristen Breitweiser and a lot of people like her, those families, an apology. He owes an apology to every one of those families who paid the ultimate price on 9/11 and expect their government to be doing all possible to keep the unity of their country and to fight an effective war on terror.
The fact is, millions of Americans...are asking Washington for honesty, for results, and for leadership--not for political division. Before Karl Rove delivers another political assault, he ought to stop and think about those families and the unity of 9/11.
Sign Kerry’s petition to have Rove fired and have a great day.
http://www.johnkerry.com/petition/rove.php
One disadvantage to being ever on-message and stubbornly “staying the course,” no matter how poorly plotted, is that the White House never has anything new to say. Once again we’ll hear how turning Iraq into a smelly, fiery hole of death has somehow been an improvement because Hussein is gone and Iraqis got to (drum roll please) VOTE.
Once again the administration will embarrass itself and the rest of the country with all those buffalo chips about democracy in the Middle East. The speech will be another example of how easy it is to drape yourself in expressions like "liberty," "freedom" and the like while laboring for completely different realities both here and abroad.
If there is any silver lining to Bush’s reelection it would have to be a record of comportment established over time and now difficult to deny. And that record has left believers in the Christian heartland and at Fox News only.
Below is a speech John Kerry gave in the Senate last week following Karl Rove’s remarks deplorable remarks about liberal America.
The “San Diego Union-Tribune” accused Democrats of “hyperventilating” over this idiot’s speech,
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050625/news_lz1ed25middle.html
but the paper’s editorial board could not be more wrong. The chat was both unbecoming and undignified coming from someone with pretensions of governing for the good of the entire country.
We here at highwayscribery have always held the view these guys are governing for one half of the country while hoping, and God knows how, to eliminate the other from civic life.
But here’s the guy who should have been president if not for another round of dirty electoral tricks in Ohio:
"None of us here will ever forget the hours after September 11... and the remarkable response of the American people as we came together as one to answer the attack on our homeland.... [I]t brought out the best of all of us in America.
That spirit of our country should never be reduced to a cheap, divisive political applause line from anyone who speaks for the President of the United States.
I am proud, as my colleagues on this side are, that after September 11, all of the people of this country rallied to President Bush's call for unity to meet the danger. There were no Democrats, there were no Republicans, there were only Americans. That is why it is really hard to believe that last night in New York... the most senior adviser to the President of the United States [was] purposely twisting those days of unity in order to divide us for political gain.
Rather than focusing attention on Osama bin Laden and finding him or rather than focusing attention on just smashing al-Qaida and uniting our effort, as we have been, he is, instead, challenging the patriotism of every American who is every bit as committed to fighting terror as is he.
Just days after 9/11, the Senate voted 98 to nothing, and the House voted 420 to 1, to authorize President Bush to use all necessary and appropriate force against terror. And after the bipartisan vote, President Bush said: "I'm gratified that the Congress has united so powerfully by taking this action. It sends a clear message. Our people are together and we will prevail."
That is not the message that was sent by Karl Rove in New York City last night. Last night, he said: "No more needs to be said about" their "motives."
I think a lot more needs to be said about Karl Rove's motives because they are not the people's motives... They are not the motives of a nation that found unity in that critical moment--Democrat and Republican alike, all of us as Americans.
If the President really believes his own words, if those words have meaning, he should at the very least expect a public apology from Karl Rove. And frankly, he ought to fire him. If the President of the United States knows the meaning of those words, then he ought to listen to the plea of Kristen Breitweiser, who lost her husband when the Twin Towers came crashing down. She said: "If you are going to use 9/11, use it to make this nation safer than it was on 9/11."
Karl Rove doesn't owe me an apology and he doesn't owe Democrats an apology. He owes the country an apology. He owes Kristen Breitweiser and a lot of people like her, those families, an apology. He owes an apology to every one of those families who paid the ultimate price on 9/11 and expect their government to be doing all possible to keep the unity of their country and to fight an effective war on terror.
The fact is, millions of Americans...are asking Washington for honesty, for results, and for leadership--not for political division. Before Karl Rove delivers another political assault, he ought to stop and think about those families and the unity of 9/11.
Sign Kerry’s petition to have Rove fired and have a great day.
http://www.johnkerry.com/petition/rove.php
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