Thursday, February 08, 2007

WAIT A MINUTE -- BUSH ACCUSES WILSON OF NEPOTISM?




DIGGING DEEPER
By Ivan G. Goldman

As the Libby perjury trial peels off more layers of how Bush’s administration operates, we learn that it felt called upon to Swift Boat Ambassador Joseph Wilson because – my gosh – he was suspected of nepotism. Nepotism happens to be one subject this administration actually knows something about.

So when word spread around the White House that Iraq War critic Wilson was married to Valerie Plame, a CIA operative, messengers bearing leaks from Dick Cheney went forth to warn the media that something must be done to stop this runaway fixation on family connections or who knows where it might lead?. One of these days a vicious despot whose daddy was President and whose granddaddy was a U.S. senator from Connecticut, might steal an election and take over the whole shooting match.

Actually, Plame had nothing to do with sending Wilson on a pre-invasion journey to Niger, where he learned and later revealed to New York Times readers the report that Saddam was seeking nuclear apparatus there was bullshit. Purposely revealing Plame was an agent was a treasonous act for which it appears no one will ever be charged. But as long as we’re talking about nepotism, isn’t there something very spooky and downright incestuous about the same two families trading the presidency back and forth for decades?

The first Bush took the throne in ’89, and if Hillary is elected in 2008, that could extend this bi-family monarchy of Bushes and Clintons into 2013. A second term for Clinton would extend the line all the way to 2017 and counting. Even if we were talking about exceptionally decent individuals, this would be alarming. But the fact is, these two families are extremely odd and untrustworthy.

When this nation turned away from monarchy at its founding, it evidently was unable to turn away from monarchy in the hearts of people. A royalist imperative persists. Perhaps citizens inherited this weakness from all those ancestors who were, let’s face it, groveling peasants who flocked to the castle of their lord for protection.

Our present American lord saved us from what he preached was imminent annihilation from Saddam Hussein, launching an endless war that down to the wire continues to make billions of bucks for the right corporations. He convinced the most corrupt Congress since the Gilded Age to follow its instincts and alleviate the financial suffering of America’s wealthiest citizens at the expense of everyone else, and every time he promotes a "fix" for our failed health system he throws more dollars at insurance-HMOs and pharmaceuticals. Got an energy or an environmental problem? Same fix, different corporate recipients.

He continues handing over billions of dollars to zombie zealots who believe the earth is 6,000 years old and have made their mystic beliefs the foundation for the entire federal government. He gave power and funding to pathetic, pompous, platitudinous pissants like himself, whose boundless ineptitude ensured, for instance, that while Gulf Coast citizens slammed by Katrina died of dehydration, the EPA director was agonizing over where to make dinner reservations.

But it’s preposterous to think either George II or Hillary I would be President were it not for their family ties. George, whose family has attended Yale for six generations, doesn’t have the talent to operate a tire store. [Above, next to a photo of W's grandfather Sen. Prescott Bush (R-Conn.) is a portrait of Britain's George III] Hillary’s bland exterior coupled with her refusal to say anything that wouldn’t pull in a 70-percent ratings approval from a focus group make her an ideally forgettable candidate.

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