By Isaac Peterson
isaac3rd@mediaone.net
 

Since September 11, I've had the feeling they're going to get away with it, and it's been damned depressing.

And I'm not talking about the terrorists. I mean "Big Time" Cheney and "Not Ready for Prime Time" Bush and his administration. They stole the presidency and proceeded to push a hard right-wing agenda down the throats of this country and the entire world. They pressed on despite the fact that this country made it clear that the opposite was called for. When you consider that most people who voted chose the two men who had run from a position to the left of the GOP, the right-wing agenda wasn't what most voters wanted.

In spite of outspending, outmaneuvering, and out-manipulating, G.W. Bush still lost the popular vote. And the assault on the entire world began as soon as he became (in Molly Ivins' words) The Only President We've Got. The GOP told us that "the adults" were "in charge".

A short laundry list of what they pushed on us:
Plans to rape the environment
Tax cuts for the already obscenely wealthy
"1st Amendment Zones" to stifle dissent
John Ashcroft, Ted Olson, Gale Norton, and others put in positions where they could work against the common good
An "energy crisis" with astronomical energy costs to consumers
Trying to stop salmonella testing for the beef used in the school lunch program
Gutting bankruptcy protection from huge medical bills or hardship to protect credit card companies and lenders
Just to name a few.

And we had started to see some of it catching up with them. There was the GAO staring down Dick Cheney with the prospect of a lawsuit for refusing to disclose where our energy policy came from. Karl Rove and Paul O'Neill were starting to feel heat from improper stock holdings. The newspaper consortium was set to release the results of the vote recount in Florida from last year showing that Gore actually did win Florida and the presidency. David Souder had spoken about behind the scenes happenings with the Supreme Court decision to stop the vote count, and was the cover story in Newsweek. Vince Bugliosi's book "The Betrayal of America" accusing the five conservative Supreme Court "Justices" who ordered the vote count to stop of being criminals was a best-seller. Every day seemed to bring more hope that their crimes would be brought out into the light of day..

Until September 11th, when all of that went on the back burner. It's not "patriotic" to talk about any of that now. The administration has been using the attacks as cover to press on with eliminating freedoms, rights and liberties, and we're not supposed to talk about it. Nothing that happened on 9/11 did anything to make any of their previous actions legitimate, and what they're doing since says to me they have no intention to change. You see, I never "got over it" and I know that I never will.

It was all depressing until I realized one thing: these people and people like them had gotten into trouble because of their nature before, and they probably will again. Their official motto may as well be "Too much is never enough". From the Reagan era South American death squads and Iran-Contra, to the Gingrich House of Representatives overkill, they haven't seemed to understand that history repeats. When Bush first heard that saying, he probably figured it meant that if he failed history the first time, he'd have to take it again in summer school.

I'm feeling better, and have started to look at the whole thing as spectator sport now. These people are riding high right now, but they will mess up eventually: It's inevitable-they've already started. And the main reason they will mess up is that they tend to overreach. The GOP since at least the Reagan years has always gone too far, and I think history will repeat with this bunch.

Let me say right here that I don't want this administration to fail, at least not in its stated goal of keeping the citizens of this country safe. No one in his right mind should want to see someone fail out of spite, especially when so much is at stake. But because so much is at stake, I do not want to see this administration around long enough to get everything they want in their hidden agenda. If they had won the election fairly and squarely, I would have no alternative but to hold to my nose and tough it out-the same way I did under 12 years of Reagan and the first Bush. I hadn't trusted this group before September 11, and they haven't given me reason to since, for a few reasons.

First off is the arrogance. The Only President We've Got has been quoted more than once saying that he'd prefer to be a dictator-things would be easier. And that really seems to be his philosophy. I would have thought that someone who lost the popular vote would kind of ease into the job, make people comfortable with his presidency. Gain people's trust, and work toward a more conservative agenda slowly, but surely. But no, these people came screaming in like Airwolf. It was take no prisoners, my way or the highway. There was the executive order on the first day of business cutting funding to abortion providers overseas. There were the "1st Amendment Zones" used to keep protesters and dissenters far away from anyone in the administration-even the lawful, peaceful ones. John Ashcroft lied about his beliefs and was sworn in as Attorney General, where he could pursue his 21st century vision of 1984. They looked the other way while Big Energy looted California. They pushed through a tax bill that drained the treasury and guaranteed there would be no funding available for social spending so that the super rich could get richer. They overturned guidelines to insure the health and safety of workers. They gutted environmental protections so that Big Energy could make obscene profits at everybody else's expense. They did pretty much what they wanted in every way, regardless of what most people wanted.

Second is the secrecy. Cheney met with reps from Big Energy and refused to say who had input into our new energy policy and how it was arrived at. Ashcroft was at it, having a reporter secretly arrested and jailed for not sharing her notes on a case closed long before and where the main subject was dead, with the government. Some GOP fatcats were allowed to play Captain Nemo on a U.S. submarine, and nine Japanese citizens are dead. The administration refused to release the names of those involved or to pursue the matter. The Only President We've Got sealed the papers from his administration as governor of Texas, and has just signed an executive order sealing the papers from his presidency. We regularly find out the details of what is happening in our own country from the foreign press. This administration likes the light of day as much as cockroaches do.

Third is the image over substance. Our media, TV news (cable and broadcast), newspapers, and talk radio are wholly owned subsidiaries of the GOP. They have bought and paid for  their own huge public relations firm through controlling the media. When they run into public opposition to a policy, the response isn't that maybe the policy is misguided and maybe should be rethought, it's that they need to kick the image machine into high gear and try to change the way people think. They did this when they found out that people actually objected to high levels of arsenic in drinking water. Suddenly I was reading reports that arsenic is good for you, and that high levels of it would actually save lives. When they wanted to privatize social security, they played the race card, trying to convince African Americans that SS is racially biased because African Americans, with shorter life spans, don't live long enough to collect it.. Karl Rove, Karen Hughes and Andy Card, among others have had a constant battle trying to manipulate the Shrub's image in an attempt to make him look like he's big enough for the job. The results have been mixed, at best. Bush's attempt at restoring public confidence in flying by encouraging people to go to Disney World only reminded me of his dad's lame attempt to stimulate public spending by buying a pair of socks. Pinocchio Fleischer is an awful liar, and I mean that both ways: he is shameless when he is spinning information (which is all the time), and he's not very good at it. He only still has a job because the media won't ask the tough questions. But Fleischer blows even a lot of the softballs he's tossed.

Fourth is the lack of coherent messages from one official to the next. We've seen almost everything said by Colin Powell contradicted the next day by someone else. The same has happened with Christie Todd Whitman of the EPA. Now we're seeing it with Tom Ridge, the Director of Homeland Security and Tommy Thompson, health director. Ridge says he's in charge of directing our response to bioterror, but no wait, now Thompson says he is. We constantly hear these people talk about sending messages, but to me the message is "We don't know what the hell we're doing".

And whenever something goes wrong, there is always that favorite from the conservative playbook to fall back on. Say it with me, we've all heard it a thousand times: "It's all Clinton's fault".

Most of this is even from before 9/11, and I haven't gone into anywhere near the detail I could have. But I'm feeling very much better, all of a sudden, thank you for asking. Because I know these folks are going to take the second chance they got after the attacks and blow it. It's a sure thing..

The "war on terrorism" is running into roadblocks that our own media won't cover, but is all over the foreign media. Just keep an eye on the UK Guardian, for instance. The war isn't going anywhere near as well as our own media is telling us. How can it? If, as the administration keeps telling us, this is "a new kind of war", how can we fight it when our government and military are run by re-treaded Cold Warriors? Public support here and overseas for the war has been dropping, and look for that to continue. They're only going to be able to keep people fired up and distracted by "patriotism" and the flag for so long. More and more people are finding out we're being lied to about the civilian casualties in Afghanistan, for example, and that our "humanitarian aid" to Afghanis is a charade. And it is not inspiring confidence that the Pentagon has asked the public for suggestions on how to fight terrorism. The sudden proliferation of anthrax attacks is not exactly inspiring confidence in our government's ability to combat terror, either.

Even though the media is bought and paid for by the GOP, they're making things worse for the administration. With all networks now being ANN (Anthrax News Networks-all anthrax, all the time), focusing so much on the anthrax attacks, they're helping point out that the government has no idea what to do about it, and people are catching on.

And it's so obvious the GOP doesn't care any more about the public now than before 9/11. The White House and the Legislature pushed hard to bail out the airlines, whose policies helped the hijackers, but didn't want to do anything about unemployment for the airline workers who lost their jobs because of management stupidity. The House just voted against making airport security workers federal employees and keeping them minimum wage schleps. And this is while knowing that one of the major contractors has been cited for employing people with criminal records. While they're appealing to the public for unity and shared sacrifice, they're pushing for more tax breaks for the wealthy, capitals gains tax cuts, and corporate tax breaks. Shared sacrifice means the rest of us sacrifice, and they will share with each other what they take from us. These people did everything they possibly could have done to steal the last election, with no regard to what this country actually wanted or needed, and I'm supposed to believe that all of a sudden their intentions are good?

We're supposed to go back to the lives we had before 9/11, living the way we did before. Bush has gone back to visiting elementary schools, in his never ending search to find a second grader who can tell him once and for all whatever did happen to that hungry caterpillar. Everyone else in the administration has gone back to feeding at the trough and ignoring the problems we had and still have: unemployment, eroding infrastructure, campaign finance reform, the uninsured and HMO highway robbery, Social Security, Medicare, racial and gender bias, etc. The rest of us are back to figuring out how to do more with less. The war on terrorism can only distract us all for so long, and it clearly is just a tailor made excusefor the administration to not do a damned thing about anything else. In other words, perfect cover for business as usual: making sure the wealthy are obscenely wealthy and screwing over everyone who isn't.

I'm reminded of a study I read about years ago involving mice (it may have been rats, but if it was, I'd have to come up with a different title). Mice were given a choice: if they pressed one lever, they would be rewarded with food. The other lever would give them a dose of cocaine. The mice became addicted to the cocaine, and eventually neglected nourishment to the point where they died of malnutrition and starvation-all for more cocaine.

Watching the GOP these last couple of decades, I'm forced over and over to think about those mice, just substituting money and oil for cocaine. When I see the knee-jerk overreaching, I can't think anything else. This administration was given a second chance, a chance to change directions and earn some real legitimacy, but they keep pressing the oil and money lever.

And I feel much better believing that, because keeping this administration to a single term might open the way for leadership that might actually make moves that are in the best interest of the most people, not just the rich and the powerful.

In the meantime, I hope the screwups don't cost any more lives or hardship. I can hope that these folks have peaked, and only hurt each other from here on until the real adults can take over.

I still haven't gotten over it, but with any luck, in 2004, we'll be saying "George Walker Bush-with less votes than your opponent, you ARE the weakest link. GOOD BYE"!  That is, if we're allowed to have presidential elections any more.

isaac peterson

I report. I decide.