Current Comedy: 11/23/07: If The Dems Really Wanted Us to Vote ...

Current Comedy 11/12/07: If They Wanted Us to Vote …
By mikel weisser
--1000 words-

For those of you who read this column on a regular basis, turns out my much feared nightmare about a military coup installing martial law did indeed come true, complete with motorcade bombings, dissidents beaten in the streets and disappeared to detention centers, opposition leaders rendered to house arrest “for their own safety.” Even the nation’s lawyers have risked bodily injury to bring the weight of the letter of the law to bear on the unconstitutionality of the dictator’s power grab and the world cringes in fear of the shadow of the nuclear peril such instability brings. Face it, when even the country lawyers are out risking their lives pro bono you know the problem reaches to the root of their society.
Of course the nation in question is Pakistan and not the US, but watching the way that the Bush backed the Islamo-fascist, Pervez Musharrof, practice a takeover of his country as he holds the elected government at bay and dismantles the judiciary to keep it from hampering his aims, is like watching Bush’s understudy warming up the crowd prior to the lead’s big show stopper number. Coincidentally enough, Musharraf made his move just in time to interfere with the upcoming elections.
Wonder who had the idea first? It will just take a certain set of circumstances for Bush to have to set up his own set of emergency measures for our own safety. Consider the ongoing posturing towards Iran. Even though I have received a personal letter from Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) reassuring me that we are not about to attack Iran, Bush, Cheney and all the in-crowd continue pushing for confrontation. Condi Rice says she’s sure that Iran is lying about its nuclear plans. And of course we should trust her to know a lie when she hears one; for after all it takes a liar to know a liar. Though which lie of hers is hard to pick as the best example. There’s the WMD lies from ’03, or the 9/11 “we had no idea any one would ever think of flying planes into buildings” from ‘01 or how the one about her being an oil company executive and the US attacking an oil rich country is not a conflict of interest.
Certainly if we are hoping for the supposed loyal opposition to protect us from BushCo’s abuses of power, on Nov. 6, 2007 we found out who the Democratic Party is actually loyal to. When the Dems were finally placed in a position to put up or shut up, they definitely showed what they were made of. For when Denis Kucinich finally dug his impeachment measure out of the House leadership’s imposed mothballs where its languished since April, using a privileged House motion to finally get it heard, the Repugs in the House tossed Kucinich’s House Resolution 799 (AKA HR333) right back in Pelosi’s face by backing Kucinich’s move to bring a full-on discussion over impeachment for Dick Cheney right out into the open before the full house, majority leader Steny Hoyer, et al, hustled little Denis off to the side like humiliated parents whose four-year old just brought out the secret porn collection at family reunion. All this time of thinking that Pelosi loved truth, justice and the American Way, it turns what Nancy really loves is Dick.
If there is one thing Pelosi and Hoyer don’t want to have to do, it’s sell an impeachment to the Capitol Hill GOP, who are still clinging to Bush like they’re the emperor’s imaginary clothes. The rest of America is largely ready (55% of a Nov. poll say they’re convinced Bush’s committed impeachable offenses), but in the LaLa-land inside the Beltway, the GOP insist Bush is still the powerful “Uniter” who works by dividing, the “builder” who creates by destroying. You know, War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength, that kind of thing.
Meanwhile Pelosi looks the other way and is busy having the Department of Homeland Security investigating the San Francisco oil spill. If that’s the kind of leadership the Dems provide, it’s no wonder that even though they are facing the least popular world leader since his long lost cousin (true fact) Vlad the Impaler, the Democrats can’t guarantee a victory next November. Stats show that even Nixon was better loved than Bush at this stage of the game and, let’s face it, being less loved than Nixon is one of those special categories usually reserved for folks like Leona Helmsley and Pol Pot, both of whom Bush is indeed beginning to resemble. After all, what kind of guy grabs up yet another 450 billion for more weapons at the same time he vetoes bills for health care, education, and water safety.
He’s the kind of guy who runs up the greatest debt our government has ever known then complains when congress tries to pass a bill like the SCHIP that they’re acting like a teenager with a brand new credit card. Then he stops the SCHIP, a bill for children’s health care, twice by saying it will cost too much; even though the cost of protecting the health of 10 million American children for a year is less than the cost of destroying the health of Iraqi children for 3 months. I mean which fabled world leader’s footsteps is this guy trying to follow, Hoover, Harding, or Hitler?
But still, somehow, the Dems continue avoid addressing the 3000lb elephant stomping all over the peanut butter. When the impeachment word gets mentioned at the Democratic debates, even though the audience roars in applause, the Dems onstage wince like someone cut the cheese. If that’s the best they can do to protect us from Bush, it’s small wonder that even after all these debates most of America still isn’t sure why we should vote Dem. In some ways they seem to suffer an identity crisis. I mean, come on, Barack Hussein Obama sounds like a terrorist; Bill Richardson sounds like he is not Latino; Biden sounds like he can wait forever; Dodd sounds like a dud; Kucinich sounds like it is Polish for Dukakis; Gravel sounds like you can treat him like dirt; and Clinton sounds like she ought to be a Democrat. Like the old joke goes, if they really wanted us to vote for them, they’d offer us candidates.