Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Ruminations on Robertson and Rumsfeld

Republicans Robertson and Rumsfeld are in the news this week, the former for recommending the assassination of Venezuela's president, the latter for flatly downplaying the prospect of civil war in Iraq. For both, it's merely more of the same.

Robertson, the founder of the Christian Coalition and host of the "700 Club" broadcast, proved once again that he's simply a right wing radical posing as a Christian. His previous inane comments include accusations that the women's rights movement advocated killing children and practicing witchcraft, and that homosexuals have Nazi tendencies. So it's 100% in character for the 75 year old Robertson to propose an assassination as a good solution to dealing with a left wing Venezuelan politician who is irritating the United States government. Robertson makes no mention of the ten commandments or "turning the other cheek", since these are Christian admonitions that don't jive with the radical right wing agenda. Where is the Bush administration on this one? Well, since Robertson is a private citizen "he can say whatever he wants to". Now that's a strong repudiation, typical of the tepid official responses to gaffes by Republican supporters! This "moral" president has a pretty flexible backbone...

Rumsfeld, meanwhile, doesn' t think the current problems with devising an Iraqi constitution increase the chances of a civil war. This conclusion arises from his process of assessments by the "wishful thinking" approach. So far his wishes for the U.S. to be loved by Iraqi's, his wishes for a quiclly-quelled insurgency of incompent rabble, and his wishes that the far-from-finished war could be prosecuted successfully with 130,000 troops have not been fulfilled. Based on where Iraq seems to be going, the likely outcomes are either a civil war or a repressive Iran-like state far from Bush's desires for a true democracy. That ugly old Saddam looks better every day!

So, with gas prices now $2.65 per gallon (including the $1.00 uncertainty tax that Bush has kindly provided the sheiks and his Venezuelan friends), we look forward to the U.S. economy going into an inflation and deficit-driven recession in 2006. Perfect timing! The 2006 elections will be a great opportunity to hand over the mess to the darn Democrats! Time for a third party again...

The Nationwide Tour was in Pittsford, NY, last weekend. Those guys really are good! And they are accountable, too. Watching them keep score makes you wish there was an honest political scorecard... unfortunately, politics has no rules and flexible scoring. Blogs are a good surrogate for an official honest broker, don't you think?

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