Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Worth it

Our Prez has spoken about the 5th anniversary of his war, that it was "worth it" to be rid of Saddam Hussein. Like Saddam was the worst dictator to ever come along. Worth it. 4,000 American troops dead, untold numbers of Iraqis (and i mean the ones who just got caught in the crossfire) dead, a country in ruins, a new training ground for terrorists created , a new chance for Iran to dominate the region. Meanwhile the real Al Qaeda and Osama B. are hiding out in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Because George Bush didn't want to commit to actually fighting Al Qaeda. He wanted to bring down Saddam, which his daddy didn't do. My guess is there's some serious father-son rivalry going on there. Too bad the rest of us have to pay for it. If you didn't lose a relative or friend in this war, you will find you have lost a lot from your wallet. Yep, really worth it.

And one of the really shameful aspects is that the wounded veterans who come back are treated so shabbily. These people got sent to fight and die or be dismembered in this phony war (the war is real, the reasons for it are phony), but when they come home they have to put up with terrible conditions at Walter Reed Hospital, have the govt deny or delay medical treatment and mental claims of PTSD etc.

I was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam war, and I'm still one, but even I see the necessity of giving these soldiers the best treatment possible. Why don't the leaders who sent them off see that?

Among the mental problems, let us not forget the brutalizing of soldiers' consciences because the leaders refuse to give clear and humane instructions for handling prisoners.

Why hasn't anyone in Congress had the courage to start impeachment of this reckless, feckless president? One of my favorite bumper stickers says "Somebody please give him a blow job so we can impeach him"

Which brings me to one of my favorite subjects, American sex hangup.
Damn those Puritans. We're still cleaning up the doctrinal doo-doo. Although it's unfair really to blame the Puritans alone. But the sexual hypocrisy seems to never abate here. And causes all kinds of trouble. I see where some author from England was denied entry because of his past drug arrests and the book he'd written which basically told of a life of debauchery.
Some people have all the luck.

No, I didn't really mean that.
But smarmy as his book may be (and there seem to be indications that it's not all true anyway), this denial of entry seems to me to be a suppression of free speech. So it's crummy speech. When did that ever stop anyone?

When we get to the point where a president can more easily be impeached for sexual impropriety than for violating the Constitution, starting illegitimate wars, ruining an economy etc—well there's trouble in River City and it starts with "S" and that means Sex.

People are still talking about Elliot Spitzer. Now his visiting a prostitute and violating his marriage vows is bad enough, but he could have gotten past that and stayed Gov of New York anyway—if only he hadn't been patronizing the very people he'd been spending a lot of time prosecuting as Attorney General. It isn't right for a lawman to eat at the criminal's table, even if he is paying extravagantly for the meal. This goes way past "the appearance of impropriety."
Too bad, Elliot.
I see his successor, Mr. Paterson, has already come out and confessed to past extra-marital adventures. But he doesn't do that anymore. At least he isn't trying the "I didn't inhale" defense of a former President.
How would Paterson word that if he did try that tactic? Let's not go there.

Anyway, he'll get a pass, because he wasn't prosecuting the people he was patronizing, and he got this out so it doesn't look like a big secret he's hiding.
And he doesn't do that anymore.
We can only hope.

On to cheerier items: Barack Obama gave a great speech this past week, in response to a sermon his former pastor made, which pretty much raked America over the coals for racism.
Not that that's not deserved, but the language was offensive.
Mr. Obama gave a stirring speech about racism, how it affects white and black, and how many of our problems today are more economical that racist. He managed to repudiate his pastor's words without repudiating his pastor.
Highly recommended. You can see it here, as long as the Times keeps it up.
http://tinyurl.com/2e2k54

The original URL is too long so I went to Tinyurl.com for help.

That's all for now folks.
I'm missing my beauty sleep.

4 comments:

dogboy443 said...

You finally posted. I thought I'd find you swinging from your rafters with your pipe in one hand, a bottle of brandy in the other.

Anonymous said...

I would expect nothing less from this morally corrupt president than to say that the sacrifice has been worth it. Even though I'm not surprised, I am still completely disgusted by his remarks.

Senator Obama may have given a stirring speech (he does seem to be good at that, at least), but I don't believe for a minute that he never heard that rhetoric from his former pastor.

curmudgeon said...

He said he'd heard his pastor say things he thought were wrong. And he was pretty clear on condemning the particular words his pastor used.

I'm not really concerned about what the pastor says. It's a free country. This is a media blow-up job. Both Obama and Hillary better be sure their toilet paper isn't made in China. That'll be next.

Anonymous said...

That was a new announcement then. He said when this story first came out that he had never heard that rhetoric from his pastor. In any event, I'm sick to death of all three of them. When will this God-forsaken election be over and done with? The Shrub administration feels like it has lasted an eternity.