Patriots 'R Us

Arianna Huffington (whom I despise for withdrawing from the California gubernatorial recall race after I had sumbitted my absentee ballot with her name) nevertheless raises a good question:

The most alarming thing that emerges from O'Neill's revelations is the total lack of leadership on Bush's part. Just as the president was finally outgrowing the long-standing rumors that he was a cheerful pawn in a game he was too dumb to understand, O'Neill applies the paddles to the "Bush as clown" image, turns on the juice, and yells, "Clear!" At the very moment that Rove and the Bush re-election team are gearing up to sell us the president as the macho, heroic cowboy from Crawford who is going to keep us all safe from terrorists, despots, and Mad Cow meat, here comes his former Treasury Secretary with his devastating assessment of Bush as "a blind man in a roomful of deaf people". Will this be the wakeup call that finally opens the American public's eyes to the deadly consequences of being governed by a disengaged dolt in the hands of a gang of brazen fanatics?

Of course, all sane, intelligent persons know the answer, namely that Bush and Co. will do whatever it takes to retain the office of the Presidency, no matter what the cost, no matter who gets steamrolled in the process, and no matter what morals and ethics may fall into the great abyss. The Florida debacle will seem like a walk through the arboretum on a sunny, Spring day. The fact that a majority (around 55% according to the average of most reputable polls) of Americans continue to approve of his job, in spite of three years of the most malicious and lawless actions (by Bush) of any President of the past 100 years, will guarantee his reelection November 2, 2004. Starting November 3, we will all be witness to the most insidious, dispassionate unravelling of this nation's political and economic systems since the days of the Third Reich. Intertwined with our nation's decent into hell, will be the anxious fingers of a half-dozen "dictators" hovering over nuclear missile launch buttons, led by none other than our good friends-in-arms Israel and Pakistan.

The only way to avoid this scenario is for Democrats to get off their soft asses and start a revolution. No, not a riot-in-the-streets kind, but a kind that stems from real action (boycotts, demonstrations, retaking the media, VOTING, town meetings, and searching out the real news and information (which the rest of the world already does).

Anything less, and in four years we'll all be attending mandatory practice sessions to learn the lyrics to the new National Anthem: "Patriots 'R Us".