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Title: The Idiot King Admits Iraq Isn't Our War
Source:
Birch Blog
URL Source: http://www.thenewamerican.com/artman/publish/article_2848.shtml
Published: Dec 14, 2005
Author: William Norman Grigg
Post Date: 2005-12-16 15:57:14 by boonie rat
Keywords: Admits, Idiot, Isnt
Views: 55
Comments: 6
Birch Blog William Norman Grigg, Senior Editor, The New American http://www.thenewamerican.com/birchblog/ Last Updated: Dec 15th, 2005 - 10:36:04 The Idiot King Admits Iraq Isn't Our War Wed, 14 Dec 2005, 18:13 "I spend a lot of time thinking about Abraham Lincoln,” mused George W. Bush in what was described as an interview with NBC reporter Brian Williams. “His picture's there on the wall,” Bush added helpfully, as if childishly eager to display his mastery of the obvious. “That's generally a spot where a president would put [a portrait of the man he regards as] the most influential president.” From this we learn that Mr. Bush can recognize a portrait of Lincoln, and knows the familiar political trick of directing praise at Father Abraham as an oblique form of self-exaltation: “Lincoln had this great inner strength and a vision for America that was united. And he worked to achieve that vision as best he could in the midst of a bloody fight.” This statement comes with a tacit prompt for the audience: Lincoln was a stout-hearted, granite-willed man chosen by history to be an indispensable war president – not unlike...? George W. Bush is notoriously disinclined to read anything more substantive than a Bazooka Joe comic strip. Had he actually studied Lincoln, rather than absorbing a collection of political poses invoking him, he might have come across the following timely insight he offered in a February 15, 1848 letter to William Herndon: “Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our [1787 Constitutional] Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us." Leaving aside the matter of the way in which Abraham Lincoln used the powers of the presidency once he was in office (and he has much to answer for in that respect), his prescient warning against the aggrandizement of executive power through unnecessary wars could almost have been offered with George W. Bush in mind. Witness the Witless One's self-dramatizing description of his decision to invade Iraq: "I remember the day we committed the troops, or I committed the troops, there's no `we' to it. I committed the troops to combat in Iraq. And I left here [the Oval Office], walked out that door, walked around that South Lawn there with my trusty dog Spot, just thinking about the consequences....” It must first be said that a guy who'd actually name his dog “Spot” (and actually use the word “trusty” to describe the hapless critter) is obviously not prone to lengthy bouts of reflection. Good grief, that's practically a default name for a pet canine; the kind of guy who'd settle for “Spot” would probably join an occult fraternity, be given the temporary secret name “Temporary,” and never bother to change it ... oh, never mind. More to the point: Bush, in his effort to create an “uneasy lies the head that bears the crown” moment, inadvertently delivered the definitive indictment of his foolish, unjust, needless, unconstitutional war: There is, to use his eminently quotable phrase, “no `we' to it.” The American people didn't go to war through our elected representatives in Congress. We didn't commit our troops to that invasion. This war is his, and his alone. Every American and Iraqi who dies as a result is being sacrificed on the altar of Bush's vainglorious ambition, and to advance the demented designs of the neo-Trotskyites who play Edgar Bergen to his Mortimer Snerd. Like most people who suffer from megalomania, Bush preens in history's mirror, and refers to himself in the third person when he's not planting a forest of singular vertical pronouns: “I hope that when it's all said and done, people will say that George Bush knew how to make a decision and to stick by it. You know, not let the polls or the focus groups determine the course of history, but he made decisions based upon principles and things I firmly believed in. I'll tell you one thing I firmly believe in: I think I believe liberty is universal. Freedom is the deep desire of every human being and that a country with influence like ours ought to do things to free people.... I meant what I said in my inaugural address, we ought to end tyranny in this century. And so long as I'm the president I'm going to follow through on what I said I would do.” This narcissistic peroration has more “I's” than Argus. We are invited to believe that George W. Bush – a pampered son of privilege who is a stranger in the house of sacrifice – is somehow being brave and bold when he sends the sons and daughters of others to kill and die for no defensible reason (and without constitutional authority to do so). Granted, there is one thing Bush could do to help roll back tyranny. He could resign immediately and surrender himself to be prosecuted for his crimes against our Constitution. His trial could wait until after he had brought our troops home and personally visited the home of every family – American, ally, or Iraqi – that has been deprived of a child or a parent to plead, on his knees, for their forgiveness. But we already know, from both his words and his gestures, what the Idiot King thinks of those of us upon whom he has built his throne.
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#3. To: boonie rat (#0)
...of a questionable war that killed 500,000+ American men. I wonder what Smirk's goal is?
...of a questionable war that killed 500,000+ American men. I wonder what Smirk's goal is? Surpass Abe? Off to a great start if you include Iraqis and the future deaths due to U2 poisioning. Hurrah, Hurrah.
Now that's just weird!
#6. To: Dakmar (#5)
I keep trying to slide that slider on his forehead.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestLincoln was a stout-hearted, granite-willed man chosen by history to be an indispensable war president...
#4. To: robin (#3)
Lincoln was a stout-hearted, granite-willed man chosen by history to be an indispensable war president...
#5. To: tom007, Zipporah, robin (#4)
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