Jay Bee Two

Ah, George Dubya Bush. What kind of a person would say that torture is something that needs to be continued, Geneva Conventions be damned? How does Bush sleep at night? Paul Krugman has this take on Bush’s reasons in his newest column, “King of Pain”:

The central drive of the Bush administration more fundamental than any particular policy has been the effort to eliminate all limits on the presidents power. Torture, I believe, appeals to the president and the vice president precisely because its a violation of both law and tradition. By making an illegal and immoral practice a key element of U.S. policy, theyre asserting their right to do whatever they claim is necessary.

Yeah, I’d buy that. That fits in with Bush’s record-setting use of signing statements to exert more control over laws.

Mr. Bush would have us believe that the difference between him and those opposing him on this issue is that hes willing to do whats necessary to protect America, and they arent. But the record says otherwise.

The fact is that for all his talk of being a war president, Mr. Bush has been conspicuously unwilling to ask Americans to make sacrifices on behalf of the cause even when, in the days after 9/11, the nation longed to be called to a higher purpose. His admirers looked at him and thought they saw Winston Churchill. But instead of offering us blood, toil, tears and sweat, he told us to go shopping and promised tax cuts.

Only now, five years after 9/11, has Mr. Bush finally found some things he wants us to sacrifice. And those things turn out to be our principles and our self-respect.

Are there still people out there that support Bush, torture, the war in Iraq, the PATRIOT Act, domestic spying, etc? Was there ever anyone supporting these things, or was it all spin from the White House public affairs office and Fox News?

Isn’t it time that somebody in the Bush administration started reading the news and/or Congressional reports once in a while? We know that Bush is a self-declared non-news reader (and seemingly proud of it, like a college student who’s just there for the parties). In Frank Rich’s newest column, “The Longer the War, the Larger the Lies” he points out one of Cheney’s indicators that he’s lying:

The other instant tip-off to a Cheney lie is any variation on the phrase “I haven’t read the story.” He told Tim Russert he hadn’t read The Washington Post’s front-page report that the bin Laden trail had gone “stone cold” or the new Senate Intelligence Committee report(PDF) contradicting the White House’s prewar hype about nonexistent links between Al Qaeda and Saddam. Nor had he read a Times front-page article about his declining clout. Or the finding by Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency just before the war that there was “no evidence of resumed nuclear activities” in Iraq. “I haven’t looked at it; I’d have to go back and look at it again,” he said, however nonsensically.

It’s like he’s going for the Bush image of not reading any news, because how terrible it would be if he read something that shook his firm belief in whatever crazy thing he believes in.

And then you have gems like this one that make you wonder why the country isn’t clamoring for Bush’s impeachment:

As for that Zarqawi “poisons network,” the Pentagon knew where it was and wanted to attack it in June 2002. But as Jim Miklaszewski of NBC News reported more than two years ago, the White House said no, fearing a successful strike against Zarqawi might “undercut its case for going to war against Saddam.” Zarqawi, meanwhile, escaped.

Wow. What’s wrong with America that these jerks are still running things? How come we could impeach Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky incident but we can’t impeach Bush for all the much more serious things he’s done to try to ruin America and destroy our freedoms?

It makes you wonder, why does he hate freedom so much?

Wow, I think Maureen Dowd pretty much hits the nail on the head about Bush in her latest column, Awake and Scream:

Whenever W. does something legally sketchy and morally ambiguous — from pre-emptive war to spying to torturing — he claims he’s doing it to protect Americans from terrorists. But there’s a more visceral agenda: Vice and Rummy have persuaded W. he will not carry a big stick if bound by Lilliputian legalities, tiresome checks and balances and Kumbaya international conventions. Rather than being alarmed at their battiness, the president naively admires what he sees as bravado.

Of course, I don’t know Bush or Cheney or Rumsfeld personally, but that really seems to be accurate from what I have seen of them.

This part’s even more scary, though:

Besides saying he’s in ‘’a struggle between good and evil'’ — which inflames many Muslims — W. told the columnists he thought America might be experiencing ‘’a Third Awakening,'’ a religious fervor, because people he meets in rope lines tell him they’re praying for him.

How is increased religious fervor a good thing in Bush’s view? Did he forget about 9/11, and what strong religious beliefs did then? How can anyone think that religious fervor has ever done anything positive throughout history?