"Nucular" Winter
June 8, 2002
By Bridget Gibson

"If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."
- George W. Bush, December 18, 2000

To every time there is a season and right now we are experiencing the winter of souls. Nuclear weapons are waving their ugly heads from the Capitol of the United States to the mountains of Kashmir. Rogue nations are ruffling feathers in the Bush White House, while the Bush administration has shown that it can exercise no discretion in its war-hyped rhetoric. Continuing to push its unilateralist agenda down the globe's throat has produced the frigid cold war climate that it sought. Behind the scenes they have rewarded movers and shakers from the Carlyle Group.

The spirit of Joseph McCarthy glows jealously at the powers that our strutting Attorney General John Ashcroft has achieved. While John slyly implies that any who question his motives is a closet terrorist, he hides his inner glee that his bullying tactics cover his complete ineptitude and incompetence or worse.

After seeing how handily Robert Mueller's self-effacing apology and mea culpas deflected the questioning spotlight of his inability to rise above the political posturing and butt-covering in the wake of Colleen Rowley's exposure of his naked stupidity in understanding national security, J. Edgar Hoover's transvestite soul is probably raising his skirts attempting to lure some attention to his bedraggled reputation.

Watching Ashcroft and Mueller pass the hot potato of blame seems to take the focus of the camera lens away from George Tenet, CIA Director and fellow-incompetent in the September 11 national security failure.

The hawking Donald Rumsfeld (premier prot�g� of the Manhattan Project) must chuckle over drinks with his college roomy - Frank Carlucci - about the great deal they cooked up with the Crusader. Though they trashed the badly designed howitzer after hyping it for eight months, the Carlyle Group still gets to pocket $520 million in cancellation fees (after making a tidy sum on the IPO of United Defense).

Dick Cheney's sideways sneer seems to have frightened the spinal challenged into submission and obsequiousness. This Halliburton bully has made a fortune from demanding that he be the alpha dog of every pack. Now that the accounting practices that were used while he was CEO are being questioned, it has become more important than ever that he demands unquestioning loyalty from all those legislators that he purchased so long ago.

I suppose being scared to death by these guardians of patriotism is preferable to being embarrassed to death by the utter degradation to the Oval Office that is foisted upon us by George Walker Bush. I tried in vain last week to disprove that he has a nickname for Vladimir Putin, president of Russia. With my head held low, I had to picture the esteem in which they held the United States when George called him Pootie-Poot. We even got the treat of learning that he has instructed National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice �to get Pootie-Poot on the line'. We had the added bonus of hearing that the Russian television replayed endlessly a clip of George entering a high-profile meeting chewing gum and spitting it into his hand. Luckily the clip did not divulge if he stuck his gum under the polished meeting table.

When I was growing up, I was told that anyone could become the President of the United States of America. Our society tolerated no boundaries limiting the minds and ambitions of its citizens. By any instrument of measure, that tolerance is now tested at its limit, and the joke is on the citizens. We have somehow allowed the bar to be lowered to such an extreme that the inferior student frat-boy and class-clown is playing the palace.

Our nation has lost its credibility and its honor. The verbal gaffes and political mistakes have cost us in ways that may never be forgotten or forgiven across the globe. The abyss yawns before us and the memories of more prosperous times for our world and families dim.

The lesson that we must absorb at this moment in time, is that although almost anyone in our country may be eligible for the highest office, not just anyone should occupy it. Money and family names should never be used as a criteria for voting. Don't sell yourself and your country down the drain. When you go to the voting booth in November, disregard the slick salesmanship and remember that those television commercials cost a great deal of money. How much is your vote worth? How much is your honor worth? How much is your pride worth? Mere money cannot buy the good citizens of this country.