By Jackson ThoreauIf a list of all the ways that George W. Bush is a hypocrite could be written, such a list would undoubtably stretch longer than Bush’s lying-ass nose.
Have you heard of the “never-ending story?” This would be the “never-ending list.”
There’s that war thing, sending young men and women to die in a battle similar to the one he refused to fight in when LBJ and Nixon tried to send Bush himself.
There are Bush’s statements that he will unite people, not divide them. Then, his lies about Iraq, tax cuts for the super wealthy, plans to allow oil companies to pollute protected federal wilderness and legalization of political assassinations, to name only a few, result in dividing many more people than uniting them.
There’s Bush’s claim to support states' rights and local control, then he appealed to the Republican-controlled, federal Supreme Court to stop legal hand recounts approved by the state supreme court in Florida during the Republicans’ 2000 election heist.
There are his pledges to uphold rules and laws, as he and Cheney flaunted the 12th Amendment to the Constitution by living in the same state in 2000 and the nagging questions that he broke rules and laws related to drugs, driving while intoxicated, business practices, his marital vows and other matters.
As you can see, this list can go on and on and on……I haven’t even mentioned Bush’s hypocritical admissions that he supports environmental protections as he allows any friend who wants to drill for oil in and near our national parks and other protected lands, pooh-poohs scientific evidence on global warming and relaxes environmental regulations for companies. He also allowed Houston to overtake LA as the country’s most polluted city when he was governor of Texas. I also haven’t mentioned Bush’s pledges to be a peacemaker as he makes plans to implement “small nuclear bombs” and blow up more kids in the Middle East. Or his….
But one of the most obvious hypocritical stances in Bush’s White House residency concerns his push for the Religious Right’s extreme anti-abortion agenda and curious manner of talking to kids about abstinence from premarital sex in another classic case of “do as I say, not as I do.”
You might remember that right before Bush was selected by his Supreme Court buddies in 2000, porn czar Larry Flynt went on CNN to say he had evidence that Bush impregnated a young woman in the early 1970s and made her get an illegal abortion at a Houston hospital. That was before the 1973 landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade legalized abortion.
Flynt’s main source, the girlfriend of a Bush friend who allegedly arranged the abortion, reportedly backed out of going public at the last hour. So the story pretty much died there and was swallowed in the 2000 election heist and ensuing fascist hijacking of our country.
Well, according to a source I trust and talked with recently, this woman was not the only young woman Bush impregnated during what he often calls his “young and irresponsible” years, which for Bush and many other Republicans covers up to age 40.
In the course of some research, this source learned that Bush might have impregnated FOUR young women, one of whom was UNDER 18, which is against the law in most states. At least one supposedly had to be sent out of the country to get the abortion done.
Since this column has been published, I have heard from several new sources who have said something similar. I understand how tough it is for any woman involved to go public with this, and I don't expect them to do that. But I am confident enough in the basic truth of this story, so that is why I am sticking my neck out here, while some say I don't have enough proof. If the mainstream media would ask Bush questions about these abortions, rather than the staged lines and drivel most do at press conferences, we could learn a lot more and get closer to the truth.
I called a hospital where one of these abortions might have occurred, and a spokesperson said the hospital didn’t release such records, if they exist at all. Remember how we found out about Bush’s 1976 driving while intoxicated conviction in 2000? That record had been buried in a court in Maine, and it was only through the perseverance of a television reporter that it was unearthed. This is a pattern in dealing with Bush, who has left a trail of buried and purged public records throughout his life.
Through public records, I located the present address of one of the women, who is one year younger than Bush and living in a Texas town with her husband, who is reportedly an FBI agent. But my efforts to call her stalled when I discovered her phone number is unlisted. Since her town is about 300 miles from mine, I couldn’t conceivably drive there. I doubt she would talk to me anyway; she was probably either paid to stay quiet or intimidated into silence by the Republi-Thug Mafia.
I also discovered the name of another woman who Bush allegedly made get an abortion, rather than father his child, during his carefree and forgetful younger days
. But I have had no luck tracking her down, either.
Has anyone out there heard anything more about these women Bush allegedly impregnated and forced to get abortions? I’d appreciate hearing from you. I’d like to attempt to breathe some fire into this story again.
Why is this story important? Because Bush and other so-called pro-life Republicans are now doing whatever they can to roll back Roe v. Wade and make abortions illegal again. That means if your cousin in Kentucky impregnates you at age 14, such conservatives will make you carry that baby for nine months, no matter what pain it puts you through and whether the baby is born without a brain. But they will show compassion in front of your face.
That means that if your doctor believes the baby might cause you to lose your life, such conservatives will say, tough, doctors have been wrong before. But they will show compassion in front of your family’s faces at your funeral.
That means if some “young and irresponsible” guy rapes you, that’s tough, carry that criminal’s baby, conservatives say. But they will show compassion towards your face as your name is smeared in the media during your trial.
And if you die in an illegal, back-alley abortion, as many more women did before 1973 than they do today , that’s your choice, these Bush conservatives say. That’s God’s revenge on you for HAVING AN ABORTION. Aren’t we happy that God is so just?
But if you are rich enough and your last name rhymes with, say, “mush,” such conservatives will gladly help you rush the woman you got pregnant secretly into a private hospital or out of the country to HAVE AN ABORTION. Only such conservatives might not be quite as compassionate towards your face the next time that happens. Still, they will look the other way if you become a senator. And especially if you become president.
So what has George the Hypocrite done since allegedly causing several women to undergo abortions during his “wild and irresponsible” days? As Texas governor, Bush signed no less than 18 anti-abortion laws. He has long supported a Constitutional amendment that would overturn Roe v. Wade and subject more than a million women and their doctors each year to criminal prosecution.
One of Bush’s first actions as president-select in late 2000 was to name anti-abortion extremist John Ashcroft as attorney general. As attorney general of Missouri, Ashcroft defended anti-choice legislation all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and as a U.S. senator, he voted against a resolution in favor of Roe v. Wade. Ashcroft pledged to uphold Roe v. Wade during his confirmation hearings, but of course, that was another lie. The first chance he got – in early 2002 — Ashcroft intervened in a case involving a ban on abortion procedures.
Bush also picked anti-choice Tommy Thompson for secretary of health and human services. As Wisconsin governor, Thompson signed into law numerous anti-abortion bills.
Then, among Bush’s first acts in the White House was to reinstate a rule preventing non-governmental organizations in countries that receive U.S. international family planning assistance from using their own money to provide abortion services. He also closed the White House Office for Women’s Initiatives and Outreach in early 2001.
Bush then nominated judges who oppose abortion like Priscilla Owen, Charles Pickering, Michael McConnell, Dennis Shedd, Lavenski Smith, Carolyn Kuhl, William Pryor and D. Brooks Smith to federal appeals courts. The Senate has confirmed half of those on that list, while Owen, Pickering, Pryor and Kuhl are still pending, thanks to necessary filibusters by Democratic senators.
Bush also increased funding to teach “abstinence-only” sex education in schools, something he hypocritically thumbed his lying-ass nose at when he was in school. The teaching withholds information about condoms, which help prevent unintended pregnancies and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases like HIV/AIDS. But of course, maybe letting kids who can’t afford going to private schools acquire AIDS is part of the genocidal conspiracy hatched by these conservative fascists.
Before you write me calling me a child-hating communist, let me disclose that I have two young children. I don’t like the practice of abortions. But I recognize, like many Americans, that there are some cases, such as medical reasons, rape and the unwanted pregnancy of a 12-year-old, in which abortions need to be kept legal and safe. Even my conservative, Catholic mom has said that to me.
I also refuse to refer to anti-abortion supporters as “pro-life.” Many of them blindly support the death penalty and stupid wars like the Iraqi invasion, which are anti-life. If you oppose abortion in all cases, as well as the death penalty and war, more power to you. You deserve to be called “pro-life.” But you are in the vast minority, in my experience.
During the 2000 presidential campaign – way back when we had a president we actually elected – reporters questioned Bush about his earlier drug use, for no apparent reason other than they wanted to know whether he snorted cocaine or not. At least one even asked him if he got arrested since his wild, carefree college days in the late 1960s, and Bush lied in saying no – there was at least the 1976 DUI arrest. But at least some reporters asked such questions.
During these important judicial hearings, with the abortion issue in the forefront, don’t you think it’s at least slightly relevant to ask Bush whether he ever caused a woman to have to get an abortion in his younger days? Why don’t reporters ask Bill Frist, the anti-abortion activist who now heads the Senate, the same thing? Get them to have to answer the question on the record. Put some heat on their hypocritical asses. Then investigate whether they are telling the truth or not.
I’d love to see Bush squirm and give some incoherent response in a press conference to such a question. Then maybe we might see some of these women he supposedly impregnated during his wild days come out of the woodwork to prove him even more of a liar and see his nose grow even more.
Ah, that list, that never-ending list. I must get back to it.
Jackson Thoreau is an American writer and co-author of We Will Not Get Over It: Restoring a Legitimate White House. The updated, 120,000-word electronic book can be downloaded on his Internet site at http://www.geocities.com/jacksonthor/ebook.html. Citizens for Legitimate Government has the earlier version at http://www.legitgov.org/we_will_not_get_over_it.html.
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