Lifting and spreading

On Meet the Press Sunday, Wesley Clark says that the Bush administration, starting on 9/11/01, tried to implicate Saddam, and that he personally was called up that day by some Bushie and asked to claim that connection on CNN. He asked for proof, there was none.

The conservative government in Spain has decided to make religion compulsory in schools. In public schools, religion is taught by Catholic priests or teachers appointed by the Church.

A pretty good piece in the Post on the intensive lobbying by Israel and the Jewish lobby in the US after Bush dared to issue a rather mild (toothless was the word I seem to remember Haaretz using) criticism of Israel’s latest assassination attempts, and how Bush was, essentially, tamed. What the article fails to mention is that Bush’s “road map” is predicated on the US being the sole judge of whether both sides are following the map, and Bush has just shown for the umpteenth time that the US isn’t up to the task of being even-handed.

The Catholic Church sure did get Frank Keating off that commission on church child abuse darned fast after he compared the church’s coverup tactics to those of the Mafia, didn’t they? Imagine if they’d moved even a thousandth as quickly in dealing with the priests, huh? Good priorities.

An op-ed piece in the Post on censorship in the Chinese media--which seems to be growing--is good as far as it goes, but let’s not get too superior, since the US army demanded the tape shot by a BBC tv crew at Guantanamo after prisoners shouted to them. This was done in the interests of not exploiting the prisoners, of course. And that little act of censorship didn’t make it into the American press at all. Like the Wesley Clark story. Who needs censorship?

I’m in a crabby mood, so it’s time to play Mystery Science Theater 3000 with a Bush fund-raising speech the RNC emailed to my cat. With comments:

Excerpts from President Bush's Remarks to
Supporters at the Bush-Cheney '04 Reception
June 17, 2003

"I want to thank you for your help tonight. I want to thank you for what you're going to do, as well. I want to thank you for helping to invigorate the grass-roots all across this country. I want to thank you for the phone calls you'll make, for the signs you'll put up in the yard, and for helping spread the positive message of this administration."

They just paid I believe $3,000 to be there (and were fed hot dogs and hamburgers), let’s not pretend they’re “just folks.” The people who attend a Bush fund-raiser do not put signs in their yard, they have Consuela put signs in their yard.

"The political season will come in its own time. Right now, this administration is focused on the people's business.”

Well not right now. Right now, this administration is focused on raising several million smackeroos so it can start running ads about Howard Dean’s kid being arrested.

"I came to this office to solve problems, not to pass them on to other Presidents and other generations.”

Except for that big honking deficit.

"In these challenging times, the world has seen America's resolve and courage. And I have been privileged to see the compassion and the character of the American people. All the tests of the last two-and-a-half years have come to the right nation.”

Actually I paid someone else to take those tests, just like I did at Yale.

“We're a strong country and we will use that strength to defend the peace."

Am I alone in thinking that Bush doesn’t know what the word “peace” means?

"We're an optimistic country. We're confident in ourselves and we're confident in ideals bigger than ourselves. We seek to lift whole nations by spreading freedom. And at home, we seek to lift up lives by spreading opportunity to every corner, to every person of this great country."

I was trying to think of a joke for this. What else involves lifting and spreading, I asked. Anal sodomy, I answered, and then was too grossed out to go on. I may have lived in the Bay Area too long.

"This is the work that history has set before us. We welcome it, and we know that for our country better days lie ahead."

Any day after you leave office, for example.