Of Biblical proportions

by Rich Miles

"Every terror that haunted me has caught up with me,
and all that I feared has come upon me."
Book of Job 3:35, New English Bible

And then some....

Back in November of 2004, I wrote a little piece called Memo To: Red States in which I expressed my utter dismay and anger at the Red States, whose votes for the Usurper got him close enough to steal the election a second time. In short, I pointed out my perspective on the mistake they had made by putting their trust in a man who was cynically using them for the enrichment and empowerment of himself and his friends and cronies. I laid out a list of things that it was clear the "faith-based" community (as opposed to the "reality-based" folks) couldn't possibly know about Bush - because if they did, even they wouldn't have voted for him.

And ya know what? An awful lot of the things I said in that piece have turned out to be far too mild. I expected a second Bush term, when he no longer needed fear the electorate, to be a disaster for pretty much all of us. But I never dreamed he'd create a worldwide disaster of Biblical proportions, and rattle his sabre even further by threatening to create an even worse one.

Who ever dreamed that a U.S. president or his administration might:

- Spy on U.S. citizens accused or suspected of no crime?

- not only refuse to prohibit, but actually approve of torturing prisoners of war

- threaten to use nuclear weapons - nuclear weapons - on a country that has not attacked us, and that will not have even the most rudimentary ability to produce a nuke of their own for at least 10 years

- alienate every ally we had on Earth, and do his level best to further antagonize our enemies

- hold suspected criminals for years without trial or legal representation

- lie to us about the offensive capabilities of a country so as to justify a "pre-emptive" war against them

- repeatedly hire unqualified cronies to lead government posts and for judgeships, even after it's shown that such actions lead to disaster

- approve government funding of religious organizations

- deny that global warming exists despite overwhelming scientific evidence

- ignore or discredit scientific research that conflicts with religious dogma or administration policy

- give Presidential Medals to people who have failed miserably to perform their jobs

- allow the energy industry to dictate energy policy, the pharmaceutical industry to dictate government health care policy, and the business community in general to dictate their own laws and regulations

- go from some of the largest surpluses of the past 5 decades to the largest deficits, both in dollars and percentage of GDP, ever

- and all while cutting taxes over and over and over again

- conduct a war whose costs are completely off the books, thus making the deficit even higher than it appears by hundreds of billions of dollars, or

- ignore his own GAO, the American people, the 9/11 Commission, Congress, any judge who hands down a contrary opinion, and anyone else who disagress with his preconceived ideas?

It's exhausting. The list could go on for another 5000 words, and not even get close to being finished.

Never before has America been led by someone who cares less about the wellbeing of our country or the world. Never before have we been led by a greater cabal of sociopaths and screwups.

In my worst nightmares, I never imagined how bad a Bush presidency untethered from any considerations of being re-elected could be.

And you want to know the really scary part? 31% of Americans, according to recent polls, still approve of him.

What is wrong with those people?