March 17, 2006: Josh Marshall states the case against impeachment (at this point in time) quite well here.  I'm all for tossing all the criminals out of Washington D.C. and so is Josh Marshall, it would seem.  We have very real problems that need to be solved, and there is just no likelihood under the current political configuration that this impeachment will succeed until after the 2006 elections.  That's assuming that the Democrats will win enough seats to take back the senate.  Although the wretched performance of the GOP makes it seem like this would be a slam dunk for the Democrats, the reality is that the Democrats have been utterly worthless and could lose to 3rd party candidates.  That might still mean we get a chance to impeach Bush in 2007, but for now, it's time to stop whining and get down to REAL business.  

October 1, 2005:  not much happened between last October and the beginning of September 2005, but damn, when September came, Bush got himself a serious ass whuppin'.  The polls are down and now even the wealthy GOP voters are slapping him around in Aspen.  Check out this nifty article by that unquestionable right wing commentator Robert Novak.  

Feb 2005: "Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the... like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate ... the benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those ... if that growth is affected, it will help on the red. OK, better? I'll keep working on it."  George W. Bush's February 2005 tour to promote his Maoist Chinese debt funded buy up of American stock--thus giving yet more of America to China.

October 12, 2004: Bush Flip Flops  A great list of Bush's changing and inconsistent opinions.  I don't mean to suggest that changing opinions is bad, but hypocrisy is definitely bad, especially when your flip flops make it clear that you are really an evil SOB out to rob us all blind.

April 11, 2004:  It's Good to Be King  Bush has the luxury of spending 40% of his presidency "out of the office" in Crawford, Camp David and Kennebunkport.  That wouldn't be so outrageous if he weren't asking soldiers, first responders and the middle class to make massive sacrifices so that he and his ultrawealthy friends can get that first in history tax cut during war time.  All this leisure time obviously helps explain how he and his crew failed to be prepared for the 9/11 attack, which occurred during a photo op.  

January 30, 2004: Conservative sportsmen are turning against Bush on the basis of his full frontal assault on wilderness areas where even 40 Texan hunter's clubs like to go kill animals.  Hey, doesn't that mean that Bush is losing his grip on the NRA?  Hmmm.  Maybe all Democrats need to do is to hold their noses and embrace the gun lobby, and we can put Carl Rove, Dick Chaney and John Ashcroft back into the private sector.  But, is it worth it?  I'm afraid so.  Perhaps that will put Howard Dean into office.  

January 15, 2004: George "Let's Go to Mars" Bush proposes an idiotic plan for a Moon base.  Scientists in the know say that the idea of shooting rockets to the Moon on the way to Mars is completely harebrained.  Given the large volume of fuel necessary to get off of a planet, even a small one like the Moon, would make this stopping point nearly worthless.  An orbiting space station is by far the most intelligent and economical.  Given his already familiar lack of knowledge of just about everything necessary to run a country or even a corporation, it's not surprising he wouldn't know these things.  Given his obvious need to distract our attention away from his criminal activities, it's also not surprising that he would try to distract us with a romantic and grandiose plan like this.  Given that Donald Rumsfeld and big corporate donors to his campaign stand to make a huge amount of money from these government contracts--even in the near future--it's hardly a surprise.  Given his knack for pissing off every other country on the planet, it's not surprising that he would reject the International Space Station as a part of his plan.  Like the Iraq War, this Junior Space Cadet sees an opportunity to bilk us for billions again, and produce nothing of value in return.  In fact, they are talking about letting the Hubbel Space Telescope crash and burn so they can save the necessary money to do it.  Let's see...a Moon base, or maintaining the world's single best optical spectrum telescope?  Which one? Seeing that any real payback on the investment to us taxpayers might not even occur in our children's lifetime, we can all see what the sham is there.  Mark Morford's editorial on this is both hilarious and depressing.  Perhaps the funniest comment was Dennis Kucinich's, who pondered that perhaps the reason Bush wants to go to Mars would be to look for those weapons of mass destruction.  

December 30, 2003: Lots of news happening.  I like this serious anti-Bush video very much.  This article on the Twilight of the Neocons is very, very good.  The argument is very persuasive, given that something really drastic doesn't happen before then.   The tide does seem to be turning, and the pro-Bush media has been starting to show signs of questioning Bush.  Although Limbaugh and Savage would suggest that the liberals are in control, any objective viewer (i.e. somebody from another country--any country) would tell you that our media is utterly controlled by corporate and conservative interests.  Although the BushRevealed.com website is not very uplifting to my progressive, liberal sentiments, I think it's darned interesting that a truly radical, Christian right organization would have turned so dramatically against Bush on the grounds of his positions vis a vis abortion, gay rights and Islam. In other words, they think he is way too liberal.  They are stating that when it comes to the issues that really matter to Christian conservatives, there isn't a bit of difference between the two parties, implying that they should not vote for Bush.  

Intervention Magazine has compiled a nice list of lies and hypocrisies from Bush's own mouth--along with the truth.  This piece gives you ample ammunition to knock down a Bush supporter at the water cooler.  The most amazing part of this list of lies is that amazing amounts of money have been spent and we have nothing substantial to show for it--other than some lucrative construction contracts for Bechtel and Halliburton.  As a liberal, I couldn't be more grateful to the Republicans for giving us such clear and incontrovertible evidence that Democrats are much more fiscally conservative than Republicans.  Where the hell is all our money going, anyway?  They can't even afford to buy toiletries for our troops.  

November 9, 2003: "Watching what has happened with Iraq over the past several months has been like watching your daughter being raped."  'No President has lied so baldly and so often and so demonstrably'  Ray McGovern, former employee of the CIA and co-founder of "Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity: VIPS" who have helped undermine the Bush administrations attempts to blame their lying and distortions on the CIA, who, only after enormous White House pressure, supported Bush's temper tantrums demanding war in Iraq.  Bush lied, forced the CIA to lie, then failed in his plan, and blamed his failure on them.  I rather expect that the intelligence community will not be so eager to cooperate with these people in the future.  A variety of statements and events assure that, in spite of all the "national security" rhetoric, that absolutely the only thing guiding this man's decisions is wealthy campaign contributions.  "The Gulf of Tonkin was a spur-of-the-moment thing, and Lyndon Johnson seized on that. That's very different from the very calculated, 18-month, orchestrated, incredibly cynical campaign of lies that we've seen to justify a war. This is an order of magnitude different. It's so blatant." (Ray McGovern, who believes the press may save the day, since even they don't like to be lied to.)

November 2, 2003: George W. Bush, King of Kings, Lord of Lords.  Chosen by Jesus Christ to lead us through the aftermath of 9/11.  [an August 2, 2004 article on the theme] For some time now, Associated Press has been issuing the most starkly religious "coincidental" images of Bush with a diaphanous halo, and outlandish statements that blur his role as the president of a constitutionally secular nation, and the manifestation of the latest phase of the Crusades against the Muslim heretics.  He has been talking out of both sides of his mouth in regards to his position on Islam.  While his outward position has been one of peace and tolerance, his inward position is revealed by his choices of Franklin Graham and General Boykin to lead important US post-war activities in Iraq.  

So, Bush claims that God is behind him.  Given a choice between believing in the idea that God really is backing a venal, colonial emperor, and believing that His wealth and power are merely super-effective tools of political prophecy, I’ll take the latter to explain Bush's apparent clairvoyance and prophetic skills.  In speaking to Texan evangelist James Robinson, Bush said, surely in the deepest spiritual sincerity he could muster:   'I feel like God wants me to run for President. I can't explain it, but I sense my country is going to need me. Something is going to happen... I know it won't be easy on me or my family, but God wants me to do it.'

George Dubyah Bush needs your prayers to stay in power. Go have a look at the Presidential Prayer page--fascinating glimpse into the mind of the postmodern Christian fascist. Oh, and this nice collection of tidbits and anecdotes about Bush's record as a pilot and Air Guardsman raises some doubts as to his "flight readiness." David Rubenstein tells us about Bush's business acumen during his tenure at the sinister Carlyle Group (it's humorous).

Some html "sound bites" of wisdom from Bush 

"I'm the commander--see.   I don't need to explain--I do not need to explain why I say things.  That's the interesting thing about being the president.  Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."     - George W. Bush

"It's very interesting when you think about it, the slaves who left here to go to America, because of their steadfast and their religion and their belief in freedom, helped change America."—George W. Bush characterizes America's slave trade connection to an African audience in Dakar, Senegal, July 8, 2003 (Thanks to Michael Shively)

"You said we're headed to war in Iraq. I don't know why you say that, I'm the person who gets to decide, not you. And I hope this can be done peacefully."  George W. Bush December 31st 2002  (Need I comment on this?)

"My answer is bring them on."—On Iraqi militants attacking U.S. forces, Washington, D.C., July 3, 2003

"I appreciate people's opinions, but I'm more interested in news.  And the best way to get the news is from objective sources, and the most objective sources I have are people on my staff."    - George W. Bush 

For more examples of Bush discourse, try this article from October 28th 2003. and don't miss the on-going ouvre at The Complete Bushisms  or this collection of breathtakingly stupid remarks.

In response to media chatter dealing with son George's fate with the Iraq war, his mother Barbara Bush said on an ABC morning TV show in March 2003:

"[George Bush Sr.] sits and listens [to television] and I read books because I know perfectly well that - don't take offense - that 90 percent of what I hear on television is supposition, when we're talking about the news. And he's not, not as understanding of my pettiness about that. But why should we hear about body bags and deaths and how many, what day it's going to happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Oh, I mean, it's, not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that? And watch him suffer." [1 ]

[ skip the weblog links and go to the Bush essays by Darren ]

I have removed my old essay rant on Bush from this location.  It's not that important anymore.  If for some reason you feel a need to look more closely at the Bush record and history, click here.  

White House official web site

• The Church of Bush: An interesting examination of the mysterious Christian cult of personality surrounding this venal, anti-intellectual, vicious and cowardly despot.  Why do so many religious conservatives firmly believe utter nonsense and lies?  This frustrating mystery promises to drive liberals insane as they try to convince George's loyal, hoodwinked sheep that they should consider voting for someone else.  

• The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception: John Dean of FindLaw reviews this new book by David Corn.  A systematic revelation of blatant lying from the White House.  Dean says "Corn has done for George Bush what Ken Starr did for Bill Clinton: provided evidence that places his presidency in jeopardy."

• The Presidential Prayer Team -- hey, getta load of this!  Do you suppose if Bill Clinton had a web site dedicated to asking people to "pray for the president and the nation" that the right wing media would ignore it the way they ignore this slimy, smarmy dreck?  They even provide suggestions for which Bible verses to use to help old George out in his war against lib'rals and terror.

• Ted Rall's "Why We Hate Bush" -- a great editorial on why liberals hate Bush more than we hated Nixon and Reagan.  He hits the nail squarely on the head.  I wonder what percentage of Republicans are not embarrassed yet? 

• Fear and Loathing in America--Molly Ivens talks about the difference between the way Bush is being treated in the media and how Clinton was treated--oh, and the way dissenters are treated too.  

Pre-Iraq War Links:

• Michael Moore's next movie--the Bush Family-Bin Laden Family Connection

• Xanax Cowboy--Maureen Dowd's review of the creepy, tranquilized Bush press conference on the war.

• Bushology Interactive -- outstanding, well-organized and updated links collection of everything you could possibly want to know about the family that gave us "W".  Dan E. Moldea's investigative Journalism site

• The Bush Exit Ramp--Consortium News--Excellent article that argues quite persuasively that Bush's thoughtless words are a major cause of the world's problems today.  Basically it boils down to the fact that his obvious lack of propriety and forethought leads him to say things that piss people off.  I know, it sounds obvious, but this piece goes into exhaustive detail with plenty of evidence.  

• Kurt Vonnegut weighs in.  Everyone knew he was on the left anyway, but check out the harsh words he has for our DC thugs, especially Bush.  

• The Christian Science Monitor gives the Bushreich some much needed slapping around for their exaggerated secrecy.

• Bush is God -- in a land where a certain political party won't let a mother terminate an unwanted pregnancy, or an ALS victim commit suicide because a theoretical God doesn't like it (according to interpretations of a book supposedly written with help from that theoretical God), and where we are all supposed to be united under this God who commands us "Thou shalt not kill." Mr. George Bush now has the divine authority to order your secret execution by CIA assassins.  All it takes is a little paper work and a phone call, and if the Bushleague doesn't like an American citizen, POW! S/he's dead.  

• Even the eminently creepy and sinister Henry Kissinger is criticizing the war plans now.  Perhaps more bizarre, the Bush family janitor, James Baker III,  is opposing Bush's go-it-alone policy!  Republican Congressmen who voted against the Iraq War resolution last October tell why.  And then there's Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf, the general of Gulf War I, who says there just isn't enough evidence to do this. [article no longer available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52450-2003Jan27.html ]

• Carl Rove--aka Turd Blossom--the president's brainy, evil genius invisible sidekick.  Get to know the Henry Kissinger of the Twenty-First Century.  

• Louisville, Kentucky protest Thursday, Sept, 5. [original article no longer available at: www.courier-journal.com/localnews/2002/09/06/bush_protest.html]  Not known for left wing politics, some citizens of Kentucky discovered how hard it is to get the arrogant cowboy president to pay any attention to you if you have any complaints. 

• Largest Protest in Stockton, Oregon's history for the benefit of the appointed one.  August 2002 at Portland IndyMedia

• Bush Family Value$.  Mother Jones article--extensive details on the activities of all three Bush boys.   They are depending on the "ancient history" argument to save their hinds here.  It helps that lots of SEC documentation was coincidentally lost in the World Trade Center.  

• Portland Indy News--Pictures of the August 22nd storm trooper police attack on peaceful protesters of president appointed Bush's surrealistic fund raiser in which he blamed trees for all the forest fires.  Nightmarish scenes coming soon to a neighborhood near you. (Photo story continues on two more pages.  Page 2, Page 3)  It's stories and photos like this that will bring an end to this ridiculous dictatorship.  What in the hell were these cops thinking, anyway???  

• Cocaine addicts R Us--George's party habits in college are a matter of frequent speculation, but no concrete evidence is really available, except that he was definitely a drinker.  Nevertheless, he raised two party animal daughters who are clearly out to emulate their father's illustrious career of liver damage.  Now his niece, Florida Governor Jeb Bush's daughter has been arrested for crack cocaine while an inmate in a drug rehab center.  If she were poor and/or black, she'd be headed to prison this time.  She was put in rehab for forging a Xanax prescription.  I wonder if the Clintons would have been as successful keeping this kind of news out of the media if Chelsea had been such a disobedient lout.  Expecting a Bush to educate his children about the virtues sobriety and temperance is about as rational as expecting Clinton to educate children about sexual abstinence.  Still, I think it would be entertaining to see a real life TV show based on putting the Bush twins and Chelsea Clinton in a room for a week with cameras on them all the time.
  

• Bushies and Bin Laden--were Bush, Cheney and Rice more interested in a pipeline across Afghanistan than letting the intelligence community follow the Al Qaeda trail? [more on this theme: 1, 2, 3
  

• Taiwangate?? A scandal that rather exceeds the alleged fund raising visit to a Buddhist monestary?   And to think that Bush campaigned on his character and his family character never really came into question in anything like the same media frenzy and monotonous barrage.  
  

• Bush is no Good Trade.  Way back in 2000, this article (and many others) exposed the simple point of fact that same George Dubyah Bush who is shaking his finger at corporations now got rich exactly the same way the Enron Assholes did--accounting fraud and insider trading with Harken Energy (dumping stocks before investors could find out).  Not only did he clearly engage in illegal trading, but he lied to the SEC and failed to submit proper reports.  It appears that the president then, his father, kept his sorry ass out of prison where it belonged. 
  

• Bush and the Texas Land Grab: This revolting story explains how corporate cronyism made him rich on the Texas Rangers. 
  

• 60 Feet Under--loyal Republican partisan media pundit Maureen Dowd falls from the Bush wagon in this scathing and terrifying article about the plans for totalitarian rule being plotted by Rove, Cheney and maybe even the imbecile president.
  

• 

Bushwatch Links 

(assorted websites dedicated to making sure the Shrub gets treated at least as well as Clinton was.)

• Hated.com  Collection of links to all the major anti-Bushreich sites.  I love their header quotes:  "We can support the troops without supporting the President."  - Republican Trent Lott, failing to support the U.S. president, during the Kosovo crisis. "Never underestimate a desperate President." - Republican Representative Gerald B. H. Solomon of New York, talking about Clinton.  Don't you just love these hypocrite assholes?

• GWBush.com Best source of general information
  

• Bushwatch.net More fun than George's college parties.  Very informative. 
  

• America Held Hostile! another news/editorial site with lots of information on various Bush-related issues. 

• Dubya, Dubya, Dubya.Bush on Crack
  

• The Bush Files at Motherjones.com a clearinghouse for Bush "news."

• The Complete Bushisms an excellent, though far from complete collection of astounding wit from the man who has Harvard and Yale hiding in shame.  Unfortunately, they stopped in late August--obviously because they were afraid to mock him after 9/11.   But, I will admit that his speaking has improved considerably since his appointment to the office.  But, the State of the Nation speech was full of rational and rhetorical nonsense.   What can you expect from a spoiled brat who thinks it's acceptable to toss around words like "evil" in reference to various countries we ought to be trying to be nice to.  If you'd like to share Dubyah's words of wisdom with the world, this company is making t-shirts and coffee mugs with some of the best quips on them.

• George Carlin bitch slaps Bush--The Iraq war is a penis waving contest waged by an insecure wimp.  Not especially sophisticated, but a bit surprising, given that I wouldn't necessarily expect Carlin to take such a confrontational anti-Republican stance.

• Declan McCullough's photographs of the Inauguration.  (Protesters, police, barricades).  Witness the largest anti-presidential protest since Nixon's second election.  

• Bush and Cheney Suck.com -- nice links collection.
  

• Dick Cheney's Voting Record  Don't worry, Dubyah is the liberal one of the two, and Cheney's EKG's are starting to look like a graph of the NASDAQ--not to mention the Haliburton Headache.     
  

• Is our Children Learning? Paul Begala's terrifying and hilarious biography of the Shrub.  
  

• Fool me once ... shame on ... shame on you. .. uh ... Ya fool me ...uh..I can't get fooled again!  Bush's Confucian (or Confusion) wisdom in reaction to Saddam Hussein's announcement that he will allow UN weapons inspectors in to Iraq.  This authentic clip of it is presented with humorous commentary on John Stewart's Daily Show.

• Bush Cartoons Daniel Kurtzman's collection at About.com

• video of Dubyah at 1992 wedding, raising questions about his 1986 sobriety (and his character).  This is a must see.  If he is not drunk, then it becomes even more difficult to defend his offensive behavior.  If he is drunk, the Clinton hating Bush voters will be eating some serious crow soon.  
  

• Hobbled from the Start: An interesting Salon article on Bush as seen by a philosopher of ethics.  
  

• GW Bush Art Gallery, humorous images created by the folks who hate him.  
  

• Firesign Theatre animations about Bush.  A Letter to Governor Bush
  

• Billionaires for Bush or Gore.com Because inequality isn't growing fast enough.

  Best images of President Appointed George Bush's coronation spectators and protesters. 

  • Quick Time 360 degree panning image of the Capital Mall.

  • Real Video with interviews of protesters

  • Declan McCollough's images of the Inauguration protest

  
  

   

Ides of March Questions (March 1st, 2003)

Two years into the Bush administration, my disrespect for Bush is being transmuted to pity.  Can you imagine what it must be like to be Bush right now?  Would you be able to get up in the morning and put on a tough face in this situation?  Imagine what it is like to know that so many people in the world are willing to state that they fear Bush more than Saddam, and Al Qaida more than the both, but you have the largest attack force in history about to pulverize a pitiful mess of a country.  To make matters worse, the entire Arab League has turned against you after you invaded Iraq.  

Clinton could mingle with the crowds without such intensive security.  Bush isn't exactly out there talking to the public.  Bush refuses to interact in a meaningful and respectful way to his skeptics and opponents.  In "public" forums he rarely speaks unscripted.  When he does, his words usually end up on the Bushisms page at Slate.com.   His audiences never include pickets, angry questions or honest questions that address the direct issues that control the political end of the discussion.  We are kept far away from him.  Bush does not seem to fear Al Qaida, but he obviously fears us.   

Remember when Americans hypnotized by the Federalist Lewinski Circus were begging Clinton to surrender and admit that he had sex in the Oval Office?  It appears to me that Americans and people all over the world are beginning to question Bush's motives and reasoning.  We want answers.

Opponents to the war on Iraq are rapidly growing in numbers here in Minnesota.  There are supporters, but not many.  Talk radio fans, as near as I can tell.  The opponents are definitely broadening in their socioeconomic representation.  Those who aren't afraid of turning the entire Middle East into a plutonium parking lot are increasingly worried about the Patriot Act civil liberties issues.   Bush is gambling on the number of ignorant and aggressive people exceeding the number of informed, truly self-interested and family future-oriented individuals.  News Corporation, CNN, AOL-Time Warner, Qwest, AT&T, MSNBC-General Electric, do indeed have huge control over congress and public opinion.  Never in my life have I heard such widespread distrust of the media from the left and from the right.  [click here for my essay on the media, and this essay on the illusion of the liberal media.]

Bush needs to respond to the very real questions and rebuttals from the American public, from the global community and from the Middle East.  The war in Iraq may be nothing more than an imperialist ambition combined with a super-expensive sacrifice of surplus wealth to eliminate the middle class and make us all dependent on a super rich elite (class warfare).  Labor unions have been replaced by the CEO-fetish Weltanschauung.  Add to that the risk of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, and we could be headed toward a very unpleasant future.  Why is it that at this very crucial crossroads of history that our president is filtering his interlocutors so that he doesn't have to back up his twerpy-macho threats and John Wayne/Mussolini image and rhetoric?  Bush has a public relations crisis on his hands, and his only choices are to continue with the Texan-Fonzy (Austin/Kennebunk) routine which is obviously pissing off people all over the planet, or he can face up to these simple essay questions.  It would be okay if Bush turned in Carl Rove's work, or if he plagiarized some PNAC documents by Wolfowitz and Kristol, or whatever.  The puppet masters need to explain to us these things:

1) Why should we believe that you are not intentionally using the war to create enormous profits for your companies with our tax dollars? Why is this war different than a publicly funded sports arena owned by banking corporations that will benefit from it?  The White House is full of corporate CEO's who will in fact profit greatly from burning our money on Mesopotamia.  I have seen the argument that spending hundreds of billions of dollars to make tens of billions is absurd.  However, it's not so absurd when the investment money is all tax money that these corporate interests didn't contribute much to in the first place--thanks to Republican initiatives to destroy progressive tax laws.  In other words, why are there plans for this war that date back to your father's administration [see also PNAC Info], and why are so many of your people connected to petroleum and communications, and why should we pretend that we are not suspicious of your motives?  Cheney's interaction with the GAO over his energy negotiations does not make you look virtuous.  The burden of the doubt is on you, not us.  The appearance of guilt and the weight of the charges make Clinton's problems look like parking tickets in comparison.  

September 2003 Update: These investigations have been stonewalled and shut down.  The media has been beaten into submission and produces nothing but fascist propaganda.  We'll probably never hear about the truth on these matters until and if Bush faces an honest and fair election, which he will certainly lose.  

2) If you really are interested in creating democracy, peace and stability in the Middle East, why are you focusing so much horrendously destructive attention on Iraq when the Palestinian situation and the Pakistan-Al Qaida situation are far, far more dangerous?  Pakistan has terrorists, nuclear weapons, and they sell nuclear weapons to crazy people like Kim Jung Il.  Why are we not paying more attention to North Korea?  Now there is a country that does in fact make Nazi Germany look a bit tame.  That's practically a case of national psychosis.  Iraq simply isn't that scary on a relative scale. There's obviously nothing going on there that some high tech aerial surveillance, weapons inspectors and human rights observers can't take care of for a lot less money and humanitarian problems.  In other words, why beat up on the your father's puppet dictator-gone-bad in a bombed out country, after bombing the hell out of another bombed-out country?    Perhaps there was a Divine message in the crash of the space shuttle in Palestine, Texas.  The people who are questioning your reasoning in this area are not leftists, commies, or a minority.   There are people in your own party asking these questions, though it appears you got rid of several in the 2002 election.  

September 2003 Update: Sycophants of the Bush administration (like Michael Savage) are playing loose with this argument--"You don't want to go to Iraq, but you want to go bomb N. Korea or Pakistan?  We don't have enough military strength or money to do this"  He suggests that liberals aren't serious about attacking these other more threatening places, which, in their tiny minds justifies attacking Iraq.  They refuse to face up to the fact that the arguments used by Bush's gangster buddies were all based on spurious arguments and fraudulent information.  Maybe we wouldn't want to rush into a war with these other countries, but why the hell did we rush headlong into a unilateral imperialist war in Iraq when they knew bloody well there was no good reason to choose Iraq over the others besides the oil?  The argument is based on the false assumption that we had to attack somebody.  The argument also rests on the now quite evidently false assumption that bombing a country and killing its leader will solve their problems.  They also rely heavily on our ignorance of the simple fact that Rumsfeld and Bush Sr. were chummy with Mr. Hussein AFTER he gassed those rebellious Islamist Kurds in Northern Iraq.  In other words, the events and revelations following this ridiculous war proved to us quite unequivocally that they were lying on this point.  Clearly, the two greatest reasons why the Bush Gang won't turn over more control of Iraq to Iraqis is their fear of the Islamist extremism that they spawned, and the fear that given the chance, they would rather sell their oil to France and shut us out completely.  Iraq was a morbid and depressing dictatorship installed by Reagan and supported by charming slugs like Kissinger and Rumsfeld.  There is no arguing against the villainy of Hussein.  BUT, it was a secular state where women were not forced to wear hijab (the veil).  Now the Islamists are taking over in Baghdad and women are being forced to wear the veil.   Mind you, this is happening in Baghdad proper, where US troops are very strongly entrenched.  I recall Limbaugh pretending that we were going over there to liberate Iraqi women from Islamist oppression.  Rush is eating crow now...

3) Prove to us that war works better than coercive weapons inspections and human rights observers.  You constantly yell that inspections don't work.  However, Clinton's people pulled out the inspectors, and Saddam became more threatening during the time we had no weapons inspectors or effective human rights observers.  The cases of the most horrible and threatening terrorist activity are all in places where human rights observers and international diplomatic relations have broken down.  Afghanistan is an excellent example of mischief occurring in a country with no real international scrutiny.  Iraq has not launched any attacks against anyone but the Bush family.  There is no proof of the terrorist connection according to our own CIA.  An attempted assassination against your father by a gangster that used to work for him is not a justification for bombing an entire country.  We can't ignore the division between the secular Arabic empire dreams of the Ba'ath party and the violent "Islam" of Bin Laden's Al Qaida.  Satellite photography, spy planes, drones, whatever... A weapons inspection crew and a lot of video cameras with satellite uplinks could turn Iraq into a new world, and 800 Cruise Missiles will do nothing but create a lot of business for Halliburton and probably the Bin Laden family construction corporation.  Oh, and lots of suicide bombers and more terrorists.  Will South East Asia-Indonesia be next?  Why spend hundreds of billions to awe the world, and then have nothing left to support a war that we may need to fight for our self-defense?  The argument for war has definitely not been made in anything resembling a coherent or persuasive form.  

September 2003 Update: See update above.  There is no reason to seriously consider their positions on this point.  The war was quick, but the aftermath has been a slow slide into hell ever since.  Wait until our soldiers come home missing legs and arms.  Just how well did the war work?  They can't even make their own evil plan to suck oil out work.  The terrorists keep blowing up power lines and pipelines.  They are losing between 3 and 4 billion a month, and there are voices hinting that up to half that quantity is being spent to bribe nations to support us.  Hardly a drop of oil has come out of it, and today OPEC announced they are going to punish us by cutting production.  I'd laugh and scream "I told you so" if it weren't so horrible and if it didn't affect us and our children they way it has.  It just isn't funny and it isn't appropriate to gloat over this.  

4) If we are fighting for our freedom, why are you so interested in taking our freedoms away?  Why are you not responding to us in an honest and respectful way?  Why do you not speak out against the incredibly inflammatory and divisive rhetoric that permeates the AM radio bands? Why are the most savagely anti-liberal media sources (like FOX) also the same ones who so enthusiastically support you?  Is it acceptable to turn the word "liberal" into the equivalent of "pinko commie" or "unpatriotic traitor"?   Why are you creating laws that encourage the continuous consolidation and the homogenization of the content in the media?  Are you and your corporate supporters trying to create a 21st Century Witch Hunt to scare and eliminate dissenters? In other words, why should we believe that you are not using this war to polarize public opinion in America in a divide and conquer strategy?  

It is clear that dissent is being allowed to occur to some degree, but the multinational corporate media is not addressing opposition in an honest and engaged way.  It's all strawman fallacy orgies.