Mendacity - October 17, 2004

As the election edges closer, we find the house of cards the Bush administration built over the last four years on less than solid ground. While Bush continues to smirk it's way through the web of lies it has told over a four year's time, the truths are glaring all over the news.

The President, and his administration, must be living in an alternate universe where the economy is great, where jobs are not flooding out to India, and where the war in Iraq is not a war, but a celebration parade. Because the realities of what Bush has told us is going well, are being shown to be, at best, exaggerations, and at worse, out and out lies.

What the Bush "worshipers" fail to realize is that they are building a house of cards, with a deck full of lies. There is a new level of mendacity being practiced by the Bush administration that goes beyond the common, the expected, white lying politicians are known for.

It extends from the first days of the Bush reign, when votes were not counted in the 2000 presidential election, to the many false reasons for going to war with Iraq, and finally to the absolute distortion of John Kerry's words, and record. Is it any wonder that such actions would take place?

There's a quote a friend gave me by Hermann Goering that goes something like this, "Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders, that is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the peacemakers for their lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works in every country."

Let us look at the Bush record these few years. There has been one attack in the U.S. in four years. That taken place on 9/11. Since then we have had terror alerts, and more alerts, in intelligence that was many times more flimsy than the intelligence that was known before 9/11. Every minute we hear from Bush that we are safer, but that you better watch out, we're going to get hit. It's a contradiction. This is not to say that we should stop worrying. It is to say that terror alerts work best when people who can do something about them, and with them, are informed. A general "we might get attacked" call isn't going to help us when we really need to know. It's like the boy who cried wolf.

Kerry actually went to Vietnam, and fought there. No matter what his critics say, he could have been killed at any moment while "in country." Cheney, Bush, and Ashcroft knew better than to go over to Vietnam. Which is why they asked for so many deferments. John Kerry actually took arms up against the an enemy combatant, and for that he is called a coward. For those actions he is called a trader. Because when he returned from Vietnam he said the unpopular thing, that the war was not going as well as thought. Never mind that Walter Cronkite put the stamp on the war with a critical report on the war. If John Kerry didn't come back and protest the war, Vietnam would not be communist right now. Or so goes the logic in the minds of those who attack John Kerry.

Now Kerry's record comes up again, low and behold, because it shows that he won't be "tough enough" on the terrorist. Last I knew he was the one of the two candidates that actually saw combat. And he was the only one that didn't flee when called to duty. But, belittling that is easy for a group of heroes like the deferment bunch known as the Bush administration. Now those are brave men. Please be sure that the last sentence be read with a more than a barrel full of sarcasm

Shortly, within a couple of weeks, the campaigns will be over, and the multitude of citizens will cast their ballots for one of two candidates. To be sure, Bush will get a substantial amount of votes in this election. Which is mind-boggling to me. No reasonable, logical, spiritual person could ever place a vote for a man like George Bush. He is unreasonable, he defies logic, and he is far from spiritual. If all those who are thinking of voting for Bush stopped thinking with the cult allegiance they have been instilled with, and thought with their minds, and their heart, they would find that they could not, in all good conscience, vote for George Bush. I know I won't.