Tuesday, August 23, 2005

We Are Not Losing Our Nerve. We Are Opening Our Eyes.

On August 22, before thousands at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Salt Lake City, President Bush said, "The American people have been steadfast and determined not to lose our nerve. And once again we have had confidence in our cause."

I believe that he believes in what he is saying. But that is not because his sincerity is a virtue. It is because he is a simpleton.

He believes that mouthing vague maxims is the same as articulating policy.

He believes that just because he encourages his sheep, his citizens, to "not lose our nerve," that losing our nerve was actually the subject to begin with.

It is not our nerve we are losing. It is our trust in a bumbling, incompetent administration. Because Bush wears blinders, he doesn't see that half of the country was on to his lies before the election, and now finally, even more are wising up to -- and judging him for -- his idiotic decision making (to go to war) and criminal strongarming (to fudge evidence to justify going to war.)

I wonder what is it in the personal psychology of George W. Bush that so lusts for war? Could it be that the former drunk turned Christian never really did give up the drink? He may not have sipped the brew, but he seeks to be drunk on power? Could it be that in his addict's zeal to replace the booze he has become so consumed by Bible stories that he has completely missed the point of Christ-like living and instead is, like a child hearing stories about Arabian Knights, becomes allured by the sense of death, victory and destiny. Don Quixote with the nuclear football.

So I believe fully that the emporor in his bubble truly does believe that his minions are getting a little soft in the knee. It wouldn't occur to him that we are simply on to him. Many of us have known from the start that he is in over his head. Sadly, this isn't a case of an everyday Joe maxing out his credit cards. Instead, this idiocy is paid for with the blood of the innocent.

We are not losing our nerve. We have always had it. What the majority did not have before was the basic insight to see that George W. Bush war was dumb from the start. His presidency was nothing until he found a reason to indulge his obsession with having a war to define his time in office.

Now is the time for creative Democrats and Republicans to stand forth and demonstrate to America that fortitude means more than blowing up countries they know nothing about.

Now is the time for creative citizens to stand up and demand more imagination and progress and not let our culture be hijacked by closed minded zealots whose superstitions are rooted in the middle ages.

Now is the perfect moment for people to stand up to the Karl Rove assassination machine and the smearers of character who have, while we were napping, taken over our government and mass media, and appeal to our bleaker angels.

The time is absolutely ripe for Americans to take back their country from the graffiti artists and muggers and Philistines who disguise themselves as conservatives, and boot them from the public arena where they don't know how to behave, and where they waste our public money, and where they burn bridges to diplomacy, and where they forfeit opportunities for our futures.

True to the bully boy form of this White House crowd, Bush has to characterize his opponents as weaklings.

But we are not losing our nerve. We are opening our eyes.