SLYME instead of LYME...

BUSH REGIME ROTTEN TO THE CORE
By Bill Gallagher
DETROIT -- A storm of anti-war protests and sentiment is sweeping across the
nation. Finally, reality and truth are trumping President George W. Bush's
lies. Even the perpetual propaganda machine of the corporate media can no
longer manufacture consent for Bush's monstrously bad policies and
decisions.

A storm of anti-war protests and sentiment is sweeping While most Americans
work and struggle with lower wages, a sputtering economy and rising gas
prices, Bush still basks in the Texas sun in his long summer of content. He
prefers isolation and deliberate disconnection from

the grim evidence of his wholesale failures.

Cindy Sheehan has left the vigil outside Bush's ranch to care for her ailing
mother. But others are in her place, reminding the world that Bush will
never admit his responsibility for the war in Iraq, its failure and the
death of Sheehan's son Casey and more than 1,800 other Americans.

The Busheviks consider Sheehan's witness to the tragedy of the senseless war
as an irritant, a PR problem that will fade in time. They've used the usual
suspects of right-wing indecency -- Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Sean
Hannity -- to do their dirty work. Those who question the war must be
silenced at best, or at least discredited and vilified.

The war in Iraq is unwinnable and futile. We can never undo Bush's madness
in starting the war and his sheer incompetence in not planning for its
aftermath. Nor can we stop the insurgency, the spawning of more terrorists
and the instability U.S. military presence has created simply by "staying
the course." No matter how and when we exit Iraq, more chaos and bloodshed
will follow. The country will fragment and Bush's insane experiment in
nation-building will prove a catastrophic failure.

The reasonable move now is to cut our losses, save lives and get the hell
out of Iraq in a hurry. Polls show nearly 60 percent of the American people
now oppose the war and 63 percent want the troops home by next year.

Bush and his war council will never admit error or acknowledge
miscalculations. They will continue to send Americans and Iraqis to their
deaths as they desperately try to cobble together a political cover plan
they'll camouflage as a successful military mission.

Since no one named Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld or Rove will die in Iraq,
they figure they can continue the carnage until about this time next summer,
when they'll shift the focus to Iran just in time for the mid-term
elections.

Bogged down in Iraq? Just create a new war with a new enemy and our "war
president" will use the occasion to keep the GOP in control of both houses
of Congress.

Iran, a charter member of the "axis of evil," is perfect for the enemy role.
Iran is seeking to develop nuclear materials for power plants, which could
conceivably be used for weapons. The Europeans are working diligently to
forge a diplomatic solution and get Iran to accept international
inspections.

But Bush deplores diplomacy, preferring bullying rhetoric and the threat of
force. He horrified the Europeans in his recent remarks about Iran,
declaring "all options are on the table" and saying that "we've used force
in the recent past to secure our country." Bush's reckless rhetoric damages
any hope that moderate Iranians will have any influence at all.

But Karl Rove wants a new war to bolster Republican fortunes. The
president's "brain" would like to concentrate on the next election, but
Rove's spending much of his time trying to avoid federal prison.

If there is any justice left in our nation, Rove and Lewis "Scooter" Libby,
Vice President *** Cheney's chief of staff, will soon be indicted on felony
charges for their roles in leaking the identity of undercover CIA officer
Valerie Plame.

These scum should be charged with treason, but my best guess is that they
will face counts of obstruction of justice and lying to FBI agents. The
trial will expose the pervasive corruption and ruthlessness of the
Bush-Cheney gang, and spur talk of impeachment.

Sworn testimony will show the Busheviks would do anything to protect the
lies that led to the war in Iraq. We can only hope the grand jury will look
deeply at the motives for outing Valerie Plame and the central roles Bush
and Cheney played in the scheme. They should be named as unindicted
co-conspirators.

Two prominent figures in the scandal merit far more public attention than
they have received so far. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former
attorney general John Ashcroft played critical roles in the despicable plot,
and the grand jury ought to be reviewing all their actions.

Ashcroft took a deep personal interest in the investigation of Rove, his
friend and one-time campaign consultant when he was a senator from Missouri.

Murray Waas in the Village Voice details how Ashcroft at first refused to
recuse himself from the case involving a friend, a clear conflict of
interest, and how troubling that was to professionals in the Justice
Department. Then Ashcroft ordered the FBI to brief him on an interview the
agents had with Rove.

Waas reports investigators told Ashcroft they believed Rove "withheld
important information from them during that FBI interview." That's dynamite
stuff. A former senior Justice Department official told Waas, "It would have
been a nightmare scenario if Ashcroft let something slip to an aide or
someone else they had in common with Rove ... and then word got back to Rove
or the White House what investigators were saying about him."

Ashcroft waited five months before he finally recused himself from the Rove
investigation and the White House has never explained what led to his abrupt
departure.

Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the ranking minority member of the House
Judiciary Committee, has long argued there has been the "appearance of
impropriety" in Ashcroft's handling of the investigation. Conyers wants a
Justice Department investigation.

"The new information that Ashcroft had not only refused to recuse himself
over a period of months, but also was insisting on being personally briefed
about a matter implicating his friend, Karl Rove, represents a stunning
ethical breach that cries out for an immediate investigation by the
department's Office of Professional Responsibility and Inspector General,"
Conyers urged.

While Ashcroft may have been involved in the cover-up, Condoleezza Rice's
fingerprints are all over the plot to out Valerie Plame to punish her
husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who exposed the hoax that Saddam
Hussein was purchasing enriched uranium from Niger.

Roger Morris, a former National Security Council senior staff member, has
done a masterful job of exposing Rice's treachery in a report in
"Counterpunch" magazine. Morris argues Rice's "pivotal role" in the scandal
has been "missed entirely or deliberately" as the media frenzy focuses on
Rove and Libby.

Morris provides an intricate timeline, detailing the events and showing
Rice's involvement.

"Rice, by both commission and omission, was integral in perpetrating the
original fraud of Niger and then inevitably in the vengeful betrayal of
Plame's identity. None of that spilling of secrets for crass political
retribution could have gone on without her knowledge and approval, and thus
complicity," Morris writes.

"Little of it could have happened without her participation, if not as a
leaker herself, at least with her direction and with her scripting," Morris
writes.

Rice's glib one-liner, "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom
cloud," scared the hell out of people and became a major propaganda lie in
the march to war. Joe Wilson's expose exposed Rice as a liar.

When the time came to attempt to discredit Wilson for speaking the truth,
Rice was ready. "And when that moment comes, she has the unique authority,
and is in a position, to do the deed. Motive, means, opportunity -- in the
classic terms of prosecution, Rice had them all," Morris writes.

Rice's lies were vital in taking our nation to war, resulting in the death
of Casey Sheehan and, tragically, countless more to come. A recent "Time"
magazine article is entitled "Can Condi Rice Save Iraq?" The quick answer is
no, but you wouldn't know that reading the nauseating, puff-piece profile of
the secretary of state. We learn about her exercise schedule, hairdos named
for her, her refusal to e-mail because it's impersonal, and what a wonderful
intellect and perfectionists she is.

We're informed that Rice's most appealing qualities are "her optimism and
belief in the power of America ideals." Not a word about the Plame affair
and Rice's role.

Rice held an interview last week for reporters and an editor of The New York
Times. Again, no mention of her collusion in peddling Plame's identity.

Will Rice continue to dodge scrutiny?

Rice is a professional sycophant and her public service has been disastrous,
but she's usually given a free pass or promotion, no matter how badly she
screws up. Roger Morris explains why.

"Her manifest failures in the fateful months before 9/11 in meeting the
principal responsibilities of the National Security Adviser -- the sheer
incompetence and shallowness that left so much intelligence uncoordinated,
so much neglected or misunderstood -- should have been enough to have her
run from public office long ago, of course, were it not for her hold on this
tragically flawed president, and her deplorable immunity amid the chronic
political cowardice of both Democrats and the media," according to Morris.

With a record of failure, incompetence and treachery, what are Condi Rice's
future prospects? Why, of course, the Republicans want her to become
president.


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Bill Gallagher, a Peabody Award winner, is a former Niagara Falls city
councilman
who now covers Detroit for Fox2 News.
His e-mail address is gallaghernewsman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com Aug. 23 2005



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