7-14-05, 10:15 am
Let’s face it, most people just don’t think President Bush tells the truth. A new poll conducted by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal shows that 59 percent of Americans refuse to describe Bush as 'honest and straightforward.'
The poll also showed that Americans regard the Iraq war and jobs as the main area of concern.
Why are they concerned? President Bush has been straightforward about Iraq, hasn’t he? I mean he told us recently that he ordered the invasion of Iraq because of September 11th. How more straightforward can you be? Forget the fact that all throughout his reelection campaign he denied that September 11th was the reason for the invasion.
He was straightforward and honest about Iraq’s possession of WMD, its attempts to buy nuclear weapons, and links to terrorists, wasn’t he? And despite evidence in the Downing Street Memo and other leaked British government documents that show his administration had determined to go to war in Iraq as early as March 2002 and intended to fix intelligence to support that cause, Bush was honest and straightforward about pursuing every peaceful and diplomatic way to avoid war, wasn’t he?
He has been honest and straightforward about how well the war is going, also, right? He was being honest in May 2003 when he declared the war over, and he was being honest recently when he said that it might go on for years and years. No the American people have no reason to doubt his veracity or his credibility. Do they?
After all, Bush said in the fall of 2002 that the war would only cost the people a handful of casualties and the taxpayers only $50 billion dollars to wage. Should we mistrust him just because thousands of our people have been wounded and killed and our national coffers have been emptied (to pay for war and tax cuts for the rich)? Should we mistrust him just because no member of his family has served in Iraq, and he has attended no funerals for a single soldier or marine fallen in battle, nor has he had to explain to a single family member face to face why their brother, sister, mother, father, cousin or whomever why they had to die for his lie?
Should we doubt his honesty just because in 2003 when the story broke that a member of his administration may have leaked the identity of an undercover CIA agent, he said that he’d find out who did it and fire that person, but since having found out that Karl Rove is the culprit, Bush has failed to follow through on giving a pink slip to his close friend and adviser? Should this lead us to doubt that Bush had a hand in what was a politically motivated attack on an administration critic that could have cost a person her life and certainly did cost her her livelihood?
Should we accept on face value Bush’s claim to the right to appoint activist judges to the Supreme Court who will advance the narrow ideological interests of a small minority of the US population that opposes a woman’s right to choose, wants the government to sponsor Christian religious concepts, opposes the notion that civil rights and liberties supercede the power of the state, and objects to scientific approaches to medicine or scientific methods of developing knowledge about the world?
After all, did he ever campaign on overturning Roe v. Wade? Where does he mention that in the debates? Should we doubt his honesty on these issues? Maybe he just forgot to mention that he intended to pander to the religious fundamentalist minority?
Should we doubt his statements about Social Security being in a financial crisis? I know he didn’t campaign on privatizing Social Security, but maybe he just discovered the crisis in January after taking an oath to uphold the Constitution. Should we disbelieve him just because his radical privatization scheme will put as much as $1 trillion into the hands of the investment firms and banks that gave millions to his campaign?
Can we trust a man who sits at the head of the Republican Party? A party filled with corruption-ridden congressional politicos as Tom DeLay (TX – influence peddling and illegal use of campaign donations), Randy 'Duke' Cunningham (CA – accepting bribes), Bob Ney (OH – accepting improper gifts form lobbyists), Mike Oxley (OH – abuse of power, threatening a company with an investigation unless they fired a Democrat).
A party whose leading cadre is composed of hate-mongers such as Rick Santorum, whose big issue is not how to create jobs in Pennsylvania, but bashing gay people and 'liberal' culture. Trent Lott who refused to sponsor a Senate resolution apologizing for the crime of slavery. Or Bush-appointee Judge William Pryor who used his job as Alabama Attorney General to go out of his way to attack gay people in Texas and Florida, wants to do away with laws that protect women from violence, provide disabled people with access to public facilties, enforce civil rights protections.
Should any of this evidence make us doubtful of the leader of such a party? Should any of this cause us to doubt Bush’s claim to be a uniter, not a divider?
So what do you do with someone you can’t trust?
There is a growing movement to investigate and impeach the president for lying to start the war in Iraq, which constitutes a High Crime according to the US Constitution – remember that thing Bush took an oath to uphold? If you are one of the 'doubting Thomases' who thinks the President lacks credibility, it may behoove you to look at whether or not Bush’s dishonesty constitutes a crime. Research this issue at .
