Bush: ‘The Dark Night of the Soul’

The cowardly Democrats remained frighteningly silent after the recent mild proposal by Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin to censure President Bush. Thus, any suggestion to impeach him will be considered preposterous.
Monarch and dictator Bush has shamefully disgraced America. “To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world”:
• Bush is the most reactionary president the nation has ever had. Historian Sean Wilentz, in a Rolling Stone article, says he “appears headed for colossal historical disgrace,” possibly “remembered as the very worst president in all of American history.” Wilentz rightly adds: he choose “partisanship over leadership.”
• Bush launched an unprovoked war with lies about WMD, Iraq’s threats to America and Saddam Hussein’s ties to al-Qaida. That war is as catastrophic as Vietnam was and could last as long. It has caused the senseless death of 2,405 U.S. soldiers and 17,000 wounded (with many terribly maimed). The war costs $2 billion a week. The Iraqi toll is enormous: civilian deaths in the six figures and thousands fleeing their homes to escape civil war.
• Bush has manipulated, misused and politicized intelligence. Paul Pillar, writing in Foreign Affairs, notes: “The administration used intelligence not to inform decision-making but to justify a decision already made.” The Downing Street memo says it all about Bush’s war. He wanted it--the facts be damned.
• Bush authorized the National Security Agency to snoop on phone and Internet communications of U.S. citizens without warrants as required by law. The Boston Globe estimates that Bush has broken 750 laws. This makes laughable the notion of bringing democracy and freedom to other nations. Bush doubles in spades the Nixon line: “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” The hubris, chutzpah and swagger of this mission-accomplished draft-dodger is incredible.
• Bush has seized unprecedented power. His signing statements with acts of Congress are flagrantly unconstitutional. They allow the Great He to interpret what those acts mean.
• Bush is surrounded by myrmidons like the snarling pitbull Vice President Cheney, the hawk-thug Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and the yes-man Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
• Bush openly flouts international law, most notably the Geneva Convention. He disdains the U.N. Charter. He denounces the International Criminal Court.
• Bush has caused much of the world to hate America. He has squandered America’s moral authority. His occupation of Iraq has seen the construction of permanent U.S. bases as big as small towns and an imperial embassy in Baghdad.
• Bush approves rendition, torture and abuse of prisoners, concepts alien to what America stands for. As Sen. John Kerry puts it: they are “violations of our values, violations of our principles.” Torture and inhumane treatment are rampant in U.S. detention centers in Afghanistan, Iraq and Cuba, Amnesty International reports.
• Bush outed a CIA officer whose husband had the “effrontery” to write a whistleblowing article denouncing a Bush lie about one of the many phony reasons for the war.
• Bush’s pledge to be a compassionate conservative is one more of his many lies. As columnist Bob Herbert notes: he has turned Washington into a compassion-free zone.
• Bush tax cuts for the rich are woefully regressive. Benefits from his proposed repeal of the estate tax would go the wealthest 1 percent. His budget cuts hammer Medicare, Medicaid and student loans. Nearly every decision he makes favors business rather than working people and the environment.
• Bush has stacked federal offices with cronies, misfits and losers. He packs the federal courts with ideologues.
• The Bush Republican Party has become a biblical den of thieves, riddled with sleaze and corruption: Enron, DeLay, Abramoff, Libby et al.
• Bush cashiers and smears any official who disagrees with him.
• Bush places theology and ideology over science on global warming, stem-cell research and bogus intelligent design. He suppresses findings by federal agencies and researchers that are contrary to his dogma. His removes from federal Websites scientific information about reproductive health and effectiveness of condoms in fighting AIDS. He manipulates scientific studies. Religious faith and zealotry triumph over reason.
• Bush claims to have been ordained by God to lead the country into war. Does he ever seek advice from his father? A thunderous no. “There is a higher father that I appeal to.” This so-called born-again Christian has absolutely no understanding of Christ.
• Bush got the presidency through election fraud in Florida, the anachronistic Electoral College and a egregiously partisan Supreme Court. He kept it in 2004 with fear and smear.
To borrow the title of a treatise by St. John of the Cross in 1578, Bush is causing millions of Americans to suffer “The Dark Night of the Soul.” Alas, the soulless Bush reign lasts a thousand more days.