He’s Still Our George
If I were to tell you that your leader, commander-in-chief, grand poobah, and omnipotent head of state lied to you, used you, and mislead you along with the rest of the world and generally flushed what international credibility your country had down the toilet, and in the process risked the lives of your military, innocent civilians, and the future prosperity of your children with crippling national debt loads that make third-world money managers seem almost frugal, would you vote for that leader again?
Well, if you're from the land of the free, home of the brave, and garden of the gullible, then hell yes! Count me in, Bubba!
It takes a pretty big cock-up to keep you from getting elected in the good-old U.S. of A. Richard Nixon spent four years sending eighteen-year-olds off to a Vietnamese slaughter house and was thanked for his efforts by being swept back into office in '72. Bill Clinton spent more time checking out interns and secretaries, lying about crooked real-estate transactions, and assaulting musical ears around the globe with his sax playing than he ever did minding the store he was voted to mind, and even George Sr.'s constant lies to congress and clearly illegal activities during the whole Iran-contra fiasco of the 1980's didn't keep the squeaky voiced Texan from getting his hands on the reigns of power for at least one term.
So don't bet on George Jr. doing anything other than holding court in the oval office this time next year.
Who cares if Iraq was never a threat, that the invasion was planned all along, and that 9/11 was a just a convenient early Christmas present to whip the troops and the country into beating the war drums, singing anthems, and providing enough convenient photo-ops for Bush to play boy soldier and try on every uniform in the United States' military catalogue? Seven out of ten Americans believe otherwise...though they also used to believe that "duck and cover" was an excellent response to a twenty megaton bomb.
And so what if the rights of citizens, and the very constitution that defines America itself, is being violated and ignored like a cheap back alley whore in the name of "national security"? The American public is so frightened of crazed, turban-clad terrorists falling out of the sky or lurking under their children's beds, that all that is needed is a "heightened" security alert for them to sign over every liberty their founding fathers ever fought for.
Someone is going to have to catch the president doing more than demonstrating a 101 uses for a cigar to members of the white house staff, à la Bill "sure it will fit in there, it's Cuban" Clinton, or come across more than a few incriminating oval office tape recordings in an apathetic electoral age that would have had Nixon convulsing in fits of power-crazed ecstasy, to keep G. Dubya from ramrodding his brand of democracy down the throats of anyone with more than three barrels of oil in their garage for another four years.
Not that the American public has much to choose from, what with the incumbent president's likely adversary being one Howard Dean, the glib, fast-talking former governor from Vermont who only recently took up daily readings of the Bible to prove to a rabid evangelical electorate that still believes the world is a few thousand years old and was slapped together with duct tape and rusty nails during a hectic six-day construction frenzy one week in 4000 BC, that yes, he's one of them; he's a believer.
So what if he thinks the book of Job is part of the New Testament?
Even if you agree that George Bush has made a complete hash out of just about everything except zipping up his flight suit, can you really see this mess being sorted out by some sort of two-bit hothead who spends more time blurting out one-liners and anti-war rhetoric than any meaningful solutions to the problems at hand? The peacenik stuff is old news, there is a war on, and it'll take a lot more than Howard Dean and a legion of well intentioned youngsters to get America back on track, both at home and abroad.
No, George will be back, with promises of franchise opportunities on the moon and men spreading the good word on Mars. It's the year of presidential giveaways, pulpit speeches, and spin-doctor magic, and America will eat it up. Screw the critics, they'll say, and screw the facts; he's our president, he's our George.
He's also a corrupt madman, but that's never kept anyone out of the White House.
