Back at ya, Shrub-

If we the people determined that your connection to the Almighty was an Al-Qaeda pishing joke; and if some of us knew from the beginning, and then waited for the rest of us to catch up, that your idea of bringing democracy to the Middle East was Machiavelli's unpublished joke; and if the world just so happens to believe that you are the world's number one idiot and Tony Blair is the number two, who are we to prove them wrong by electing more Republicans; and if your pronunciation of impeachment is no better than your nukular word, you should perhaps be practicing it now; and if you believe that you are the unitary executive and have more power than the legislative and judicial branches of government and will continue to control Congress, you should ask someone in your administration, or at least someone in the White House kitchen to explain how the November 7th elections relieved you of that heavy burden; and if you don't believe any of this, and we're not saying that you are smart enough to understand the finer points, then we have one suggestion you might be able to undertake: Go back to reading My Pet Goat and if you only break for recess and not start more wars, you might finish in the two years you have left as the lame un-decider. Get our drift?

"I don't want to say that George Bush is a lame duck, but this morning, Cheney shot him". Bill Maher

C'mon Getty,
How can you not be moved to homour after Bush's explanation of the "lessons" of Vietnam and FOX News' OJ love fest.
Our times beg for satire, sir.
To do otherwise is to take seriously things that should be mocked and trivilize the serious point that mocking exposes.

A little extra comment. Did you read David Brooks' sneaky column on Borat and the culture of condencention. Did you see through it? Did you see how he was hiding the substance that the humour reveals by condemning the tone?
He's covering for the powers that be and conservative ideas in general. The people are seeing things a little more clearly and he doesn't like the tone their taking. He wants to shame us into compliance.
What an elitist ass. Even more so for pretending not to be one and inventing a liberal sociological category to displace all his sins upon. Please, read this colunm, see the fear and displacement in his words. Pathetic, isn't it.

How I love the subjunctive mood! If we withdraw our marooned foreign legion from the sand-trap shooting gallery our government has stupidly placed them in, then really bad things might happen; even though the only empirical evidence we possess proves conclusively that keeping our troops where we have stupidly placed them for almost four years has only made matters increasingly worse the longer we postpone withdrawing them. Oh, never mind. Back to the future!

"If it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic," said Tweedledee.

Anyway, that little worm of a word, "If," reminds me of Rudyard Kipling and his poem by the same name. Notwithstanding the complete responsibility Deputy Dubya Bush bears for unleashing Hobbesian Hell upon Iraq and America, he did have a lot of hapless help from New York's backbench Senator You-Know-Her, in dishonor of whom I offer:

"Maybe or Maybe Not" -- A poem in search of Senator Hillary Clinton - missing, and presumed ambivalent

If you would lose your head when others wouldn't
And let polls do your thinking when you won't,
If you could trust George Bush when wise men couldn't
But still excuse his lying when they don't,
If you can wait for someone else to lead us,
And being led yourself, follow behind,
And, living large, dine with the ones who bleed us,
Yet never seem to pay us any mind;

If you're content to make George Bush your master,
If you can slink away to his estate;
If you can turn Triumph into Disaster
And treat Joe Lieberman as your blind date;
If you can bear to hear the lies you've spoken
Straightened by truth to make you look the fool,
Or watch what former Democrats built broken,
While right-wing cynics use you as their tool;

If you can make one heap of all our Army
And risk their lives on one throw of the dice,
And lose, and cover up by speaking smarmy
And blame somebody else by talking nice;
If you can show no heart or nerve or sinew
Yet serve your own self even as you flee,
And so put out when there is nothing in you
Except the sign you wear which says: "Kick me!"

It could be that someone will come to teach you.
Some braver soul, perhaps, will show the way.
Maybe an errant vertebra will reach you.
Perhaps your spine will stiffen one fine day.
You may, perhaps, or maybe you won't, either.
Perhaps you'll skitter further to the right.
Like other chicken hawks, you need a breather
Before the next time that you take to flight.

With luck, we won't lose more than three each day now.
Perhaps only a dozen died this week.
It could be you've found some cool way to say, "Wow!
Just look at all that `Victory' we seek!"
You could have chanced to find some Chinese money
To borrow from our children for your war.
Maybe you'll visit good King George, your honey,
And pledge your party as his loyal whore.

You and the press have sure played Rip Van Winkle
And gone to sleep to wake up out to lunch;
While vampires on our "values" loudly sprinkle
Invective while continuing to munch.
Yet still you quake and quiver at the vision
Of greedy bats out after our last dime.
Upon our necks they make a new incision
While you prevaricate and stall for time.

While Cindy Sheehan shows true grit you wobble
And, like the wildebeest, hide in the herd
Content to let the lion chew and gobble
On others' children - all without a word.
Perhaps you'll dodge a vote and so we'll stay in.
Most likely you'll decry some burning flags.
While soldiers die you slither on your way in
To Senate chambers famed for bogus gags.

No doubt you'll raise more funds to sell your virtue,
And kneel for kings to lose the common touch;
While only friends but not your foes desert you;
Because you've asked too little for so much.
You'll likely fill the unforgiving hour
With only sixty seconds' worth of work,
And still expect the Earth for you to flower,
Which maybe will not happen now, you jerk!

Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2005

Yes, indeed. If ...

Reba - Obviously, the line didn't work well, but the intent was to give Machiavelli the last laugh and credit for being right.

"I don't want to say that George Bush is a lame duck, but this morning, Cheney shot him". Bill Maher

This may be (probably is) the best comment ever posted on this or any other website.

Thanks.

Take if from an old Vietnamizer of the Vietnamese in Vietnam: Iraqifying the Iraqis in Iraq will only take us from "Yellowing the Corpses" to "Browning the Bodies." A joke on the notorious Nation of Sheep? Perhaps; but more like a sick, sardonic scam sold to the sleepy by second-rate snake-oil salesmen. My admittedly jaundiced eyes see:

"Dead Metaphors"

We serve as a symbol to shield those who screw us
The clueless, crass cretins who crap on our creed
We perform the foul deeds they can only do through us
Then lay ourselves down in the dark while we bleed

Through cheap Sunday slogans they sought to imbue us
With lust for limp legacy laughably lean
Yet the Pyrrhic parade only served to undo us
We die now for duty, not "honor" obscene

We carried out plans that the lunatics drew us
Their oil-spotted, fly paper, domino dream
Then we fought for the leftover bones that they threw us
While carpetbag contractors cleaned up the cream

We did the George Custer scene Rumsfeld gave to us
We took ourselves targets to arrows and bows
While the brass punched their tickets, the Indians slew us
A "strategy" ranking with History's lows

When veterans balked they contrived to pooh-pooh us
With sneers at our “syndrome” of Vietnam sick
When that didn’t work they set out to voodoo us
With sewer boat slanderers paid to be slick

The wad-shooting gambler comes once more to woo us
His PR team planning precise photo ops
For to sell his used war he'll have need to construe us
As witless weak wallpaper campaign-ad props

The nuts and the dolts in their suits really blew us
They made our life's meaning a dead metaphor
Still, no matter how Furies and Fate may pursue us
The Fig Leaf Contingent has been here before

As the years pass in darkness the graveyards accrue us
As early returns on investments gone wrong
So the next time “supporters” of troops ballyhoo us
Remember this warning: our sad silent song

Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2005