Except for that incident on September 11, 2001.  But for the one minor event, always remember America, Bush kept us safe. 

Dick Cheney's recent remarks were to the effect, "Who could have predicted these things would happen?"

w declared, "I had a PBR* every morning!  Sometimes two or three!"

"Mr. Still-President, we are asking if you read the PDR, not drank a PBR."

"Oh, well, I had good intentions and meant to read it, but after the PBRs I generally thought I should spend more time on vacation.  Y'all be safe!"

Buh-bye, Dubya.   

On January 7, second-term Republican Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia and two friends prayed over a door. It was not just any door, but the entranceway beneath the Capitol that President-elect Barack Obama will pass through as he walks onto the inaugural stage to take the oath of office. "I hope and pray that as God stirs the heart of our new president that President Obama will listen and will heed God's direction," Broun proclaimed.

Standing beside Broun, Rev. Patrick Mahoney launched into a prayer originally delivered by Billy Graham at Richard Nixon's inauguration in 1969. "For too long we have neglected thy word and ignored thy laws," Mahoney preached. "...We have sowed to the wind and are now reaping a whirlwind of crime, division, and rebellion. And now with the wages of sin staring us in the face, we remember thy words." (Max Blumenthal, The Daily Beast)

[Note:  I Borrowed this from dickday's post, LET US PRAY here on TPM.  I recommend you read that too.]

Here on the Left, we would like to see the masses loose the coils of their addiction to religion.  Let's be honest.  It's probably not going to happen on any wholesale level.  Have you see all those Big Box franchises out there?  There's too much money there to be able to eliminate it.  I would offer that some people need it.  But there is another tack that we should consider, and there are voices out there who can toe this line.  Throw the Bible in their face.

As I make this suggestion, I offer that it is based on a single assumption.  One can manipulate the text from the Bible to support any position one likes.  I grew up immersed in religion.  I have been to church more times in my first twenty years then an overwhelming majority of people will attend in their entire life.   I say this only to prevent people from assuming I was some passive critic who read The Book once.  I have been through it plenty.

 When we challenge the intrinsic sanctity of the above-described event, we are outside the sphere [or circle if you prefer] of influence to reach anyone attempting to let the Word into their heart or daily life.  I propose we can reach some of these people.  But we have to use their language to be heard.

The most powerful statement of St. Paul is his admonition for people to "test the spirits"  Not everything done in the Lord's name is from God.  That is an assumption.  We all know what happens when we assume.  So let's challenge these Representatives on their suggestion that what they are doing is from God.

My question for Rep. Broun is whether this a tradition he has practiced all his time in Congress, or is it only now that he feels it is necessary.  I would suggest that people consider his failing to have done this sooner has resulted in a great many demons entering Congress.  I would thank him for putting up this "spiritual barrier", if you will, because now we can be certain what comes of this Congress has a better chance of being from God compared to what has before occurred.   Afterall, we are now " reaping a whirlwind of crime, division, and rebellion". 

We should not leave impressionable people to languish under the spell of mortal men.  We should challenge them to ask whether the deeds that have been done are reflective of someone who is Christian rather then assume those who perform those deeds are Christians merely because they say that they are.  Test the Spirits!  Encourage them to challenge the arguments made without demanding they abandon their faith and they may come to see those people from another perspective, perhaps the same perspective shared on this site by many, that these Representatives are charlatans.  It is easier to expose the charlatans then to destroy their faith.  They are trained to protect that faith.  Trained to prove it.

This tack can also be used with the Nationalists, those people who assume: the Patriot Act was patriotic; Oliver North was an honorable man because he wore a uniform; and that Fox noise is "Fair and Balanced" because they say so.  I would suggest that recent efforts to reveal FOX noise for the propoaganda arm that they are of the Far-Right Republican party have succeeeded.  But it was only possible when we spoke their language and asked, "How is that fair and balanced?"  These questions work, "How is that Christian/about freedom and equality/fair and balanced, etc.?"  If we only put these questions out there, I suggest we will be more effective and maybe people will be less likely to assume.  God Bless America!  

]Oh, sorry, I meant superficial.  Just trying to provoke bloggers to take a read of my post.]

The recent press conference hosted by the Still-President himself is a real eye-opener.  For once, Dubya has come out unleashed by his handlers.  With Karl Rove no longer there to convince him he is as his best when he keeps his mouth shut and Dick Cheney laughing all the way to the bank declaring, "I was never the President.  It was all Dubya's doing", we are provided a version of Dubya Gone Wild!  Now we get to see what George was actually thinking.  We also get to see who he is and who he believes himself to be, which are not one in the same, at all.  How this relates to Reagan is that Reagan's Alzheimer's may have been more latent in his last years then we will ever know.  Was he "The President" or was he playing one on TV?  Who wrote those last speeches anyway?  Was it the President who delivered them, or an actor?

The issue of who Dubya is can probably be better analyzed by people trained in evaluating personalities, but I read a book once and I think I see a pattern.  Let the reader confirm or reject whether this is valid.  I see a man who places the highest importance on image.  Dubya shared a few things that he characterized as mistakes.  The Daily Show had a field day with them last night.  What was consistent with these examples was that they were all about appearance.  Dubya suggested his rhetoric was sometimes a mistake, perhaps he was referring to "Bring it on!"  He thought the "Mission Accomplished" banner was a mistake.  He thought that flying over Katrina was a mistake, but he thought landing would have been criticized as well, because resources would have been taken away from the rescue effort to protect him.  At the same time, he emphatically declared he was not concerned with popularity.

This rejection of his seeking popularity is laughable as he has recently traveled the world on what the MSM is labelling the "Legacy Tour".  He has provided more interviews in the last few weeks then probably he has given in his entire eight years in office.   It appears to be an effort to create an image for people to remember of him on his way out the door because the events of his Presidency do not make him appear in all that great a light.  Is it this concern, his appearance, that is driving him  to put so much effort into showcasing himself on every network of late? 

It has always been a consideration of mine that Reagan was a front man for the Republicans.  I could never wrap my arms around his being responsible for everything that happened on his watch.  There were too many players on the scene and too much cooperation to believe he alone pulled all the strings.  But everyone identified him as the source of all the policies that were. 

With Dubya we are seeing the same thing again.  It makes me ask whether Dubya was given the role for which he was eager to act, President of the United States.  Yet here at the end, after apparently abdicating all the power of his office to Dick Cheney and others, he has come to realize that, even though his role as Leader of the Free World was a farce, he alone will be marked with the abyssmal performance of his Administration.  Those individuals of the Reagan Administration who did so well for themselves then, have done it again, and will vanish into obscurity.  History will seldom recall them, but they have amassed great wealth, and that is no fiction.  But poor boy George, he does not have the benefit of going home to forget about it, and I think it really bothers him ... FINALLY!!!

Are the mega-corporations going the way of the dinosaur?  Is the recent economic crisis the result of these monstrosities going too far from their natural environment?  Are these  behemouths now unable to survive due to lack of economic forage?  It seems we may consider this is the case, but I doubt they will go extinct in my lifetime unless global warming takes us all.

The economic crisis is leading many of the big box stores to pull back from some of their more remote locations and to close some of the locations where they may even be located to close to their own sister stores.  It makes good business sense ,and how can we fault them? But the wreckage of the communites they are abandoning is significant.

When these shareholder-funded entities arrived, there were already several smaller enterprises managing to serve the local communites and doing well enough to survive.  These "organic" retailers were raised on the local economy and knew what specifically was needed by whom and in what quantities.  A big box store, however, comes along, funded from bank accounts far, far away and expects these communities to be like everywhere else.  Unable to adapt as times change, they are now leaving the field.  Unfortunately, in many cases those local providers are now out of business and the void is significant.  It could not come at a worse time for these locales as money and confidence is in short supply.  It will be a while before stores of any kind open that can meet the needs of these communities.

The diminishing availability of fossil fuels suggests that we need to develop a sustainable economy a lot closer to the consumers.  It also demands that more public transportation be created to enable more people to not merely survive but thrive without personal vehicles.  The expansion of the interstate highway system will only prolong the deterioration of the mega-corporations.  This recent economic slump reveals they do not belong in remote locations where their financial expectations cannot be sustained, so these highways are misleading invitations for them to persist in their desire to expand when the cold hard truth is that they have gone as far as they should.  Their appetite has consumed the consumers, and it is now up to nature to see how things will return. 

With Barack Obama, a room full of the best and the brightest, and a whole lot of hope, we can plant new seeds and hope there is enough left for the smaller "plants" to survive.  Hopefully, we can return these communities to being green again.  A different species evloving for every unique environment, as nature had intended.