Every episode in his political history says that George Bush considers himself to be in the service of "Good."  Since he is "Serving Good" everything he does is "Good" - without limit.

Yesterday, President Bush promised about Iran

"We will confront this danger before it is too late!"

There is nothing he will not stoop to - to him it is not "stooping" but "Serving."

I am now disgusted that the House of Representatives still refuses to even consider, much less investigate, Impeachment proceedings.  There is no other mechanism left which has any chance of preventing war with Iran.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/07/05/american_credibility/index.html

One of the most stunning sections, to me, was a portion of the passage Mr. Greenwald quoted from Ian Walsh - a Canadian -

And then the Bush years happened. George Bush, with the acquiescence of Congress and the consent of the majority of voters, who elected him in 2004, made the US a unilateral actor on the world stage ...  (emphasis mine)

This encapsulates an essential point from the discussion -- In the eyes of the World, every individual American is complicit with Our President in all the wrongs.

I know this is always the case in reality, and rhetorically.  But this single idea brings me to the conclusion that the primary way we individual Americans can begin to rebuild our reputation in the World is by repudiating President Bush.  We must show that we do not agree and are not complicit with Mr. Bush.

There seems to be no way to accomplish that repudiation short of beginning Impeachment proceedings.

Mr. President, if we maintain our forces in Iraq, is Iraq the only place terrorists will attack us?

I know the answer to my question is "No - al Qaida, or many other terrorist organizations, will seek to attack the United States and its interests world wide."

The Scary Answer

The truly scary answer from President Bush would be "Yes."  This is the answer he implies when he argue that if we leave Iraq, the terrorists will "follow us home."  If he really believes that, in fact, he must answer "Yes".

But if he believes that staying in Iraq makes that the only place we'll be attacked, he is by definition malfeasant.  There is no need to protect anything else as long as the only place we'll be attacked is there.

POTUS BOGUS

Of course, the fact is that Mr. Bush seems to know that we need at least some protections for places other than Iraq.

That means he must know his argument is bogus.  It means he knows that the US presence in Iraq is immaterial to whether terrorists will try to attack us here.

"If any Republican is elected president — and I think obviously I would be the best at this — we will remain on offense....I listen a little to the Democrats and if one of them gets elected, we are going on defense," Giuliani continued. "We will wave the white flag on Iraq. We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation and we will be back to our pre-Sept. 11 attitude of defense."

He added: "The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us."

Rudy Giuliani, New England College in Henniker, N.H. April 24, 2007

WOW!  Rudy Giuliani says if he's elected President, he'll govern as a paranoid facist.  I can't think of any other way to interpret his statement.

He pledges to anticipate what the terrorists might do and to remain on the offensive to stop those possibilities.  That means if, as President, he hears a warning that al Qaeda is going to set off an explosion, he'll attack .. somewhere, someone, some thing, befoer they do.

Good God Man! 

I decided to graph the two prices (from 2000 to current) together to see whether the one mirrors the other.  It seems, with exceptions, they do.  It's the "with exceptions" part that's puzzling to me.

In my graph there are a couple of short term anomalies.  The first occurred between April & May 2001.  The average price per gallon of regular unleaded (US Cities Average - Bureau of Labor Statistics) in this period rose from $1.75 to $1.94 while the price of crude oil fell from about $0,49 to $0.48.  The next anomaly was an opposite trend - from February to March 2002 the price of gas fell while the cost of crude rose.

The gasoline price rise normally blamed on Hurricane Katrina actually began in the period June to July 2005, and peaked by the end of September 2005.  During this time the average price of gasoline went from $2.38 to $3.11 per gallon, and the cost of crude went from $0.90 to $1.08 per gallon.  Notice the price of gasoline rose over 23%, but the cost of crude oil rose 16%.

The most interesting anomaly is the last two months.  From July to September 2006 the cost of crude oil has fallen a little less than 17%.  During the same period, the average price per gallon of gasoline has fallen almost 32%.

The last thing my graph made clear is that the trend line for the average price of gasoline is diverging from the trend line for the average cost of crude oil.  In other words, by my estimate, the US Cities Average price of a gallon of gasoline is increasing about 34% faster than the average price of crude oil since January 2000.  If the differential between the trend lines had remained constant, the average price of a gallon of gasoline would be approaching $2.00.

All of this reinforces that the commodity (gasoline) price is affected by much more that the cost of crude oil.  I guess I knew that.  But the current down-turn in prices is only half explained by the reduction in crude oil cost - so what does explain it?

Retired General William Odom wrote in this piece published July 17th that staying in Iraq is preventing us from reaching our long-term goals in the Middle East.  I think he is right, and this has set me thinking about what is going on.

Recent reports indicate that the insurgency we are fighting is primarily Iraqis.  They believe we are an occupier intent on colonizing Iraq in order to take their crude oil for ourselves.

So, every day we stay in country we reinforce that idea.  Worse, we are actually constructing permanent bases.

The claim that we are occupiers, backed up by the evidence that we are building permanent military bases serves to increase the number of insurgents fighting to liberate Iraq.  Their numbers are further increased every time we kill an insurgent because we mobilize revenge seekers.

Based on all of this, we can only win in Iraq by killing the entire population.   If we embark on this course, defending Iraq will become a religious necessity for Muslims, and we will eventually have to kill every Muslim world-wide.

So, General Odom has it right - we either suffer the short-term tactical defeat by withdrawing, and in the process preserve our long-term strategic goals, or we embark on a campaign of genocide, and lose our strategic goals for the foreseeable future, and in the process become what they claim we are.

Writing it out in this manner makes the decision seem too easy to me.  How do we get our "big thinkers" to see?

I can see the logic, and I understand that if the Ds give them a rallying point, the Republican base will rally. If the Democrats wait, and if no other rallying point arises (everyone knows Mr. Rove is trying to find something to use) maybe this tactic will bear fruit. I'm willing to wait -- but only until the next session of Congress.

Regardless of which party is victorious in November, I think President Bush must be Impeached and tried for the good of the nation.

Most people are familiar with the bill of particulars against President Bush.  He has violated his Oath of Office to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution" by failing to enforce laws, by using signing statements to declare that he can choose to ignore laws, by stifling free speech, by ignoring the requirements to obtain warrants, by arresting people without cause, by denying those people arrested recourse, by ignoring the right to speedy and public trials, and by claiming extra-constitutional powers.  He has chosen to make war (apparently for imperial purposes) and lied to justify the war.  And, he is seeking an excuse to start a third war.  He hides under a cloak of secrecy and is seeking to effectively establish an "Official Secrets" doctrine.

These abuses are all affronts to our Constitution.  If they stand, President Bush will have eviscerated Article I, Article III, the 1st Amendment, and the 4th Amendment.  These affronts can only be cured by Impeachment.  If they are not cured, the precedents will have been set, and every successive President will use them.  It also remains within the realm of possibility that President Bush will declare, using his Unitary Executive doctrine, that the coming elections must be suspended lest they interfere with his prosecution of the War.

I think the idea of America hangs in the balance.

 The one consission I'm willing to make is that there are some occasions where lives would be endangered, so some informaiton shoudl be temporarily secret. 

The current Administration recognizes that information is the currency of power.  However, they are so power hungry that they are unwilling to share.  Thier default position is to withhold information so only they have the power.

 President Bush is a "Corporatist."  Pure and simple.  His Administration and everything it does is aimed at increasing corporate hegemony.  This can only come to pass in secret.