Category Archives: Bush

Update II: How Shall I Praise Thee, Oh Bloody Congress?!

Bush, Ethics, Government, The State

COINAGE FOR CONGRESS. In the post titled “Energy Independence Isolationism”, reader Steve protests my uncharacteristic choice of language for Congress members.

I responded by asking him what else would he have me call them? I have run out of adjectival niceties. Maybe readers have some, but I’m all out.

I’ve been in the trenches for over a decade, and have been pretty polite throughout. (Okay, in “Bush’s 16 Words Miss the Big Picture,” I likened Bush’s “Bring ‘Em On” grin to “the grimace on the face of a demented patient with end-stage syphilis.”)

Have the Leaders returned the courtesy? Have they refrained, at the very least, from bloodletting and thieving and all other manner of immorality and dishonor? No.

To everything there is a season, it is written in Ecclesiastes. The time is ripe to call a F-ck Face a FF.

I’ll tell you what: I’ll change “Congressional Cockroaches” to “Congressional Creeps.” I was being grossly unfair to cockroaches.

Updated (June 24): Steve has forgiven me (although he posted his reply to the wrong post). He writes:

Ilana, touché. No need to pull punches. They are f-ck faces. Libertarian small-g goddess-hood intact. Now, I just have more than your intellect by which to be intimidated. My use of the f bomb tends to be more mundane and unimaginative, and almost universally traffic-related. Props!

Thanks for feeling my pain, Steve. I’m glad my fall from grace has been halted. As a first-time offender (scroll down), let me say in my defense that mitigating circumstances were–are–in abundance. Actually, believe it or not, christening Congress as I did was no “crime” of passion. I had thought of removing the risqué moniker, and then decided that the time was ripe to “Out [these] damned spots.”

Update II: Has anyone noticed that this is blog number 666? The Number of the Beast. Speaking of the Devil. (The Number of the Beast Iron-Maiden style is cool).

By the way, in case of a misunderstanding, the honorifics in this post apply, naturally, to members of both Houses (sans Ron Paul). A pox on both Houses.

The Decider’s Dictatorship

Bush, Constitution, Iraq, War

“Bush’s boy in Baghdad has given the president the backing for a policy the American people have repudiated. It is well known that Bush regularly bypasses Petraeus’ superiors, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen. They both understand ‘the broad view of our national security needs … and the risks posed by stretching the force too thin,’ countered Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee. To preclude that ‘broad view,’ Bush has habitually sidestepped the chain of command. Chain of command, separation of powers, limited and enumerated powers—winking at those fundamentals is all in a day’s work for W.”

The excerpt is from my latest WorldNetDaily column, “The Decider’s Dictatorship.”

The Decider's Dictatorship

Bush, Constitution, Iraq, War

“Bush’s boy in Baghdad has given the president the backing for a policy the American people have repudiated. It is well known that Bush regularly bypasses Petraeus’ superiors, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen. They both understand ‘the broad view of our national security needs … and the risks posed by stretching the force too thin,’ countered Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee. To preclude that ‘broad view,’ Bush has habitually sidestepped the chain of command. Chain of command, separation of powers, limited and enumerated powers—winking at those fundamentals is all in a day’s work for W.”

The excerpt is from my latest WorldNetDaily column, “The Decider’s Dictatorship.”

Looking for Love in the All the Wrong Places

Africa, Bush, Constitution, Foreign Aid, Terrorism

As if you needed more proof of Bush’s worth:

Africans love him—and not only because he is a Strongman, a real tribal chief—but because he has been more generous with his tribe’s money that his predecessors.

The idea that Bush has saved African lives is idiotic—any government-to-government transfer, which is all foreign aid is—goes to maintaining the mandarins that man the aid bureaucracies in the US, and straight into the Swiss bank accounts of the recipient African heads of country. The latter don’t even conceal their cupidity.

American individuals, estates, foundations, and corporations gave $241 billion to charity in 2003. Foreign aid through the state amounts to only $15 billion per year, most of which is squandered.

If we are to help Mr. Shabalala, who has practically screwed himself to death (and infected his wife with HIV, private, voluntary charity is the mightiest, most moral, and most efficient way to do so.

Bush’s legacy on this front is to have gone from preaching “trade not aid,” to instituting trade tariffs, and increasing U.S. foreign aid during his unfortunate tenure many times over. Where Bush has certainly innovated is by tying new spending to his terrorism-fighting strategy, thus ending for good the debate on the corrupting effects of foreign welfare, since anything that ostensibly fights terrorism is sacrosanct.