The main stream press has finally gotten some teeth. They have never gone after Karl Rove the way they are now. And there were other times that they should have. But I guess it's better now than never. Poor White House press secretary Scott McClellan, who was thrown out there to do a verbal tap dance with the press. There was nothing he could say except, "I can not comment on that while there is an ongoing investigation." If I were him I would quit. I just hope the administration isn't able to stay undercover on this until a new story dominates the news. I'm sure they're hoping the Supreme Court Justice selection takes over soon.
The London bombing. Probably the most frightening thing about that instance is that the bombers were home grown. They've found that they were second generation British citizens of Pakistani decent. The youngest one was 19 years old, so he was only fifteen when 9/11 happened. That fact makes it very plausible that the same thing is happening here and the Iraq war seems to be what is fueling the anger. Bush keeps talking about how we're safer now and that taking the war to the terrorists makes us safer. There is no logic to that statement but he keeps saying it and a lot of people seem to be buying into it, though I think those numbers are dwindling.
The other day federal funding for mass tranportation protection was cut by about one-third. So we go fight a $300 billion dollar war in Iraq at the expense of homeland security. The war and the tax cuts absolutely make us less safe at home. My theory on the cut in protection for mass transportation is this. Bush gives his tax cuts and can't afford things as mass transit protection and leaves it in the hands of local government. Local government can't afford it so they are going to have to raise taxes. So Bush essentially can raise our taxes without raising our taxes.
If we didn't invade Iraq Sadaam would still be in power. Now that is not a good thing unless you put in the context of what's going on right now. When Sadaam was in power the borders were locked shut. We had Sadaam contained. We had weapons inspectors in Iraq doing their jobs. The analogy I've always used is that -- you have a hornets nest sitting in a tree filled with dangerous hornets but as hornets nests go you leave it alone and no problem. But when you foolishly recognize it as a pinata and whack it . . . well anyone short of an idiot knows what will happen.
By definition the National Guard is there to protect our borders in this country. Now imagine if we never went to Iraq and stayed with the pursuit of Osama bin Laden. With all the troop strength that is in Iraq I'm pretty sure we'd have had him. Also Sadaam would be contained in Iraq and we could concentrate on securing our borders, increasing federal funding for local protections against terrorism and truly making us safer. Going back to the hornets nest analogy. It's like America is sitting on an open front porch and mischievous Boy George goes over and whacks the hornets nest. Naturally the hornets are pissed and they do what you would expect. But Boy George, who thought he was hitting a pinata with his $300 billion dollar stick can't afford the netting needed to protect us from the hornets. Had he left well enough alone we would have the netting and it would be protecting us from mosquitoes.
Other hornets nests that haven't been whacked but feel they could be and are preparing themselves -- North Korea, Iran, Syria, China . . . .
Have a nice weekend.
No comments:
Post a Comment