Vocation Diary

Over on CLUE Talk there’s been a lot of Bush bashing. I’m one of the bashers.

What’s ironic to me is that President Bush (when on the defensive) starts to back track … I mean clarify. He’s deliberately vague (this must be some type of political coaching) and we citizens are quick to fill in the blanks which then become clarified months or weeks later when someone finally has the balls to call the President on his lies.

Here’s two examples:

(1) The Administration drew numerous connections between the 9/11 Al Qaeda attack and Iraq’s former President, Saddam Hussein before the Iraq war. Later saying (Condolezza Rice, actually) said, ‘We never said Saddam was linked to 9/11″. Here’s President Bush’s quote from the USS Abraham Lincoln, just after de declared victory:

“The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September 11, 2001, and still goes on.”

(2) The dreaded ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner on the USS Abraham Lincoln. The President said that “we (the administration) didn’t put up the banner” which everyone on the planet though he meant that the US Navy took it upon itself to put up the banner. Now, we learn the real story:

“What (the president) said was that it was put up by the Navy, by people on
board the ship and that was correct,” his spokesman Scott McClellan said
Wednesday.
“It was an idea that was suggested by those on the ship as a way to honor the
sailors and crew on board the USS Lincoln for accomplishing their mission.”
He acknowledged however: “The Navy asked us to take care of the production of
the banner.”

Meaning that the Administration created the fucking banner and the Navy guys hung it. Of course, I’m sure that the approximately 50% of the US citizens who currently disapprove of Mr. Bush’s performance must be reading too much into what he states as facts, right?

The other 50% (or so) of those who favor Bush must not care about these small differences in what the Administration said versus what the Administration meant.

On my beloved CLUE Talk email list, some of us ‘liberals’ have gone on the offensive against Bush and are chided by his supporters as ‘Bush Bashers’. Note that not one of the Bush supporters took it upon themselves to try an explain this quote from President Bush:

“The president concluded, “The best way to get the news is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what’s happening in the world.”

Of course this assinine statement cannot be defended by anyone, especially on CLUE Talk (since we are such an intelligent bunch of Linux users) and those head-in-the-sand Bush supporters on CLUE Talk (you know who you are) simply ignore it.

I guess Delusion isn’t just another river in Africa.