3.26.2004
GOP Hypocrite of the Week:
Condoleezza Rice
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
26 March 2004
Listen to the GOPHOTW HERE.
Well, it took us 24 BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrites of the Week to find a woman who truly merits the honor that has, until now, been the exclusive province of white Republican males.
But, congratulations to our so-called National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice. Condi, you are the first GOP female to the break through the glass ceiling of Republican Hypocrites of the Week.
We call her the so-called National Security Advisor, because Rice doesn't, often by her own admission, appear to know what the hell she's doing. After the infamous Niger uranium fiasco, when Bush made a false claim in his State of the Union address, Rice told reporters that she hadn't read the CIA report indicating that the Niger/Saddam link was probably bogus. To add insult to injury, she and the White House had been warned of how suspect the claim was a few months before, but Rice had an excuse for that too: she just had too many details to keep track of.
So Rice, although our first woman, is really just one of the Bush Cartel guys. She shares with the rest of them the amazing ability to use incompetence as an excuse for failure and get away with it.
Of course, as Laura Flanders points out in her new book, "Bushwomen," trotting out Condi to defend the bumbling and negligence of the Bush Cartel isn't accidental. The white males running the Bush operation -- principally Cheney and Rove -- know that the press is going to go easier on a black woman than on Rumsfeld, for instance. It's part of their "feminine front" strategy that Flanders details.
But the reality is that Rice is just as big of an extremist bungler as her male comrades.
After Richard Clarke exposed the White House for failing to take the threats of terrorism seriously prior to 9/11, Rice was sent out to attack his character, not the substance of his charges.
As BuzzFlash has recounted, ad nauseum, Rice in 2002 made the admission that Bush and she, among others, had been warned in August of 2001 that there was the heightened possibility of Al-Qaeda hijackings. But she claimed that no one thought they would fly the planes into buildings. So, she and Bush did nothing, absolutely nothing to make our nation more secure.
Of course, the way, as we have repeatedly noted, to prevent a hijacking that results in a plane being flown into buildings is the same way that you prevent your "run of the mill" hijacking, but that was apparently too complicated a notion for Rice to figure out.
Secondly, she was lying or just plain incompetent, as BuzzFlash has proven, when she claimed that no one knew of plans to hijack planes and fly them into buildings. Just about anyone who follows the terrorism issue in the media knew about such past plans, except -- Rice would have us believe -- the White House National Security Agency and the President of the United States!
We could go on and on about Rice's failings. She's only there because she loyally defends all the failures of the Bush Cartel. Incompetence doesn't get you fired in the White House. Nor does dishonesty get you fired in the White House.
The only thing that gets a person fired in the Bush Administration is telling the truth.
If that's the case, Rice's job seems secure and, as a result, our nation isn't.
Until next week, just remember our motto at BuzzFlash.com: So many Republican hypocrites, so little time.
Catch up with you soon.
from: http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/04/03/edi04022.html
3.21.2004
Mother's grief turns to anger over war
by Beth Gorham, CP
2004-03-21 02:27:46
WASHINGTON -- Jean Prewitt can't shake the image of her only son's final hours. She pictures him trying to crawl to safety through a gun fight after his convoy was ambushed in Iraq, a huge hole in his right thigh.
"He was out there all by himself for a long time, crawling, bleeding, asking for help," she says in a soft southern drawl, weeping at the thought of his lonely struggle.
"That just about killed me when I found out. Then two medics risked their lives to get him. They thought he was going to be OK, but he was bleeding a lot. And there was a sandstorm so the helicopter couldn't come for him."
Kelley was 24 when he died near Baghdad, a mere three weeks into the Iraq war.
Now, after a year of fighting -- U.S. President George W. Bush announced the start of the war on the evening of March 19 in Washington, when it was already March 20 in Iraq -- more than 500 Americans have been killed. Countless Iraqis are also dead -- no one is keeping track of the number -- and thousands of wounded soldiers are coming home to little fanfare and uncertain futures.
The violence in Iraq shows no sign of receding despite the capture of deposed dictator Saddam Hussein. The major reason Washington gave for going to war, an urgent threat from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, has been discredited.
Spain said it would withdraw its troops from the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq after a horrific terrorist attack on Madrid commuters. Poland, another coalition partner, expressed dismay about being misled into the war. Surveys suggest the world's opinion of the U.S. continues to decline.
Some think the invasion has increased terrorism rather than helping to contain it. Other U.S. allies are nervous they'll be the next target of terrorist attacks.
Prewitt, for one, is angry at Bush.
"The more I hear about it, the madder I get," says the retired postal worker who lives in Birmingham, Ala. "He lied. I've lost all respect for him."
Not a regular protester by any means, Prewitt participated in a demonstration against the war a week ago.
"I felt a little uncomfortable, but I wanted to let Bush know how I felt about him. I'm very upset over his lack of sympathy for the families. He's so cold about it. He will not admit that he made a huge, deadly mistake. He seems like he has no remorse for that decision."
It's not the kind of war anniversary that Bush would have wished for, especially in an election year. Gone is the total solidarity Americans once showed their war-time president. Those critical of the invasion are increasingly speaking out while trying to respect the 130,000 U.S. soldiers still risking their lives half a world away.
While their numbers are relatively small, veterans and military families are joining peace activists in the kind of protests not seen until years into the Vietnam War.
from: http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/LondonFreePress/News/2004/03/21/389789.html
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