10 Reasons why GWB could be a tyrant

[multi]

by Sherwood Ross

As public sentiment begins to build for impeachment, it might be illuminating to examine the many ways President Bush operates in a manner reminiscent of history's tyrants. Here are 10 areas that come readily to mind.

• First, tyrants tend to see themselves, as Hitler did, at the head of some kind of "master race." President Bush and his backers would deny it, but their drive for a "New American Century" betrays them. They're world-beaters, and won't sign the global warming treaty or any other cooperative document. Republicans at their last Convention jeered the very mention of the words "United Nations." Those who see it differently get slandered. Recall how Bush's hatchet men impugned Senator Kerry's Vietnam War record. This was reminiscent of Nazi claims Germany's Jewish veterans of the Great War did not deserve their medals. Another manifestation is Neocons would reduce gay and lesbian Americans to second-class citizenship status. Bush's backers are convinced of their superiority at home and globally.
  
  
  
• Second, tyrants tend to be congenital, brazen liars. Bush lied about Iraq's threat to America just as Hitler lied when he claimed Poland attacked Germany first in 1939. The UN told Bush there was no WMD in Iraq, yet Bush said there was and made war. He knew better. As many as 600,000 Iraqi civilians are dead, 2-million have fled, and a nation is being destroyed before our eyes.
  
  
  
• Third, tyrants engage in outright suppression or manipulation of the news. The Bush Administration has paid off newsmen to plug its achievements, sent out video press releases disguised as news stories, banned photographs of coffins returned from Iraq, and even planted a phony journalist in White House press conferences. And it's spending millions to bribe Iraqi journalists.
  
  
  
• Fourth, tyrants will use a "crisis" to grab total power. After the massacre of 9/11, President Bush pushed through the Patriot Act. Recall 1933, when Hitler declared a "state of national emergency" after the Reichstag (Parliament) fire, which likely was set by the Nazis. The new law gives Bush the power to arrest any American citizen on his say-so and he has allowed his intelligence agencies to spy illegally on American citizens without a court order.
  
  
  
• Fifth, tyrants torture. Of all people, Bush picked Alberto Gonzalez for the top legal position in the nation, the very man who rationalized the torture of captives. Bush also lavishes billions on dictatorships such as Egypt, whose Gestapo obligingly tortures individuals the CIA kidnaps from other countries. Bush has turned back the clock of history to the Spanish Inquisition.
  
  
  
• Sixth, tyrants tend to make serial wars. Soviet Russia's Stalin attacked Finland, Poland, and Hungary. Japan struck Korea, Manchuria, China, America, and U.K. One war is never enough for a tyrant. Recall Napoleon invaded nations to liberate them from kings, only to put his relatives on their thrones. Having invaded Afghanistan and setting Iraq ablaze, Bush now threatens Iran --- three countries that are oil-rich or geographically sited for oil transmission lines or both.
  
  
  
• Seventh, tyrants are notorious for their closed mindedness. They ignore their critics. Japan walked out of the League of Nations rather than answer for its conduct. Bush doesn't listen to critics, either. The Pope denounced America's war on Iraq as immoral. The UN Secretary-General called it "illegal." Millions the world over protested it. And a majority of Americans call it wrong but Bush ignores them. Polls show 70% of the Iraqi people want the U.S. to get out but Bush refuses.
  
  
  
• Eighth, tyrants spend lavishly on the military. In the Thirties, Germany, Japan and Soviet Russia devoted a high percentage of their gross national product to their war machines. Today, America spends more on armaments than all other nations combined. And America under Bush is the Number One arms merchant in the world.
  
  
  
• Ninth, tyrants don't respect the sovereignty of other nations. Bush rationalized his attack on Iraq as "preventive war" -- a euphemism for "aggression." The Pentagon has already dropped troops secretly into Iran, according to Seymour Hersh in "The New Yorker." The Pentagon operates 700 military bases in 130 countries and refuses to leave Okinawa and Greenland despite protests from their citizens.
  
  
  
• Tenth, tyrants have double standards. Bush declares he's for "freedom" but forges alliances with the heads of Saudi Arabia, and former Soviet Asian republics where citizens have zero rights. He warns Iran against making a nuclear bomb while he scraps non-proliferation treaties to make America's nuclear arsenal more lethal. Bush threatens Iran, which spends $4-billion a year on arms, while he spends $500-billion on arms. He warns Iran might make a nuclear bomb while he has 10,000. He accused Saddam Hussein of germ warfare capability while he has been secretly building the greatest germ warfare capability of any nation in history since the Soviet Union under Stalin.

[JackSpratts]

"Wrongdoing of this magnitude does not happen by accident"

By my rough, conservative calculation — feel free to add — there have been corruption, incompetence, and contracting or cronyism scandals in these cabinet departments: Defense, Education, Justice, Interior, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development. I am not counting State, whose deputy secretary, a champion of abstinence-based international AIDS funding, resigned last month in a prostitution scandal, or the General Services Administration, now being investigated for possibly steering federal favors to Republican Congressional candidates in 2006. Or the Office of Management and Budget, whose chief procurement officer was sentenced to prison in the Abramoff fallout. I will, however, toss in a figure that reveals the sheer depth of the overall malfeasance: no fewer than four inspectors general, the official watchdogs charged with investigating improprieties in each department, are themselves under investigation simultaneously — an all-time record.

Wrongdoing of this magnitude does not happen by accident, but it is not necessarily instigated by a Watergate-style criminal conspiracy. When corruption is this pervasive, it can also be a byproduct of a governing philosophy. That’s the case here. That Bush-Rove style of governance, the common denominator of all the administration scandals, is the Frankenstein creature that stalks the G.O.P. as it faces 2008. It has become the Republican brand and will remain so, even after this president goes, until courageous Republicans disown it and eradicate it.

It’s not the philosophy Mr. Bush campaigned on. Remember the candidate who billed himself as a “different kind of Republican” and a “compassionate conservative”? Karl Rove wanted to build a lasting Republican majority by emulating the tactics of the 1896 candidate, William McKinley, whose victory ushered in G.O.P. dominance that would last until the New Deal some 35 years later. The Rove plan was to add to the party’s base, much as McKinley had at the dawn of the industrial era, by attracting new un-Republican-like demographic groups, including Hispanics and African-Americans. Hence, No Child Left Behind, an education program pitched particularly to urban Americans, and a 2000 nominating convention that starred break dancers, gospel singers, Colin Powell and, as an M.C., the only black Republican member of Congress, J. C. Watts.

As always, the salesmanship was brilliant. One smitten liberal columnist imagined in 1999 that Mr. Bush could redefine his party: “If compassion and inclusion are his talismans, education his centerpiece and national unity his promise, we may say a final, welcome goodbye to the wedge issues that have divided Americans by race, ethnicity and religious conviction.” Or not. As Matthew Dowd, the disaffected Bush pollster, concluded this spring, the uniter he had so eagerly helped elect turned out to be “not the person” he thought, but instead a divider who wanted to appeal to the “51 percent of the people” who would ensure his hold on power.

But it isn’t just the divisive Bush-Rove partisanship that led to scandal. The corruption grew out of the White House’s insistence that partisanship — the maintenance of that 51 percent — dictate every governmental action no matter what the effect on the common good. And so the first M.B.A. president ignored every rule of sound management. Loyal ideologues or flunkies were put in crucial positions regardless of their ethics or competence. Government business was outsourced to campaign contributors regardless of their ethics or competence. Even orthodox Republican fiscal prudence was tossed aside so Congressional allies could be bought off with bridges to nowhere.

This was true way before many, let alone Matthew Dowd, were willing to see it. It was true before the Iraq war. In retrospect, the first unimpeachable evidence of the White House’s modus operandi was reported by the journalist Ron Suskind, for Esquire, at the end of 2002. Mr. Suskind interviewed an illustrious Bush appointee, the University of Pennsylvania political scientist John DiIulio, who had run the administration’s compassionate-conservative flagship, the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Bemoaning an unprecedented “lack of a policy apparatus” in the White House, Mr. DiIulio said: “What you’ve got is everything — and I mean everything — being run by the political arm. It’s the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis.”

Frank Rich

[theknife]

lift up any rock in the Bush administration and something slimy crawls out. this is what government looks like when it is run by people who do not believe in government. the GOP will wear this albatross around their necks for at least the next election cycle, if not beyond.

[multi]

cue the anti-copy/paste police in ...3...2...1

[Drakonix]

Nothing wrong with copy/paste per se. It has a limitation though. The words and the opinions are those of the article writer, not the poster.

[Yawn] Is this where I’m supposed to be baited into doing hours of research, then spend more time composing a post containing the results, so you can poo-poo it by saying I’m a “Bush bot” or something like that?

No, Thank You.

[RDixon]

Originally Posted by Drakonix

Nothing wrong with copy/paste per se. It has a limitation though. The words and the opinions are those of the article writer, not the poster.

[Yawn] Is this where I’m supposed to be baited into doing hours of research, then spend more time composing a post containing the results, so you can poo-poo it by saying I’m a “Bush bot” or something like that?

No, Thank You.

you forgot to close your yawn tag.

[Drakonix]

That was judgemental and purposeful on my part.

I just thought that [Yawn] looked cleaner than [Yawn][/Yawn] and still communicated what I wanted it to.

[Ramona_A_Stone]

Mayberry Machiavellis

Originally Posted by Drakonix

The words and the opinions are those of the article writer, not the poster.

Actually, the opinions are most often those of both or the poster probably wouldn't be posting them.

Of course I realize when liberals agree with each other it's only because they're parrots, but when conservatives agree with each other it's due to their profound intellectual scope, exceptional moral rectitude and laser-sharp insight leading them, completely independently, to the same conclusions.

Originally Posted by Drakonix

Is this where I’m supposed to be baited into doing hours of research, then spend more time composing a post containing the results so you can poo-poo it by saying I’m a “Bush bot” or something like that?

No, Thank You.

Definitely, if it's going to take hours of research and composition to support your opinion that the Bush administration isn't a giant pile of flaming dogshit, we might as well cut to the chase and call you a Bush bot without further ado.

[albed]

Originally Posted by Ramona_A_Stone

Actually, the opinions are most often those of both or the poster probably wouldn't be posting them.

It's somewhat debatable whether the "poster" is too dumb to form his own opinions or simply too dumb to type them out but when posts consists solely of reposts of another person's opinion, the similiarity of the poster to a brainless parrot is undeniable.

[Drakonix]

Actually, the opinions are most often those of both or the poster probably wouldn't be posting them.

The terms "most often" and "probably" leave room for exceptions and doubt, which was my original point (in the limitations of copy/paste).

Of course I realize when liberals agree with each other it's only because they're parrots, but when conservatives agree with each other it's due to their profound intellectual scope, exceptional moral rectitude and laser-sharp insight leading them, completely independently, to the same conclusions.

I did not say that, you did.

hours of research and composition

I didn't say that either. I said "hours of research then spend more time composing....".

...to support your opinion that the Bush administration isn't a giant pile of flaming dogshit, we might as well cut to the chase and call you a Bush bot without further ado.

Whatever. I can (and do) dismiss your opinion just as easily as you dismiss mine. This interaction neither forwards the discussion nor serves any useful purpose.

Let's see you prove that the Bush Administration is actually comprised of "a giant pile of flaming dogshit". I do not have to do any research to prove that this is just a poisonous opinionated comment by you - it's self-evident.

If you really hate Bush that much I suppose you could convert to Islam and go join al-Qaeda. I really wouldn't recommend that, though.

Super hyperbolic statements laced with sarcastic comments and insults do not form the basis for an effective discussion or debate.

Again: No, Thank You.

[multi]

If you really hate Bush that much I suppose you could convert to Islam and go join al-Qaeda. I really wouldn't recommend that, though.

of course.. anyone not supporting Bush should classed as sub-human and demoted to the level of a terrorist.

[RDixon]

Bush is a blathering idiot; unfit for command.
This is not an opinion.
This statement is supported by more than 6 years of observing the man, his words, and his actions.

[albed]

It's still an opinion retard.

[RDixon]

I suppose to someone even stupider than Bush that statement of fact would appear to be opinion, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt...
Prove it is opinion.
Support what you say.
Point out to us things which Bush has done that contradict what I said.
What has Bush did, ever, that wasn't wrong or just plain dumb.

[multi]

Originally Posted by albed

It's still an opinion retard.

you know it asshole..

[Drakonix]

of course.. anyone not supporting Bush should classed as sub-human and demoted to the level of a terrorist.

Those are your words, not mine.

If Islam and al-Qaeda are "sub-human" and "terrorists", then why is Nancy Pelosi violating the Logan Act to go chat with them? Why is the Democratic Party trying to appease them?

Prove it is opinion.
Support what you say.

Prove it is NOT just your opinion.
Support what you say.

Hyperbole, sarcasm, poisonous comments and insults are by nature non-factual and are unacceptable as supporting factual information.

[Nicobie]

[quote=Ramona_A_Stone;256131]



Of course I realize when liberals agree with each other it's only because they're parrots, but when conservatives agree with each other it's due to their profound intellectual scope, exceptional moral rectitude and laser-sharp insight leading them, completely independently, to the same conclusions.


[quote]


Could this be true?

:still_waiting_for_the_dzncin'_donkeys:

[multi]

who cares about opinions ..it is beside the point
it's again just the usual lame attempt to drag the facts presented off topic that give pretty good reasons to not trust the current US admin ,the tyrant label might be a bit harsh but all these aspects don't add up in a good way.

[Mazer]

The tyrant label is opinion, multi. I won't make any comments on the particulars (we've already discussed every issue you've mentioned here) but Sherwood Ross has his own idea about the definition of that word, and in his opinion Bush's status as tyrant qualifies him for impeachment. But we don't impeach presidents just because we don't like them, we do it when they've broken the law. Scandal has haunted every administration and it always will. The scandals only persist because every president has had critics, but few presidents have actually broken the law so the scandals matter very little. Bush's critics can say whatever they want about him, and for the sake of the first amendment they should, but unless somebody has proof that Bush has broken the law then the criticism is just opinion, nothing more.

[albed]

If we're going to drag the thread off topic we should start asking what's wrong with poor multi that compels him to constantly dredge up anti-Bush propaganda and repost it even though he lives about as far from Bush's influence as possible.


Could he have some personal obsession with the man like unrequited love or perhaps a past trauma caused by someone resembling Bush?


Or maybe he's just parroting what others say simply to be accepted by a group and feel like he's cool.