The Pope's Dubya Page

Bush League President #2

Now that Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahri, and Mohamed Atta have contrived to make George W. Bush a war president, folks may tend to forget a few things. Such as that Dubya obtained the presidency fraudulantly. Or that he is clearly unfit for the office in that he lacks fundamental intelligence and experience and is hopelessly out of touch with the daily lives of ordinary people. Or that, in his first eight months, he consistently pursued an agenda which was centered on the goal of taking from the poor to give to the rich, which virtually eliminated the federal budget surplus (painstakingly built up during the Clinton years) and restored the prospect of deficits and debt accumulation even before the terrible events of 9/11, and which forcefully revealed that the moderation he had affected during the presidential campaign was an utter sham. It is the purpose of this page to assist in the preservation of this knowledge so that Dubya, like his father and like the others who have assumed the presidency with fewer votes than their opponents, will be limited to a single term. --the Pope

ABUSE OF POWER: Dubya finds time, in the midst of the war on terrorism, to deny the American people access to their own history. In its first nine months, the Bush White House three times delayed the relase of presidential and vice presidential papers from the Reagan administration which had been scheduled, under the Prrsidential Records Act of 1978, to be made public in January 2001. Now Dubya has moved, through executive order on November 1, to circumvent the law altogether to keep these records hidden from the American people. For more details, click here. The best speculation is that Dubya's actions in this matter are part of the continuing cover-up of criminal behavior on the part of his father and other Reagan era officials, some of whom have been retreaded for work in the current administration. Let us not forget that, like Bill Clinton earlier this year, George Herbert Walker Bush left the presidency in 1993 amidst a flurry of questioinable last minute pardons; the Bush pardons were clearly meant to bring an end to Iran/Contra investigations and prosecutions. What's it all about? If Dubya and his hired thugs have their way, we'll probably never know. Perhaps the necessity of being in position to squelch the truth which was soon to be unearthed helps to explain the ruthlessness of Republican efforts to seize the presdiency in the wake of the electorate's close but clear decision in favor of Al Gore.

IS THIS THE ULTIMATE HYPOCRISY? Dubya demands that the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan turn over Osama bin Laden, but he refuses even to acknowledge the efforts of Argentina, Chile, and France to get their hands on Henry Kissinger, the most prominent war criminal now resident in the United States. Ironically, one of Dr. K.'s biggest crimes, the 1973 overthrow of the democratically elected government of Chile and the assassination of President Salvador Allende, took place on September 11, a date which will live in infamy. It should aslo be rememebered that three years to the month after the murder of Allende, Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt were killed by car bomb on the streets of Washington D.C. in a crime oirdered by the Chilean dictatorship of Pinochet and actively covered up by CIA Direcor George Herbert Walker Bush.

OR IS IT THIS? Dubya proclaims a war for the defense of freedom and democracy while his administration launches an assault on civil liberties. This initiative to constrict our constitutional rights is applauded by conservatives who, ironically, portray themselves as enemies of big government; and it is tolerated by liberals who are too timid to stand up for their own principles in difficult times. But, as noted by ACLU President Nadine Strossen in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, for our democracy to thrive, Congress and the American public must cast a skeptical eye over any attempt by the executive branch to amass new unchecked powers." In fact, the war on terrorism is simply the latest excuse for a campaign, begun long before September 11, to replace the American system of constitutional protections against governmental thuggery with a set of policies and practices, expanding the coercive powers of the state and cramping personal liberty, called Ashcroft Justice.

SINS OF THE FATHER: George Bush, the unauthorized biography

THE ILLEGITIMATE SON: The unelected president Yes, by any just and reasonable standard, Al Gore won the election. Dubya partisans like to refer to those of us who honor this beleaguered shred of stubborn integrity as "obsessed" and tell us to "get over it" and move on; this is ridiculous advice coming from people who have yet to make peace with the fact that a slick, draft-dodging womanizer twice defeated the cream of the GOP crop and then brazenly evaded every attempt his enemies made, both fair and foul, to drive him from the White House; let's face it -- some of these folks still cling to the notion that Nixon beat JFK in 1960, a claim fabulously devoid of merit. So, you guys get over it. Dubya lost; and the office he now holds is a stolen presidency.

THE SECRET OF HIS SUCCESS: Electoral Fraud in Florida and a remedy which won't work but tastes good.

MENTAL MIDGET WRESTLING: Now that Citizentwain has reactivated his wonderful toostupidtobepresident website, it joins with presidentmtmoron, gwbush, and the Democratic Underground's weekly (and archived) chronicle of Top Ten Conservative Idiots in highlighting the vacuousness which is the true spirit of the age of Dubya.

THE COURAGE OF LAURA BUSH: The First Lady took over the weekly presidential radio broadcast on Saturday November 17, 2001 to denounce the Taliban of Afghanistan, crumbling into impotence even as she spoke, for its oppression of women, an easy target. It would have been more exhilarating and more useful if she had cited the similar faith based offenses of the American Taliban, e.g. the Southern Baptist Convention. The transgressions of the American Taliban are less extreme (thank God) but motivated by the same sort of willful fundamentalist ignorance and intolerance; Mrs. Bush could do a great public service by focusing on them, but don't hold your breath.

VOODOO SCIENCE: Dubya clings tenaciously to the stupidest idea to come out of the Reagan administration (and that's saying something). At the conclusion of a recent detailed analysis of strategic concerns and technological realities involved in missile defense planning, Steven Weinberg, a Nobel prize winner in Physics, writes, "In seeking to deploy a national missile defense aimed at an implausible threat, a defense that would have dubious effectiveness against even that threat, and that on balance would harm our security more than it helps it, the Bush administration seems to be pursuing a pure rather than applied missile defense -- a missile defense that is undertaken for its own sake rather than any application it may have in defending our country." His words complement the observations of Tim Folger who explained in the November 2001 issue of Discover, that "the science and technology necessary to make an effective missile-defense system--even a very limited shield that could stop only a few warheads--simply don't exist. And if they did, outsmarting them would be much too easy." For further information and historical context, consult MIT professor Theodore Postol or read about The Myth of Missile Accuracy which illuminated the dubiousness of this technological promise in the days of the Carter administration. Of course, scientific considerations are by no means the only problems with this terrible plan, but, if the technology won't work, what else needs to be discussed? (Perhaps that should be disgust?)

GIANTS OF AMERICAN BUSINESS ETHICS: Bush and Cheney

RAISING FECKLESSNESS TO AN ART FORM: In the first week of April 2002, Dubya firmly insisted that Israel comply with a UN resolution to withdraw "without delay" its invading military forces from Palestinian territory on the West Bank. "I expect," Dubya blustered, the Israelis and their prime minister, Ariel Sharon, to heed the call to withdraw. This was no idle comment; Dubya repeated his expectation several times, and it was reinfoced by the likes of Colin Powell and Tony Blair But Ariel Sharon took the measure of the most powerful man in the world and immediately realized that Dubya is not somebody to be taken seriously. Sharon would pay no penalty for his calculated defiance and humiliation of the president of the United States. In fact, by the time the Israel lobby finished pounding on Dubya, the posture of the American president came to resemble that of a well trained lapdog, and near-term prospects for peace in the Middle East sank from dismal to abysmal. Bush II is becoming such a dependable useful idiot for Israli fascism, he may end up pardoning Jonathan Pollard. Not even Bush I would go there.

DON'T DROWN IN THE LIES AND TRICKERY OF THE DUBYA P.R. MACHINE: Gimme Some Truth

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: The Bush Watch

DICK CHENEY'S FAVORITE WEBSIE: Hail to the Thief

THE OPPOSITION GATHERS: The Anti Bush League

An Israeli doctor says, "Medicine in my country is so advanced that we can take a kidney out of one man, put it in another, and have him looking for work in six weeks."

A German doctor says, "That is nothing, we can take a lung out of one person, put it in another, and have him looking for work in four weeks."

A Russian doctor says, "In my country, medicine is so advanced that we can take half a heart out of one person, put it in another, and have them both looking for work in two weeks."

The Texas doctor, not to be outdone, says, "You guys are way behind, we recently took a man with no brain out of Texas, put him in the White House for four years, and now half the country is looking for work."

Holy kielbasa, it apprears that the recording crew caught us in an awkward moment. I apologize for my lapse into foul language. I was tired that day and Dubya brings out the worst in me -- not that I blame him for my transgression -- nor should I use my increasing feebleness as an excuse. I should have been more gracious. I must learn to better guard my stamina; after all, there are yet more tryiung times ahead. I should have listened to Reagan when he told me to take more naps.