Oh, dear.  Oh, dear.  Bush got Machine Gun al-Kelly and Pretty Boy al-Floyd.  Their daddy, al-Capone?  If he's still alive, wasn't blasted into a crumpled wreck during that first missle and bunker-buster attack of the war and isn't cowering in some cousin's basement, or under cover in Iran, Syria, Jordan or the Sudan, he is now facing a little trouble.

(If he is in one of those countries, or even with our "friends" in Saudi Arabia, they are also now facing a little trouble. There isn't a tyrannical government left in the world that doesn't now know that 1) George W. Bush means what he says and 2) they are weeks away from losing power should he decide that they have supported terrorism quite long enough.)

The fall of Hussein's government and the death of his sons, plus the size of the reward for his head on a platter, plus the return of basic services, plus the arrival of various kinds of aid, plus the new freedoms like the opportunity to buy satellite television systems (formerly forbidden) -- which have resulted in mainstream media polling results in Iraq that we will never be shown -- are all indications that the Bush reconstruction plan is not a failure, as Gwen Ifill, Ray Suarez, Margaret Carlson and Jim Lehrer hope. 

Liberals on the defense

Terry Moron, ABC's White House correspondant removes his black arm band just before the cameras go on.  He is in mourning.  Just a few days ago, he was able to luxuriate in what he saw as a Bush Administration in panic mode. And, now?  The joy is gone from Mudslingville. Charlie Gibson of ABC and Natalie Marmion of ABC's Portland affiliate (KATU) both said something like this, late in July: "This is a major victory for the Bush administration, but will it quench the questions about his misleading State of the Union Speech statements concerning Iraqi purchases of Uranium ore (yellow cake) from Niger?"

Bush didn't mislead anybody.  He said that England told him they had information indicating that Hussein attempted to do it.  That is all he said, and England's Prime Minister confirmed that that was exactly what he had told Bush.  Gibson and Marmion, and all the rest, have had to manufacture a lie out of the truth. Never in the history of biased journalism have so many worked so hard to make so much out of absolutely nothing. 

Ten (or however many there are at present) Democrat presidential "candidates" went silent on the subject.  Like all their other fabricated attacks, it is quickly fading away.  We will set aside the facts that 1) they all know from DNC internal polls that they don't have a chance, and 2) they all know that the reason there are so many of them is that the mainstream press will give each an equal amount of time and space to berate the greatest American president since Ronald Reagan. (As we have discussed in another essay in this issue, all this hammering of Bush has nothing to do with actually winning the White House.)

Yes, once more a liberal plot to get Bush has been turned to dust.  Their howling echoed through the forest as they smelled what they thought was blood and closed in on what they thought would be a treed Bush. But, when they reached the clearing where he should be at bay, no quarry was there. This is not to say that this was another carefully conceived Bush slam dunk.  It is to say that when an honest man works at a task, he usually is successful.  This sort of thing will happen to them, again.  Peace and a Palestinian state in the Holy Land.  The collapse of the problem in North Korea.  The forced media recognition of the return of the American economy to good health.  Most or all of these are probably only a matter of time. 

All's fair in liberal war

And, therein lies the minefield that the Democrats cannot get through.  Their once-great party, now dominated by Leftists, lives by the credo that the ends justify the means.  They have become a gang of cheap thugs, offering "protection" (favoritism and handouts) to selected special interest groups for a price.

Their driving force as with all unholy groups from the Borgias to the Mafia Dons is a desire for power.  The cost to the nation is not important.  Here's an example that took place in the state just below Oregon, just after the middle of July. The radio talk jocks have been discussing it for some time, now.  California has a $39 billion deficit. (Larger than all the deficits of all the other American states, combined.)  This is because it has a liberal Democrat governor and a liberal Democrat-controlled legislature.  They spend like drunken sailors, then suppress the economy with increasing taxes, supposedly to pay the bill.  But the new income just becomes a down payment on another handout. As a result, the deficit just keeps going up.  

The small minority of conservative Republicans in Sacramento have joined hands to block this downward spiral, which is destined to turn California into North Korea.  Their solution is the same as that instigated by the Bush administration.  Base spending on a low percentage of state GNP, cut taxes and grow out of the mess in a few years. Liberals secretly know it will work, and would benefit the conservatives politically. 

A Democrat caucus was held in a meeting room.  Without the knowledge of the attendees, the microphone had not been shut off at the end of the last meeting.  Speaker boxes all over the state capitol squawked their deliberations out for all to hear.  The core of their discussion was that the way to bludgeon the conservatives into folding on the tax hikes they want was to see that the state's horrid financial crisis got worse.

You read that right.  The Democrats were (are) planning to encourage damage to the state economy so as to force Republican support for more oppressive taxation.

It was very embarrassing for them.

There are now some people in California who understand that "balanced reporting" of political issues, or presenting liberal and conservative arguments as though they were merely two football teams on either side of the scrimmage line, is so much hogwash.  Some Californians are beginning to understand that the two sides here are the good guys and the bad guys -- those who tell the truth and those who tell lies.  After hearing what was said during that supposedly secret Democrat meeting, they now know which side does which.

Times are changing

Some pity for the liberals is appropriate, here.  They've had a bad run.  Clinton was a disaster who left dead or criminally convicted (just under 40 of the latter) associates, and legions of sexually ravaged women in his wake.  The ratings disasters generated by Phil Donohue and George Steponallofus are living proof that the American public prefers facts to propaganda.  Bill Maher is gone, Dan Rather is slumping, the White House and both houses of congress are in Republican hands, radical university professors are being told to shut the hell up, public broadcasting is facing a serious decline in both governmental and public support and George Bush has raised more campaign money from small donors than all the Democrat candidates have managed by tapping all their millionaire supporters.

Democrats used to go smoke cigars with Fidel Castro just before he executed journalists on the beach, or have tiny cups of thick semitic coffee with Saddam Hussein just before he shot thousands of women and children and buried them in mass graves.  Kissing up to leftist tyrants is becoming out of fashion, of late.  The reaction in the home district is not what it once was. These days, when neo-socialist Hollywood liberals from Barbra Streisand to the Dixie Chicks express their moronic anti-American feelings, they are shocked to discover that millions of Americans utilize their free speech rights by condemning these "stars" and driving pavement rollers over their recordings. (The recent fuss about the FCC was in part an attempt to blame such reactions on conservative corporate domination of broadcasting, which does not exist -- thus covering up the genuine public reaction that exploded following such comments.)  

Free speech to Hollywood and the recording industry, incidentally, is a one-way street.   The "artists" have it, but the people don't.  It is correct to boycott advertiser of the Dr. Laura show, driving her off the air.  It is incorrect to boycott the recordings and appearances of Barbra Streisand and the Dixie Chicks, thus reducing their income.  

It's the last ditch

The frontline troops for the liberals put out the Washington Post and the New York Times.  They are personally invisible.  But, their compatriots appear on your television each evening.  Study them.

They are very good actors and actresses, but after watching them for a while, you will see in their faces and hear in their voices the slow realization by them that they are losing their grip on America.  The odd thing about it all is that they don't know why.  For those of you who are curious what I might think is the basic, underlying reason, it is this:

They have almost nothing good to say about America as a nation, and don't believe for a second that its citizens are capable of surviving without government support and regulatory control of their lives.

My old pal, the lateWalt Morey, wrote a book titled "Gloomy Gus."  That's what these people are.  Every one is a Gloomy Gus.  Not one of them understands why Rush Limbaugh has the number one radio program in America while every liberal who tries talk radio falls flat on his face.  The reason for that is simple.  It has to do with what each type criticizes.  Liberals criticize America.  Limbaugh criticizes liberals for criticizing America.. The American people know the difference.

It was the same with.Ronald Reagan, and explains why he won 49 states when he ran for his second term.

Reagan believed in America, and believed in you.  He believed your nation was good and great, and that you are a living reservoir of decency and potential success if the damned government will just get the hell out of your way.

I believe the same things, and now, it seems, to the shocked amazement and disappointment of the Left, a great many of you are beginning to believe them, again, too.

(LL)

© 2003 Oregon Magazine