What if those policies encouraged the international proliferation of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction?
Imagine all of these things, and then ask yourself: What would you call someone with a record like that?
No matter where he lived, you’d call him a predatory kleptocrat. And a traitor.
If this president lived in Zimbabwe, you’d call him Robert Mugabe.
But he doesn’t. He lives here.
So call him American Mugabe.
And what is more, he knows it, too. Americans may be fooled (by him), but this president knew exactly what he came to Washington to do, and exactly what would happen if he got caught at his pillaging of the commonweal.
Anyone who thinks the latest scandal concerning the firing of the US Attorneys is some random anomaly of some sort hasn’t been paying attention. It is perfectly of a piece with everything this administration has done since coming to office.
Before they had even located the men’s room of their new office suites, they had already withdrawn the United States from the International Criminal Court treaty. Not content with that, they then began hammering vulnerable countries throughout the world to exempt Americans within their borders from jurisdiction of the Court, using extortion racket techniques any two-bit thug from Brooklyn would find painfully familiar.
Next, Bush unilaterally changed the traditional rules for the handling of presidential papers, issuing an executive order giving himself complete control of his papers, and those of every other president, for as long as he wants.
Then this junta proceeded to conduct the affairs of their administration with probably more secrecy than any presidency in American history, making the regime in North Korea look like a battered information-leaking sieve by comparison.
Since then they’ve loaded up the courts with right-wing Borkians whose main qualification for office is a fawning adoration of unlimited executive power (as long as Bush is the executive, of course). Does anyone seriously question that that was Harriet Miers’ only real ‘qualification’ earning her a Supreme Court nomination?
Now they’re firing US Attorneys who aren’t quite Bushist enough, and replacing them with any unqualified hack who can be found, provided they possess unshakable loyalty to the Dauphin.
Hmmm. Anybody seeing a pattern here?
If Americans could get beyond their training, beyond Rove’s marketing campaign, and beyond the psychological horrors of first degree cognitive dissonance, what they’d see is a president who – like Mugabe in Zimbabwe – came to town to fill his pockets, and just as fast as he could.
And they’d see a president who knew precisely what he was doing, and as such took every conceivable precaution to make sure his tracks were covered, and that no criminal justice institution could touch him.
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