We are led by a man who attempts stand-up comedy while wreaking pain on our lives.

::::::::

In attempt after attempt to gain support for the war, George Bush is blaming Saddam Hussein for the chaos in Iraq. Calling Saddam “a tyrant who used violence to exacerbate sectarian divisions to keep himself in power,” Bush is only indulging his base. They’re the only ones with whom he has any credibility and continue to believe that we’re making “progress” simply because the president says the word about a gazillion times in each speech he gives before a robotic audience.

Our soldiers are weary and want to come home. Having sacrificed so much, most ground troops report little achievement in the Bush Administration’s Iraq plan—or lack thereof. The Iraqi people say they were better off under Saddam. Yes, they feared him, but now they’re even afraid of their neighbors. Under the leadership of Saddam Hussein, the women had rights which are no longer available to them. The only measurable “progress” in Iraq is shown in the war profiteers’ increased wealth.

So many of us could repeat what the president has said about Saddam, substituting Bush’s name for Hussein’s. “George is a tyrant who used violence to exacerbate sectarian divisions to keep himself in power.”

Like a dog in heat, Bush pursued the occupation of Iraq, a catastrophic endeavor of greed and hubris. Did Karl Rove tell him that Americans usually return an incumbent to office during a war? Those opposed to Operation Iraqi Freedom were outnumbered by people who were intimidated by the Bush team’s repeat of: “9/11, 9/11, be afraid, vote for a Democrat and we’ll have another attack,” and “we’re fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here.” We do know with certainty that Rove successfully quashed reports before the 2004 election that Bush rushed to war with faulty intelligence despite the advice of experts who told the president that Iraq posed no threat to the US.

And, then, there are those wedge issues, devoured to the bone by the politicos and mainstream media in the buildup to an election. Abortion and gay marriage. The Bushies pitted us against each other with images of dead fetuses and two men or two women locked in an embrace and even (gasp) kissing. The electorate is always swift-boated, our senses bloated with matters that will rarely affect our lives. Those problems that do (healthcare, education, poverty) are submerged as candidates debate the topics that bring us to a fever pitch of us vs. them. Prepare yourselves for a new wave of this as the midterms approach. What you won’t see are pictures of flag-draped coffins. These might upset the children and cause the adults to question the human cost of the invasion of Iraq.

Meanwhile, George Bush, who is passing the war baton to the next president in this relay race to deliver The Project for the New American Century, has been making the rounds to promote his disaster in the Middle East. He’s talking 9/11, terrorists, and Iraq in the same sentence, followed by photo-op jokes that really aren’t funny. Instead, they are excruciatingly inappropriate. The crawler tells us of more troop deaths while the hunks and hunkettes who are supposed to be reporting the news but fail us so miserably are chuckling about George’s latest gig (pre-Cancun) when he referenced his body in a Speedo. Isn’t Bush a laugh riot?

What does it matter that our president can’t debate his way out of a wet paper bag when he can joke a path to its exit? I’m sure Mommy Dearest who is just as inappropriate as her son is laughing. Oh, those Bush genes. They must be loaded with threads of absolutely hilarious DNA.

For so many of us, though, George W. Bush is about as funny as a funeral.

Authors Bio:
Missy Beattie lives in New York City. She's written for National Public Radio and Nashville Life Magazine. An outspoken critic of the Bush Administration and the war in Iraq, she's a member of Gold Star Families for Peace. She completed a novel last year, but since the death of her nephew, Marine Lance Cpl. Chase J. Comley, in Iraq on August 6,'05, she has been writing political articles.