December 7, 2005

There are fewer and fewer people around for Bush to call on to make his case on Iraq.

So he has put himself, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice on a propaganda merry-go-round.

But there is one other person he’s been calling on: the execrable Joe Lieberman, who has discredited what little remained of his Democratic bona fides by parroting the Bush line.

You just can’t get more obsequious than Joe Lieberman, who wrote in The Wall Street Journal on November 29, “The Administration’s recent use of the banner ‘clear, hold, and build’ accurately describes the strategy as I saw it being implemented” in Iraq.

Now when you start praising the propaganda slogans, you know you’re deep in the Bush pocket.

And that’s exactly where Lieberman wants to be, as he tries to worm his way into position as a possible successor to Donald Rumsfeld, if and when Bush finally makes the Donald take a hike.

Lieberman is so much of service to the Bush Administration that the Prince of Darkness himself, Dick Cheney, bestowed praise upon him in a speech on December 6 to another gathering of troops.

“As some of you know, when I first ran for Vice President five years ago, my Democratic opponent was a fine U.S. Senator named Joe Lieberman,” Cheney said. “We disagreed on some issues, but we stand together on this war.” And then Cheney proceeded to quote approvingly from Lieberman’s Wall Street Journal article.

At the same time Cheney was speaking, Lieberman was ingratiating himself even further. “It’s time,” he said, “for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge he’ll be commander-in-chief for three more years.”

Unless, Joe, he’s impeached, which by all rights he should be.

But even if Bush is there for a full three more years, no one who sees what a mess Bush is making in Iraq has to start trusting him and backing him.

Lieberman went there, though, saying essentially that harsh criticism of Bush jeopardizes America. “We undermine the President’s credibility at our nation’s peril.”

Leaving aside the fact that Bush has done a fine job of undermining his own credibility, who is Lieberman to take up the muzzle and try to gag Bush’s critics? Who is he to join the Fox News team that turns dissent into treason?

We are supposed to be a democracy, where the citizens hire the President to serve us.

To equate the President’s credibility with the nation’s security is a monarchical notion.

As citizens, we are not obliged to salute the commander in chief.

And when Bush discredits this country with an illegal war and with torture, there is no reason whatsoever to salute him.