Bush & Company

The Grand Old Party of Lincoln, no longer the party that Lincoln knew, based on its core principle that government must be small and nonintrusive on the individual, has increasingly become the party of the private sector. Exploiting the old chestnut of untenable cost, Far Rightests preach that government must not be held responsible for the security of its people; instead, that onus must be left to the whims of Wall Street, while funding for medical research, endangered species and wildlife and other optional initiatives to elaborate events hosted by the very wealthy at their fancy.

Although government is the livelihood and claim to fame of the powerful lawmakers, the source of their health insurance and financial security for life, even when voted out or retired, Right Wingers continuously push to undo the very benefits for their constituents that they themselves receive. (Why can't those, like the lachrymose house minority leader John Boehner, remembering his own financially deficient years, identify with others now in similar circumstances?)

They would leave Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the Veterans Administration to the vagaries of the financial sector. George W. Bush said on October 21, 2010, that he should have privatized Social Security while in office. They would roll back the health care reform law, privatize public education and deregulate all corporate activity. They are fighting a raise on the already unsurvivable minimum wage. They would impede the extension of unemployment benefits. They would eliminate funding for National Public Radio and quell the voice of all but coservative opinions. They've enabled outsourcing of jobs and manufacturing overseas and in the last three elections and recent midterms finagled to depress the Democratic vote.

Former Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson, a spokesperson for reverse mortgaging, in praising it, describes it correctly as "government insured." Where is the consistency?

Where is the consistency in any GOP position? Where the common sense? Where the concern for country over party, lobbyist financial gifts and personal reelection?

Where is the humanity?

What do they think a government's for?
To keep things as they were before,
Then screw the vets, the sick, the poor
And waste the wild and foul the air

And shift responsibility
For all good works to charity,
While programs that were meant to care
For all those not a billionaire,

Impractical and altruistic,
So costly and so socialistic,
Dismantle and without remorse,
Dispatch to Wall Street's rocky course

And make no effort to appease
Those whose jobs were shipped overseas
Nor ever could become disloyal
To all that benefits Big Oil.

The NRA they'll always woo
(Guns don't kill, only people do)
And making sure to emphasize
They'll never, never compromise.

The opposition derailed in shame,
Made to take whatever blame,
At last, the very best thing still---
A single party on The Hill.

Victorious, the GOP,
With CEOs ruling DC,
Who're not for peace but waging war.
That's what they think a government's for.

Despite humanizing anecdotes and glossing over of negative initiatives, oversights and omissions in the George W. Bush memoir, DECISION POINTS, just released, ghost-written by Christopher Michel, Mr. Bush's former speechwriter, the essentials of the Bush tenure must not be forgotten.

Mr. Bush continues to defend his war in Iraq.

The previous president told Matt Lauer shortly before publication that he is "a contented man." His regrets appear to be minor.

Does this suggest some important lack in his psyche and character?

Do Sarah Palin, half-term governor of Alaska, former vice-presidential candidate, TV star and perhaps 2012 presidential candidate and U. S. Senate hopeful from Delaware, Christine O'Donnell, really believe what they say?

Or are they deliberately spouting nonsense directed solely at their credulous selective audiences, caring not at all about much of the country's mockery? Are they that determined to be Washington bound?

Or are they simply what they seem?

More often than we'd like is seen
The Senate candidate Christine
Who clearly has become so like
Her Sarah Palin lookalike.

The Sarah suit, the face, the hair,
They make a nearly matching pair
(Though one's a bit more off the wall
And may be headed for a fall).

While disinformed, both still compete,
Complaining others are elite.
God talks to both and they believe
That life began with Adam and Eve.

What's more, rape victims must forbear
When great with child, that child to bear.
Each is the other's counterpart;
Between them, one brain and one heart.

The smart among us will admit---
For Washington they're both unfit.

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