We Have Met Scooter. And He is Us
Posted July 8, 2007 | 03:44 PM (EST) 

Lewis Libby won't be folding prison laundry after all. We went to his checkbook, and settled up the $250,000 fine. His boss is even dangling the possibility of a full pardon. And a firewall now stands between accountability and the people who actually ordered the outing of a working CIA agent.

Really -- did we expect this to come out any other way? Do we deserve it to?

It is simply another piece fit neatly into a pattern of arrogance unlike anything seen in the history of American leadership. For eight years, this country has said to the world: "We're right. You're wrong. Deal with it."

It's a style of leadership that has been discounted, dishonored and discontinued virtually everywhere except in the West Wing. In those keenly self-confident confines, the default remains set to the old Lyndon Johnson's definition: "A leader is someone who -- if you don't do what he says -- can do something terrible to you."

It is a view legitimized by big weapons and big money, and fueled by the determination to prove that our way fits all cultures like spandex -- even those who have gone 7,000 years without a bit of practice in making it work.

It justifies shipping young Americans off to house-to-house combat -- even though a check the military records of those so eager to dispatch them shows the closest you will come to combat experience is Donald Rumsfeld giving military pilots flying lessons. At the top of the org chart, Dick Cheney had five deferments because he had "other priorities." And, even through Dan Rather was bum-rushed from the anchor chair, the Commander in Chief has yet to explain that big hole in his service record.

If you want to see the full military bonifides of those who argue that if you blow up enough people the rest will take your point, search the term "chicken hawk." It amazing how many not only did not serve -- but would not serve. (Rush Limbaugh, for one, was excused because of a nasty boil on his posterior.)

It is also fair to assume that not one of the neocon dogs of war sent his or her own child into harm's way. While men and women are being dismembered along the sun-scorched roadsides of Baghdad, the Bush twins are doing Jager-shots in Upper West Side bars.

Military experience, of course, is not a check-list qualification for leadership. And nobody wants their children in the cross-hairs of a death cult. But if you are going to send others off to die in the service of your personal world view, it might be nice to have some skins in the game.

Where does this kind of arrogance come from? How does it survive in the face of epic incompetence, rampant corruption and a country's slide from beacon of hope to object of derision -- the Albanian exception duly noted?

It's simply a creature of the country we have become.

We have fallen into the certainty that being American means we're entitled to our due and proper. We can go on consuming a disproportionate share of the world's resources. We can go on ignoring the support of corrupt and violent regimes that play ball. We can continue to allow this country to be the arms-supplier to the world. We can continue do drive vehicles that are multiples more powerful than we need, and consume far more energy than we can afford. We can stay well-fed, well-cooled, while great masses of people are on the knife edge of survival. We can allow torture in secret prisons because the torturers tell us it makes us safer. We can absorb body blows to the First Amendment because we're patriotic.

Let's be honest, if this war had been as tidy and bloodless as advertised, would anyone still be concerned about the fact that we attacked a failing country that was no threat to us on the pretext of WMD that our leaders knew full well didn't exist?

A president who knew we would allow him to disregard judge, jury and a perfectly reasonable punishment in return for omerta is simply part of the package. Let's stop whining, and let Scooter Libby get on with finding a think tank and establishing his appearance fees. He earned it. And we asked for it.
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Benjamin Franklin said of the United States Constitution, "...it will fail, as all such constitutions have in the past, because of the essential corruption of the people... And when the people become so corrupt, we will find it is not a republic that they want but rather despotism — the only form of government suitable for such a people."

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 Theodore Roosevelt's ideas on Immigrants and being an AMERICAN in 1907.

    "In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
 
  Theodore Roosevelt 1907



Why can't we pass this law here???
1.     There will be no special bilingual programs in the schools, no special ballots for elections, and all government business will be conducted in our language.
2.     Foreigners will NOT have the right to vote, no matter how long they are here.
3.     Foreigners will NEVER be able to hold political office.
4.     Foreigners will not be a burden to the taxpayers.  No welfare, no food stamps, no health care, nor any other government assistance programs.
5.     Foreigners can invest in this country, but it must be an amount equal to 40,000 times the daily minimum wage.
6.     If foreigners do come and want to buy land that will be okay, BUT options will be restricted. You are not allowed to own waterfront property. That property is reserved for citizens naturally born into this country.
7.     Foreigners may not protest; no demonstrations, no waving a foreign flag, no political organizing, no 'bad-mouthing' our president or his policies.  If you do you will be sent home.
8.     If you do come to this country illegally, you will be hunted down and sent straight to jail.

Harsh, you say?...
 

The above laws happen to be the immigration laws of MEXICO!
 
Read and take heed as this information affect every one of us!
 
 
      When you vote next time be sure to ask how they will vote......
 
These are stunning numbers and apparently easily verifiable...Proves
    once again that Washington just doesn't get it!
    
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    I hope these 14 reasons are forwarded over and over again until they  are read by the majority of Americans. Then they will have something  to yell at their U.S. Congress members.

    1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year.
    http://tinyurl.com/zob77

    2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.
    http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

    3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.
    http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

    4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of  English! 
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.0.html

    *5.* *$17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.
    http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html*


    6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.
    <http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html>
    __
    __7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.
    http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
    __
    __8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare & social services by the American taxpayers.
      http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html
    __
    __9. $200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens.
    http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
    __
    __10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US
    http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html
    __
    __11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroine and marijuana, crossed into the U. S from the Southern border.  Homeland Security Report:  http://tinyurl.com/t9sht
    __
    __12. The National Policy Institute, "estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period."
    http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.pdf
    __
    __13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to  their countries of origin. <http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm
    __
    __14. "The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million Sex Crimes  Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States ".
    http://www.drdsk.com/articleshtml
    __
    __So using the LOWEST estimates, the annual cost OF ILLEGAL ALIENS is $338.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR! So if deporting them costs between $206 and $230 BILLION DOLLARS, Hey get rid of em', We'll be ahead after the 1st year!!!__ Please pass this on . Americans need to wake up !__
    __When it comes time to vote remember which politicians support the illegal aliens , keep them out of office. . . . This is not a matter of political party, it's the survival of America!__