REVOLUTION? OR NOT...

GEORGE W. BUSH


So Bush is desparate to get a bill passed that "refines the language" of the Geneva Conventions so that it'll be okay to keep torturing people. Never mind the fact that information ascertained through torture rarely pans out and never mind the fact that if the United States feels that it's within their rights to refine the language of the Conventions (that have worked fine and dandy over the last 60 years, might I add), that other countries with even more sinister aims may also feel obliged to do their own refining. Simply put, by angling for these ill-advised changes, Bush is putting American troops in harm's way.
Fortunately, there appear to be some Republicans who can understand these very basic arguments that I just laid out (focusing more on the latter than the former though) and they are now standing up and saying that the Bush is wrong on this. Unfortunately, the media and Bush are painting a bizarre picture of the goings-on, referring to the GOP members that spoke out as rebels and terming the event a Republican revolt. Here's my problem with this: Bush is not the Emporer of America! The few Republicans that are standing up aren't revolting against the Mighty Emporer, they're doing what the Dems have been meekly doing for six years now, which is their job. They're actually carrying out that whole "checks and balances" theory in the Constitution. Bush can propose whatever the hell law he wants, but it's the Congress' job to pass that law and it's about time that members of the GOP stood up and carried out their duties as members of the co-equal legislative branch. The elephants have been rubberstamping Bush for so long that people have apparently forgotten that when they actually do their job that it's not a revolt and the members are not leading a rebellion.
Finally, one blurb in the Post really caught my attention: "President Bush warned defiant Republican senators yesterday that he will close down a CIA interrogation program that he credited with thwarting terrorist attacks if they pass a proposal regulating detention of enemy combatants[.]" Perhaps it would bolster Bush's case just a tad if he were to ever share some information about the supposed thwarted terrorist attacks! Give me a list of three verifiable potential terrorist attacks (and please spare me the Brooklyn Bridge attack where the guy was going to destroy [probably more accurate to call it 'dismantle'] the bridge using a blow torch) that have been thwarted via your vaunted torture techniques and then we'll talk, because, sir, you've had precisely ZERO credibility with me from day one and have done nothing to earn any credibility in my eyes in the 2064 days that you have defiled and dishonored that hallowed office. Fortunately, after years of sleeping, the American public is finally waking up from their fear-induced comas and have realized the same thing. Just because you stand in front of a podium and purse your lips and squint your eyes and speak with mock authority on a subject, it does not automatically make what you say true, and more than likely the opposite is usually the case.