LET ME OFF UPTOWN

Apparent Republican presidential nominee John McCain is unfit to run for president much less occupy the Oval Office. In spite of opposition by roughly three forths of Americans who correctly believe the trillion dollar Iraq war was made up, unnecessary and self destructive to American interests, McCain soldiers on in obsessive support, offering some of the most outrageous comments ever uttered by a potential president.

When asked about President Bush's statement that we may be in Iraq for fifty years, McCain shot back "make it a hundred". To the soldiers sent to serve tour after tour in this exercise in futility, that comment is not funny.

Describing the goal of capturing Osama bin Laden, McCain boasted he would "follow bin Laden to the Gates of Hell." To the families of the victims of bin Laden's criminality who would prefer using some of that trillion dollars and 160,000 soldiers wasted on Iraq to actually capture bin Laden, McCain's hyperbole is not appreciated.

Worst of all, an undetected microphone picked up McCain singing a parody of the Beach Boys hit "Barbara Ann" by substituting the words "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb-bomb Iran" for "Bar, Bar, Bar, Bar Bar Bra Ann". To the tens of millions of us revulsed by the prospect of another self destructive, pre-emptive war, we can only shake our heads in disbelief.

It would take a psychiatrist.. maybe a team of psychiatrists, to determine what motivates McCain to utter such nonsense.

Forty-one years ago McCain, the son and grandson of Navy admirals, was a naval avaitor, dropping bombs on North Vietnam during twenty-three missions in another self-destructive war in another century. Still a young man, he was shot down, captured and tortured for over five years by the North Vietnamese. Coming home a dashing hero, McCain parlayed that heroism into a fabulous political career that may yet see his ascending to the Presidency. Sadly, McCain may still be fighting the ghosts of Vietnam in his mind when he displays such bellicose and unrepentant militarism in all affairs foreign.

McCain's Straight Talk Express is one ride we would be wise to take a flyer on.

Originally published in Glen Ellyn Sun, February 22, 2008
Also published in Wheaton Sun, February 29, 2008

HONEST ABE NAILED IT

Two nonprofit journalism organizations found that the Bush administration issued 935 false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two-year period following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The report published by the Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism avers that the avalanche of false statements led to a docile press and a softened-up citizenry enabling the administration to launch its war of conquest against Iraq.

Now five years later, we are bogged down in a trillion dollar catastrophe responsible for millions of dead, wounded and exiled Iraqis and upward of 100,000 dead, wounded and mentally broken American military. Military suicide attempts and deaths is at an all-time high. The poisonous legacy of depleted uranium scattered all over Iraq by the war party will haunt the American conscience for centuries, if we are so fortunate to last that long.

To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, “You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time,” but 935 false statements makes it a war crime.

Originally published in Glen Ellyn News, February 19, 2008