Stopping the Gang of Four
When he was in college, George W. Bush lettered as a Yale cheerleader, but was a very unremarkable student who, in spite of the best of hired tutors and the influence of a prominent grandfather and father (both Yale men), graduated with a grade point average of C. His peers remembered him as a party guy who never bought a drink or a meal for anyone and lied without conscience. They also recalled that he was a very good cheerleader who was able to get the crowd on its feet.
As Bush entered adulthood he attempted to follow his father and grandfather into business. One of his first attempts was a start up wild-cat oil company he named, “Arbusto” believing arbusto to be Spanish for ‘Bush’ and thus a clever play on words. (Arbusto is the Mexican word for ‘shrub’ not ‘bush’.) Arbusto Oil never went anywhere but south into bankruptcy. Unable to succeed as a businessman, Bush then went to work for others as a ‘landman’.
In the oil business a landman is the guy who negotiates with the rancher to get the mineral rights and drilling rights to his land. The goal of a landman is to trick the farmer out of his oil for as little money as possible. It is a job, similar to used car salesman, in that it requires the ability to deceive with a straight face while appearing to be “technically” truthful, and to whip up enthusiasm for the project/car in the farmer/customer. His employers remembered Bush as being a pretty good landman.
Bush eventually was given another chance to be an entrepreneur by his family when he was installed in Harken Oil as an owner and board of directors member. Harken also went south soon after Bush jointed it and attempted to direct it. Bush was able to avoid the financial losses of a failed business because, a the member of the company’s audit committee, he gained key information that the company was on the verge of bankruptcy and was able to sell his shares privately to a family friend two weeks before the collapse. Selling them privately meant that Bush avoided indictment for insider trading that would have resulted by selling them on the stock market. Later, when asked why he bought the shares off Bush the friend said that it was a small price to pay for helping the son of the Vice President of the United States.
Without investing any of his own money, Bush was given shares in a baseball team. As an owner, he took on the job he had done so well in college, cheerleader. He attended every game and glad handed the crowd and players with smiling enthusiasm. He was not given any control over the finances of the team, however, by the other investors. Bush’s reputation as a businessman was poor and besides he was known to be a real boozer (he had been arrested twice: once for vandalism while drunk; once for drunk driving). But he was the eldest son of the Vice President of the United States and scion of one of the most prominent, wealthy, and influential families in America. Everyone knew that his family rewarded its friends even as it punished with a ruthless vengeance those who stood up to family members. (It was supposedly said by those close to the family that Bush inherited his mother’s short temper and vindictiveness.)
As a politician, Bush’s first attempt was a bid for U.S. House of Representatives. He campaigned hard. But those who voted against him recalled that he did not strike them as a man to be trusted.
During the 1980s, Bush campaigned for his father’s bid for President and Vice President. He also found religion. One story has it that on the campaign trail in Alabama, Bush attended a fundamentalist camp meeting and watched spellbound at how the preacher controlled the passions of the congregation and successfully extolled them for cash donations. Supposedly in an epiphany, Bush said that he could do that same thing back home in Texas. After the campaign, Bush began to attend a Bible study group in Texas where he learn more about the vocabulary of the fundamentalists. Professing to be an avid Bible reader, even after he became President, he gave some listeners doubts for, when asked what his favorite Bible passage was, he criticized the reporter for trying to catch him in a ‘trick’ question.
Bush has always relied upon men who were older and smarter. When he was teamed with Dick Cheney in 2000, it was a match made in neo-con heaven. Bush had the charisma and cheerleader enthusiasm to sell the public the conservatives’ bill of goods while Cheney was the man behind the throne.
Once elected in 2000, Bush appointed Donald Rumsfeld to be Secretary of Defense, a key position in any putz. It was Rumsfeld and Cheney who had been a young team during Nixon’s attempt at the creation of an imperial presidency back in the early 1970s, and it was Cheney and Rumsfeld who tried unsuccessfully to submarine the Freedom of Information Act by convincing President Gerald Ford to veto it. It was Cheney and Rumsfeld who helped conceal the Iran-Contra illegal deals from the US public and the Congress during Ronald Reagan’s Administration. They have a long history of making the work of the Executive Branch secret. Mostly that is because what they want to do to accomplish their goals has tended to be either contrary to law or would be unpopular with the American public – a fairly moral and law abiding group of people.
In the current White House workings, it appears that Bush has lots of time for working out on his bicycle, in the weight room, jogging, and taking extended vacations (so far, 366 days in five years). He is the point man for the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld team. He is the 'land man' who has been told he has a silver tongue that can convince the rest of us to agree to anything in support of the eternal war on terror/evil. Cheney, Rumsfeld and Condolezza Rice have the important role of repeating the message over and over so that it is drummed into the media and thus into the peoples’ minds.
What is amusing to remember is that Cheney and Rumsfeld have convinced Bush that he is a smooth talker and that he does a great job as a communicator. In exchange, Bush lets them run the Executive Branch and leave him to more corporeal amusements and escapes. It must have been a wake up call to him when his erstwhile attempt to cheat the American public out of Social Security went flat. No matter how many times Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and a host of media surrogates repeated the message that privatizing Social Security would make everyone richer, safer, or more thin, the public refused to buy. Worse, the public began to question the “trustability” of the guy who was so brazenly trying to cheat them for the enrichment of a wealthy elite.
With each apparent reversal to their plans for a new imperial presidency, the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice gang of four have come back with a more outrageous counterattack. For example, when Senator John McCain convinced first the Senate and then the House to pass his anti-torture bill, not the first law banning torture on the federal books, Bush quietly added a signing statement that basically declared that he would respect the law against torture if it suited him to do so and would not obey it when he felt that he did not want to for reasons of “national security”. Effectively, throwing down the gauntlet to Congress. The only way to stop the Gang of Four from firmly establishing a new imperial presidency that is above the law and outside the ethical and moral norms of civilized society, is by removing them from office.
It is very unlikely that Congress, whose majority members are dependent on the Republican Party for funding in their next re-election bid, will risk their own campaigns just to keep the Gang of Four from ending our federal republic. So, it falls to the Democratic Party, currently 18 votes short of a majority in the House and five votes short of a majority in the Senate to defend democracy and the rule of law in America. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party leadership has shown little interest in upsetting the status quo, preferring instead to safely remain the minority party.
Why is that? Well, the GOP controls most of the media through like NewsCorp in newspapers and television or Clear Channel in radio. The politically right wing owners of those have refused to hire “liberals” or Democrats as publishers, producers, or editors. They have refused to even accept ads non-Republican, non-conservative, groups have tried to buy in the conservative media.
The same attack media that stifled the Clinton Administration with a barrage of invented “scandals”, rumors, and spurious personal attacks, can be turned in a heartbeat on any Democrat who attempts to rock the Republican corporate profit machine (which is how they view the control of Congress coupled with the White House). Remember how they successfully attacked Al Gore’s credibility and John Kerry’s service record?
So it will take an especially wary electorate and an especially courageous Democratic leadership to save our way of governing ourselves. You can help by writing a flood of letters and email messages to newspapers, magazines, and the Democratic Party urging them to act decisively.
As Bush entered adulthood he attempted to follow his father and grandfather into business. One of his first attempts was a start up wild-cat oil company he named, “Arbusto” believing arbusto to be Spanish for ‘Bush’ and thus a clever play on words. (Arbusto is the Mexican word for ‘shrub’ not ‘bush’.) Arbusto Oil never went anywhere but south into bankruptcy. Unable to succeed as a businessman, Bush then went to work for others as a ‘landman’.
In the oil business a landman is the guy who negotiates with the rancher to get the mineral rights and drilling rights to his land. The goal of a landman is to trick the farmer out of his oil for as little money as possible. It is a job, similar to used car salesman, in that it requires the ability to deceive with a straight face while appearing to be “technically” truthful, and to whip up enthusiasm for the project/car in the farmer/customer. His employers remembered Bush as being a pretty good landman.
Bush eventually was given another chance to be an entrepreneur by his family when he was installed in Harken Oil as an owner and board of directors member. Harken also went south soon after Bush jointed it and attempted to direct it. Bush was able to avoid the financial losses of a failed business because, a the member of the company’s audit committee, he gained key information that the company was on the verge of bankruptcy and was able to sell his shares privately to a family friend two weeks before the collapse. Selling them privately meant that Bush avoided indictment for insider trading that would have resulted by selling them on the stock market. Later, when asked why he bought the shares off Bush the friend said that it was a small price to pay for helping the son of the Vice President of the United States.
Without investing any of his own money, Bush was given shares in a baseball team. As an owner, he took on the job he had done so well in college, cheerleader. He attended every game and glad handed the crowd and players with smiling enthusiasm. He was not given any control over the finances of the team, however, by the other investors. Bush’s reputation as a businessman was poor and besides he was known to be a real boozer (he had been arrested twice: once for vandalism while drunk; once for drunk driving). But he was the eldest son of the Vice President of the United States and scion of one of the most prominent, wealthy, and influential families in America. Everyone knew that his family rewarded its friends even as it punished with a ruthless vengeance those who stood up to family members. (It was supposedly said by those close to the family that Bush inherited his mother’s short temper and vindictiveness.)
As a politician, Bush’s first attempt was a bid for U.S. House of Representatives. He campaigned hard. But those who voted against him recalled that he did not strike them as a man to be trusted.
During the 1980s, Bush campaigned for his father’s bid for President and Vice President. He also found religion. One story has it that on the campaign trail in Alabama, Bush attended a fundamentalist camp meeting and watched spellbound at how the preacher controlled the passions of the congregation and successfully extolled them for cash donations. Supposedly in an epiphany, Bush said that he could do that same thing back home in Texas. After the campaign, Bush began to attend a Bible study group in Texas where he learn more about the vocabulary of the fundamentalists. Professing to be an avid Bible reader, even after he became President, he gave some listeners doubts for, when asked what his favorite Bible passage was, he criticized the reporter for trying to catch him in a ‘trick’ question.
Bush has always relied upon men who were older and smarter. When he was teamed with Dick Cheney in 2000, it was a match made in neo-con heaven. Bush had the charisma and cheerleader enthusiasm to sell the public the conservatives’ bill of goods while Cheney was the man behind the throne.
Once elected in 2000, Bush appointed Donald Rumsfeld to be Secretary of Defense, a key position in any putz. It was Rumsfeld and Cheney who had been a young team during Nixon’s attempt at the creation of an imperial presidency back in the early 1970s, and it was Cheney and Rumsfeld who tried unsuccessfully to submarine the Freedom of Information Act by convincing President Gerald Ford to veto it. It was Cheney and Rumsfeld who helped conceal the Iran-Contra illegal deals from the US public and the Congress during Ronald Reagan’s Administration. They have a long history of making the work of the Executive Branch secret. Mostly that is because what they want to do to accomplish their goals has tended to be either contrary to law or would be unpopular with the American public – a fairly moral and law abiding group of people.
In the current White House workings, it appears that Bush has lots of time for working out on his bicycle, in the weight room, jogging, and taking extended vacations (so far, 366 days in five years). He is the point man for the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld team. He is the 'land man' who has been told he has a silver tongue that can convince the rest of us to agree to anything in support of the eternal war on terror/evil. Cheney, Rumsfeld and Condolezza Rice have the important role of repeating the message over and over so that it is drummed into the media and thus into the peoples’ minds.
What is amusing to remember is that Cheney and Rumsfeld have convinced Bush that he is a smooth talker and that he does a great job as a communicator. In exchange, Bush lets them run the Executive Branch and leave him to more corporeal amusements and escapes. It must have been a wake up call to him when his erstwhile attempt to cheat the American public out of Social Security went flat. No matter how many times Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and a host of media surrogates repeated the message that privatizing Social Security would make everyone richer, safer, or more thin, the public refused to buy. Worse, the public began to question the “trustability” of the guy who was so brazenly trying to cheat them for the enrichment of a wealthy elite.
With each apparent reversal to their plans for a new imperial presidency, the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice gang of four have come back with a more outrageous counterattack. For example, when Senator John McCain convinced first the Senate and then the House to pass his anti-torture bill, not the first law banning torture on the federal books, Bush quietly added a signing statement that basically declared that he would respect the law against torture if it suited him to do so and would not obey it when he felt that he did not want to for reasons of “national security”. Effectively, throwing down the gauntlet to Congress. The only way to stop the Gang of Four from firmly establishing a new imperial presidency that is above the law and outside the ethical and moral norms of civilized society, is by removing them from office.
It is very unlikely that Congress, whose majority members are dependent on the Republican Party for funding in their next re-election bid, will risk their own campaigns just to keep the Gang of Four from ending our federal republic. So, it falls to the Democratic Party, currently 18 votes short of a majority in the House and five votes short of a majority in the Senate to defend democracy and the rule of law in America. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party leadership has shown little interest in upsetting the status quo, preferring instead to safely remain the minority party.
Why is that? Well, the GOP controls most of the media through like NewsCorp in newspapers and television or Clear Channel in radio. The politically right wing owners of those have refused to hire “liberals” or Democrats as publishers, producers, or editors. They have refused to even accept ads non-Republican, non-conservative, groups have tried to buy in the conservative media.
The same attack media that stifled the Clinton Administration with a barrage of invented “scandals”, rumors, and spurious personal attacks, can be turned in a heartbeat on any Democrat who attempts to rock the Republican corporate profit machine (which is how they view the control of Congress coupled with the White House). Remember how they successfully attacked Al Gore’s credibility and John Kerry’s service record?
So it will take an especially wary electorate and an especially courageous Democratic leadership to save our way of governing ourselves. You can help by writing a flood of letters and email messages to newspapers, magazines, and the Democratic Party urging them to act decisively.
posted by S. Munzel | 2:02 PM
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