President Bush has vetoed the law banning the CIA from using the waterboard and other torture methods. The headline the N.Y. Times slaps on this story reads: Bush Uses Veto on C.I.A. Tactics to Affirm Legacy.
That headline should be a source of tremendous embarrassment for any American. The President’s legacy is affirmed by allowing the CIA to torture people? For the quadzillionth time we are left pondering the question: “what has happened to America”?
That question is especially applicable when one considers that the veto will be sustained because Republicans will not vote to over ride the President. This is the party of Reagan? This is the party of Lincoln? Just think of the massive death and destruction wrought upon the nation during Lincolns presidency, and then try to imagine him allowing for the torture of captured rebels in order to gain intelligence to same the lives of his fellow countrymen. It is literally unimaginable.
Quite frankly I’m sick of trying to find the answers to the question of what happened to America. Here is what happened, plain and simple: American ideals have been warped beyond recognition by a power hungry little man with some sort of weird psychological affliction over trying to match his father’s record, surrounded by a group of blood thirsty neocons and greedy corporate executives. That is the real answer, and the Republican party went along for the ride out of sheer partisan interest rather than doing what was right for the nation. Frankly the leadership of the Democratic party didn’t do enough to stop this warping of our ideals out of a sense of fear of being demonized by Bush and the gang.
It is the height of irony that the President claims the right to torture in order to protect America. Torture has been expressly prohibited by every American leader from George Washington until George Bush. This is the equivalent of destroying a village in order to save it. Bush’s legacy is of embracing unconstitutional and anti American tactics while loudly proclaiming that he is doing it in order to save America. Not only will Bush defiantly affirm that embarrassing legacy, but his followers will loudly defend the Bush record of anti American policy as being somehow patriotic and necessary to protect America.
What next? Maybe jailing political opponents will be the next patriotic and pro American tactic. How about forbidding news outlets from reporting on negative news about the economy? How about forbidding Mosques and minarets on American soil? If allowing people to be tortured is somehow patriotic what is to stop any one of these other anti American ideals from becoming the next patriotic tactic used by an out of control president?
President Bush and his supporters should be embarrassed by the N.Y. Times headline, but they won’t be, and that speaks volumes to me about the true state of America in the last year of the Bush Presidency.
