The Neverending Scandal

Many of you have probably watched or read "The Neverending Story." I did both when I was a kid. I remember reading it, getting about halfway through and wondering when the hell that stupid book was ever going to end. When I saw the second movie I really wondered when it was going to end. Talk about lame. They turned the dragon thing into a giant flying dog. And the badguys looked like great big lobsters. If you liked the story, then whatever, I'm sorry for you. I thought it was lame, just my opinion. It reminds me of some things that have happened in our country of late. Some things that are getting really, freaking lame.

I stopped counting the number of so-called "scandals" in the Bush administration long about the time the scandals started popping up. For I believe that for a scandal to be a scandal it really ought to be a scandal. Rather than call the figments of various persons' imaginations scandals, we should call them what they really are. A neverending barrage of whining that is somehow meant to undermine the presidency that those doing the whining never liked in the first place.

Let me be clear: scandals have a dictionary definition. While I suppose that some of the things that happened in the Bush years could fit into one part of that definition (i.e. malicious gossip that is meant to destroy someone's integrity), I do not see the continual problems as actual scandals. A scandal would be if the president slept with White House interns or wiretapped his political opponents offices or lied under oath or allowed his top officials to send government money to another country to aid one party in their fight against another. Take the whole WMD in Iraq "scandal." If you look at the facts the CIA cleared Bush to say that Hussein had WMD. Hussein implied in every possible way that he had them. The UN even seemed to think he had them. So why is this a scandal? Because people think Bush lied. If Bush lied then so did Tenet and every other CIA official who approved Bush's speeches in 2003. That's not a scandal, that's a terrible misunderstanding. Many soldiers have died in Iraq. Okay, not to be insensitive because this really is sad, but people die during wars. Sorry about that. Hurricane Katrina, let's parse this out. For thirty years environmentalists have refused to allow anyone to strengthen those stupid levies around New Orleans, but it's suddenly Bush's fault that they were never strengthened. I could go on for hours. Look, every problem in this country did not suddenly pop up because George W. Bush got elected!

I suppose I should not be so suprised, the fact is, Bush's first term started with a scandal. Oh my gosh, they kept recounting the votes and the votes kept coming up in Bush's favor! How can that be?

Am I starting to sound bitter? I am not the greatest supporter of Bush that ever was. But I am tired of the constant scandals. I am tired of being told that something is an epic, a saga, a great and horrible event, only to find out that it is none of the above. Now I am expected to believe that the fact that the NSA wiretapped terrorists is a bad thing. If they succeeded in preventing another 9/11 we would be very happy about that wiretapping. Of course, that won't happen now. Our brilliant beyond brilliant press has now warned any and all terrorists that the U.S.A.'s intelligence communities listen in on their phone conversations. When the next attack hits us I won't say "I told you so," I'll clean up the mess if I'm near it and cry like I did the last time.

Oh yeah, I put another link to a Mike Pence website on the sidebar. I hope he gets elected in 2008 for many reasons. One of those reasons is that it would put a stop to the muckraking.