January 20, 2005. Mourning in America.

Only days before George Bush is to be sworn in for his second term as President, Secretary of State nominee Condoleeza Rice told Senators during her confirmation hearing that, “The goal [in Iraq] is to get the mission accomplished.” According to Rice, “the Mission” has something to do with spreading democracy in the Middle East, but I could find no mention in the Associated Press article of any Senator making her state bluntly what “the mission” is or when we decide it is finished. There were also no apologies for misleading the nation into war nor any timetable for ending our occupation of Iraq.

“Ms. Rice. Is the earth round or is it flat?”
“Mr. Senator, the President assures us daily that the world is flat, and it is undermining our work in Iraq to state otherwise. So it is flat.”
“Well, that’s good enough for me. Next question.”

In related articles recently, we are told of a president who refuses to listen to negative assessments about Iraq. He will hear only progress reports and nothing else. A primary factor in Colin Powell’s exit from the inner ring was his tendency to tell the President the truth about the situation on the ground, a no-no in the Oval Office. So we are stuck with a President who is clearly out of touch with reality and an administration all but willing to enable his otherworldly views.

During the first four years of the Bush administration, the press was handed scandal after scandal, a number of which make Whitewater look like a case of shoplifing. But the corporate press failed us at every turn, and continues to do so now. Bush and Rice and the rest of the inner circle can tell the press virtually any lie they wish without fear of anything more damaging than a mild follow-up question, just for old times’ sake.

Why are we not holding anyone responsible for the lies which lead us into Iraq? The death toll of American’s rises daily. Towns are destroyed in order to save them, and if you think Iraqi civilians don’t die every time we blow up buildings or send rockets into town squares, you are as delusional as Bush.

Inauguration day this Thursday will be a day of mourning for millions of Americans. As talk of invading Iran grows and the sense of unending war in Iraq deepens, the Inauguration of George Bush will be a milepost in the rapid decline of America as a world leader to an isolated island of bigotry, hatred and fear, which just happens to possess a butt-load of nuclear weapons.