So Many GOP Blunders, So Few Weeks till Midterms

I want to register and vote Republican. It seems to make everything so easy, the way they have everything ready to serve up, all predigested.
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I can't remember which upset me more....the stolen election in 2000 or the war in Iraq. Or was it when they outed Valerie Plame, a woman working in the service of her country's intelligence apparatus who had the "misfortune" of being married to a government official who dared to contradict this White House's right-wing-nut-bag agenda in Baghdad? Or was it that the withering Republican stooge, Robert Novak, made it all seem so business-as-usual? Or was it when scientists, on the government's payroll and otherwise, were being told to shut up about global warming? It might have been when they actually started editing government reports to suit their pro-business purposes. I can't recall. Maybe it was when I read that David Addington really runs the government. Never heard of him? Oh.

It might have been when Secretary Rice, like any good secretary covering up for her boss, smirked her way through the 9/11 hearings and never seemed to flinch in the face of "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Within the US." Then again, I could be wrong. It might have been when I read in the New York Times of March 3, 2006, that Jason Peltier, a former agricultural lobbyist in California's San Joaquin Valley, had gone to work in the Bush Interior Department and was responsible for awarding government water contracts to his former employers. Actually, on second thought, I might be confusing the Peltier issue with the revelations about Jack Abramoff and the Interior Trust scandals. Or the Klamath Basin questions in 2003. Or the Interior Department's own Inspector General who said last week that the place is rife with "cronyism and cover-ups."

There were back-to-back reports of Bush Administration malfeasance in this past Friday's and Saturday's papers. In Friday's Times, HUD Secretary Alphonso R. Jackson was busy regretting that he said his agency should award contracts based on the political leanings of contractors. The next day, the Times reported that the Department of Education's Reading First program, which has spent a total of $4.8 billion dollars during Bush's term in office, had a similar political litmus test. The article comes down hard on the program's director, Chris Doherty, who was caught red-handed in e-mail correspondences ordering that grants be extended to politically favored publishers and that the review boards that make the grants be stacked with ideologically compatible, conservative thinkers.

Gosh, I just can't make up my mind as to which one is the main reason why, once again, I won't be switching my party affiliation to the GOP this Fall. I had given it serious thought. What with men like Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld giving it all they've got to fight terrorism. I just couldn't seem to get all of this other stuff out of my mind. And with Frist and Hastert taking naps for the past six years, I wondered who is going to look after our interests. I want to register and vote Republican. It seems to make everything so easy, the way they have everything ready to serve up, all predigested. No self-criticism for the country to go through. No doubts. Can anyone out there help me figure this out? I mean, Republicans in Congress spent tens of millions trying to nail Clinton, and came up empty-handed. They had nothing. What are we supposed to do about all that is going on now? And that is only what we know of without any Congressional oversight or subpoena power. You wouldn't suggest that we just let it all go, would you?

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