If you don't read this, you hate America (jk but srsly..)
I like to think of myself as being fairly moderate, politics-wise, but as things progress I can't help but agree with this sentiment....stick with it, it's a good read no matter which side you're on.
If you agree with me that this is important, PLEASE post it to your own journal. It's imperative that as many people as possible wake up and realize what we've slowly been moving towards.
SPECIAL COMMENT
By Keith Olbermann
Anchor, 'Countdown'
MSNBC
Updated: 7:13 p.m. CT July 3, 2007
Keith Olbermann
Anchor, 'Countdown'
“I didn’t vote for him,” an American once said, “But he’s my
president, and I hope he does a good job.”
That-on this eve of the 4th of July-is the essence of this
democracy, in 17 words. And that is what President Bush threw away
yesterday in commuting the sentence of Lewis “Scooter” Libby.
The man who said those 17 words-improbably enough-was the actor
John Wayne. And Wayne, an ultra-conservative, said them, when he
learned of the hair’s-breadth election of John F. Kennedy instead
of his personal favorite, Richard Nixon in 1960.
“I didn’t vote for him but he’s my president, and I hope he does a
good job.”
The sentiment was doubtlessly expressed earlier, but there is
something especially appropriate about hearing it, now, in Wayne’s
voice: The crisp matter-of-fact acknowledgement that we have
survived, even though for nearly two centuries now, our
Commander-in-Chief has also served, simultaneously, as the head of
one political party and often the scourge of all others.
We as citizens must, at some point, ignore a president’s
partisanship. Not that we may prosper as a nation, not that we may
achieve, not that we may lead the world-but merely that we may
function.
But just as essential to the seventeen words of John Wayne, is an
implicit trust-a sacred trust: That the president for whom so many
did not vote, can in turn suspend his political self long enough,
and for matters imperative enough, to conduct himself solely for
the benefit of the entire Republic.
Our generation’s willingness to state “we didn’t vote for him, but
he’s our president, and we hope he does a good job,” was tested in
the crucible of history, and earlier than most.
And in circumstances more tragic and threatening. And we did that
with which history tasked us.
We enveloped our President in 2001.And those who did not believe he
should have been elected-indeed those who did not believe he had
been elected-willingly lowered their voices and assented to the
sacred oath of non-partisanship.
And George W. Bush took our assent, and re-configured it, and honed
it, and shaped it to a razor-sharp point and stabbed this nation in
the back with it.
Were there any remaining lingering doubt otherwise, or any
remaining lingering hope, it ended yesterday when Mr. Bush commuted
the prison sentence of one of his own staffers.
Did so even before the appeals process was complete; did so without
as much as a courtesy consultation with the Department of Justice;
did so despite what James Madison-at the Constitutional
Convention-said about impeaching any president who pardoned or
sheltered those who had committed crimes “advised by” that
president; did so without the slightest concern that even the most
detached of citizens must look at the chain of events and wonder:
To what degree was Mr. Libby told: break the law however you
wish-the President will keep you out of prison?
In that moment, Mr. Bush, you broke that fundamental com-pact
between yourself and the majority of this nation’s citizens-the
ones who did not cast votes for you. In that moment, Mr. Bush, you
ceased to be the President of the United States. In that moment,
Mr. Bush, you became merely the President of a rabid and
irresponsible corner of the Republican Party. And this is too
important a time, Sir, to have a commander-in-chief who puts party
over nation.
This has been, of course, the gathering legacy of this
Administration. Few of its decisions have escaped the stain of
politics. The extraordinary Karl Rove has spoken of “a permanent
Republican majority,” as if such a thing-or a permanent Democratic
majority-is not antithetical to that upon which rests: our country,
our history, our revolution, our freedoms.
Yet our Democracy has survived shrewder men than Karl Rove. And it
has survived the frequent stain of politics upon the fabric of
government. But this administration, with ever-increasing
insistence and almost theocratic zealotry, has turned that stain
into a massive oil spill.
The protection of the environment is turned over to those of one
political party, who will financially benefit from the rape of the
environment. The protections of the Constitution are turned over to
those of one political party, who believe those protections
unnecessary and extravagant and quaint.
The enforcement of the laws is turned over to those of one
political party, who will swear beforehand that they will not
enforce those laws. The choice between war and peace is turned over
to those of one political party, who stand to gain vast wealth by
ensuring that there is never peace, but only war.
And now, when just one cooked book gets corrected by an honest
auditor, when just one trampling of the inherent and inviolable
fairness of government is rejected by an impartial judge, when just
one wild-eyed partisan is stopped by the figure of blind justice,
this President decides that he, and not the law, must prevail.
I accuse you, Mr. Bush, of lying this country into war.
I accuse you of fabricating in the minds of your own people, a
false implied link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.
I accuse you of firing the generals who told you that the plans for
Iraq were disastrously insufficient.
I accuse you of causing in Iraq the needless deaths of 3,586 of our
brothers and sons, and sisters and daughters, and friends and
neighbors.
I accuse you of subverting the Constitution, not in some misguided
but sincerely-motivated struggle to combat terrorists, but to
stifle dissent.
I accuse you of fomenting fear among your own people, of creating
the very terror you claim to have fought.
I accuse you of exploiting that unreasoning fear, the natural fear
of your own people who just want to live their lives in peace, as a
political tool to slander your critics and libel your opponents.
I accuse you of handing part of this Republic over to a Vice
President who is without conscience, and letting him run roughshod
over it.
And I accuse you now, Mr. Bush, of giving, through that Vice
President, carte blanche to Mr. Libby, to help defame Ambassador
Joseph Wilson by any means necessary, to lie to Grand Juries and
Special Counsel and before a court, in order to protect the
mechanisms and particulars of that defamation, with your guarantee
that Libby would never see prison, and, in so doing, as Ambassador
Wilson himself phrased it here last night, of becoming an accessory
to the obstruction of justice.
When President Nixon ordered the firing of the Watergate special
prosecutor Archibald Cox during the infamous “Saturday Night
Massacre” on October 20th, 1973, Cox initially responded tersely,
and ominously.
“Whether ours shall be a government of laws and not of men, is now
for Congress, and ultimately, the American people.”
President Nixon did not understand how he had crystallized the
issue of Watergate for the American people.
It had been about the obscure meaning behind an attempt to break in
to a rival party’s headquarters; and the labyrinthine effort to
cover-up that break-in and the related crimes.
And in one night, Nixon transformed it.
Watergate-instantaneously-became a simpler issue: a President
overruling the inexorable march of the law of insisting-in a way
that resonated viscerally with millions who had not previously
understood - that he was the law.
Not the Constitution. Not the Congress. Not the Courts. Just him.
Just - Mr. Bush - as you did, yesterday.
The twists and turns of Plame-Gate, of your precise and intricate
lies that sent us into this bottomless pit of Iraq; your lies upon
the lies to discredit Joe Wilson; your lies upon the lies upon the
lies to throw the sand at the “referee” of Prosecutor Fitzgerald’s
analogy. These are complex and often painful to follow, and too
much, perhaps, for the average citizen.
But when other citizens render a verdict against your man, Mr.
Bush-and then you spit in the faces of those jurors and that judge
and the judges who were yet to hear the appeal-the average citizen
understands that, Sir.
It’s the fixed ballgame and the rigged casino and the pre-arranged
lottery all rolled into one-and it stinks. And they know it.
Nixon’s mistake, the last and most fatal of them, the firing of
Archibald Cox, was enough to cost him the presidency. And in the
end, even Richard Nixon could say he could not put this nation
through an impeachment.
It was far too late for it to matter then, but as the decades
unfold, that single final gesture of non-partisanship, of
acknowledged responsibility not to self, not to party, not to
“base,” but to country, echoes loudly into history. Even Richard
Nixon knew it was time to resign
Would that you could say that, Mr. Bush. And that you could say it
for Mr. Cheney. You both crossed the Rubicon yesterday. Which one
of you chose the route, no longer matters. Which is the
ventriloquist, and which the dummy, is irrelevant.
But that you have twisted the machinery of government into nothing
more than a tawdry machine of politics, is the only fact that
remains relevant.
It is nearly July 4th, Mr. Bush, the commemoration of the moment we
Americans decided that rather than live under a King who made up
the laws, or erased them, or ignored them-or commuted the sentences
of those rightly convicted under them-we would force our
independence, and regain our sacred freedoms.
We of this time-and our leaders in Congress, of both parties-must
now live up to those standards which echo through our history:
Pressure, negotiate, impeach-get you, Mr. Bush, and Mr. Cheney, two
men who are now perilous to our Democracy, away from its helm.
For you, Mr. Bush, and for Mr. Cheney, there is a lesser task. You
need merely achieve a very low threshold indeed. Display just that
iota of patriotism which Richard Nixon showed, on August 9th, 1974.
Resign.
And give us someone-anyone-about who
m all of us might yet be able to quote John Wayne, and say,
“I didn’t vote for him, but he’s my president, and I hope he does a good job.”
If you agree with me that this is important, PLEASE post it to your own journal. It's imperative that as many people as possible wake up and realize what we've slowly been moving towards.
SPECIAL COMMENT
By Keith Olbermann
Anchor, 'Countdown'
MSNBC
Updated: 7:13 p.m. CT July 3, 2007
Keith Olbermann
Anchor, 'Countdown'
“I didn’t vote for him,” an American once said, “But he’s my
president, and I hope he does a good job.”
That-on this eve of the 4th of July-is the essence of this
democracy, in 17 words. And that is what President Bush threw away
yesterday in commuting the sentence of Lewis “Scooter” Libby.
The man who said those 17 words-improbably enough-was the actor
John Wayne. And Wayne, an ultra-conservative, said them, when he
learned of the hair’s-breadth election of John F. Kennedy instead
of his personal favorite, Richard Nixon in 1960.
“I didn’t vote for him but he’s my president, and I hope he does a
good job.”
The sentiment was doubtlessly expressed earlier, but there is
something especially appropriate about hearing it, now, in Wayne’s
voice: The crisp matter-of-fact acknowledgement that we have
survived, even though for nearly two centuries now, our
Commander-in-Chief has also served, simultaneously, as the head of
one political party and often the scourge of all others.
We as citizens must, at some point, ignore a president’s
partisanship. Not that we may prosper as a nation, not that we may
achieve, not that we may lead the world-but merely that we may
function.
But just as essential to the seventeen words of John Wayne, is an
implicit trust-a sacred trust: That the president for whom so many
did not vote, can in turn suspend his political self long enough,
and for matters imperative enough, to conduct himself solely for
the benefit of the entire Republic.
Our generation’s willingness to state “we didn’t vote for him, but
he’s our president, and we hope he does a good job,” was tested in
the crucible of history, and earlier than most.
And in circumstances more tragic and threatening. And we did that
with which history tasked us.
We enveloped our President in 2001.And those who did not believe he
should have been elected-indeed those who did not believe he had
been elected-willingly lowered their voices and assented to the
sacred oath of non-partisanship.
And George W. Bush took our assent, and re-configured it, and honed
it, and shaped it to a razor-sharp point and stabbed this nation in
the back with it.
Were there any remaining lingering doubt otherwise, or any
remaining lingering hope, it ended yesterday when Mr. Bush commuted
the prison sentence of one of his own staffers.
Did so even before the appeals process was complete; did so without
as much as a courtesy consultation with the Department of Justice;
did so despite what James Madison-at the Constitutional
Convention-said about impeaching any president who pardoned or
sheltered those who had committed crimes “advised by” that
president; did so without the slightest concern that even the most
detached of citizens must look at the chain of events and wonder:
To what degree was Mr. Libby told: break the law however you
wish-the President will keep you out of prison?
In that moment, Mr. Bush, you broke that fundamental com-pact
between yourself and the majority of this nation’s citizens-the
ones who did not cast votes for you. In that moment, Mr. Bush, you
ceased to be the President of the United States. In that moment,
Mr. Bush, you became merely the President of a rabid and
irresponsible corner of the Republican Party. And this is too
important a time, Sir, to have a commander-in-chief who puts party
over nation.
This has been, of course, the gathering legacy of this
Administration. Few of its decisions have escaped the stain of
politics. The extraordinary Karl Rove has spoken of “a permanent
Republican majority,” as if such a thing-or a permanent Democratic
majority-is not antithetical to that upon which rests: our country,
our history, our revolution, our freedoms.
Yet our Democracy has survived shrewder men than Karl Rove. And it
has survived the frequent stain of politics upon the fabric of
government. But this administration, with ever-increasing
insistence and almost theocratic zealotry, has turned that stain
into a massive oil spill.
The protection of the environment is turned over to those of one
political party, who will financially benefit from the rape of the
environment. The protections of the Constitution are turned over to
those of one political party, who believe those protections
unnecessary and extravagant and quaint.
The enforcement of the laws is turned over to those of one
political party, who will swear beforehand that they will not
enforce those laws. The choice between war and peace is turned over
to those of one political party, who stand to gain vast wealth by
ensuring that there is never peace, but only war.
And now, when just one cooked book gets corrected by an honest
auditor, when just one trampling of the inherent and inviolable
fairness of government is rejected by an impartial judge, when just
one wild-eyed partisan is stopped by the figure of blind justice,
this President decides that he, and not the law, must prevail.
I accuse you, Mr. Bush, of lying this country into war.
I accuse you of fabricating in the minds of your own people, a
false implied link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.
I accuse you of firing the generals who told you that the plans for
Iraq were disastrously insufficient.
I accuse you of causing in Iraq the needless deaths of 3,586 of our
brothers and sons, and sisters and daughters, and friends and
neighbors.
I accuse you of subverting the Constitution, not in some misguided
but sincerely-motivated struggle to combat terrorists, but to
stifle dissent.
I accuse you of fomenting fear among your own people, of creating
the very terror you claim to have fought.
I accuse you of exploiting that unreasoning fear, the natural fear
of your own people who just want to live their lives in peace, as a
political tool to slander your critics and libel your opponents.
I accuse you of handing part of this Republic over to a Vice
President who is without conscience, and letting him run roughshod
over it.
And I accuse you now, Mr. Bush, of giving, through that Vice
President, carte blanche to Mr. Libby, to help defame Ambassador
Joseph Wilson by any means necessary, to lie to Grand Juries and
Special Counsel and before a court, in order to protect the
mechanisms and particulars of that defamation, with your guarantee
that Libby would never see prison, and, in so doing, as Ambassador
Wilson himself phrased it here last night, of becoming an accessory
to the obstruction of justice.
When President Nixon ordered the firing of the Watergate special
prosecutor Archibald Cox during the infamous “Saturday Night
Massacre” on October 20th, 1973, Cox initially responded tersely,
and ominously.
“Whether ours shall be a government of laws and not of men, is now
for Congress, and ultimately, the American people.”
President Nixon did not understand how he had crystallized the
issue of Watergate for the American people.
It had been about the obscure meaning behind an attempt to break in
to a rival party’s headquarters; and the labyrinthine effort to
cover-up that break-in and the related crimes.
And in one night, Nixon transformed it.
Watergate-instantaneously-became a simpler issue: a President
overruling the inexorable march of the law of insisting-in a way
that resonated viscerally with millions who had not previously
understood - that he was the law.
Not the Constitution. Not the Congress. Not the Courts. Just him.
Just - Mr. Bush - as you did, yesterday.
The twists and turns of Plame-Gate, of your precise and intricate
lies that sent us into this bottomless pit of Iraq; your lies upon
the lies to discredit Joe Wilson; your lies upon the lies upon the
lies to throw the sand at the “referee” of Prosecutor Fitzgerald’s
analogy. These are complex and often painful to follow, and too
much, perhaps, for the average citizen.
But when other citizens render a verdict against your man, Mr.
Bush-and then you spit in the faces of those jurors and that judge
and the judges who were yet to hear the appeal-the average citizen
understands that, Sir.
It’s the fixed ballgame and the rigged casino and the pre-arranged
lottery all rolled into one-and it stinks. And they know it.
Nixon’s mistake, the last and most fatal of them, the firing of
Archibald Cox, was enough to cost him the presidency. And in the
end, even Richard Nixon could say he could not put this nation
through an impeachment.
It was far too late for it to matter then, but as the decades
unfold, that single final gesture of non-partisanship, of
acknowledged responsibility not to self, not to party, not to
“base,” but to country, echoes loudly into history. Even Richard
Nixon knew it was time to resign
Would that you could say that, Mr. Bush. And that you could say it
for Mr. Cheney. You both crossed the Rubicon yesterday. Which one
of you chose the route, no longer matters. Which is the
ventriloquist, and which the dummy, is irrelevant.
But that you have twisted the machinery of government into nothing
more than a tawdry machine of politics, is the only fact that
remains relevant.
It is nearly July 4th, Mr. Bush, the commemoration of the moment we
Americans decided that rather than live under a King who made up
the laws, or erased them, or ignored them-or commuted the sentences
of those rightly convicted under them-we would force our
independence, and regain our sacred freedoms.
We of this time-and our leaders in Congress, of both parties-must
now live up to those standards which echo through our history:
Pressure, negotiate, impeach-get you, Mr. Bush, and Mr. Cheney, two
men who are now perilous to our Democracy, away from its helm.
For you, Mr. Bush, and for Mr. Cheney, there is a lesser task. You
need merely achieve a very low threshold indeed. Display just that
iota of patriotism which Richard Nixon showed, on August 9th, 1974.
Resign.
And give us someone-anyone-about who
m all of us might yet be able to quote John Wayne, and say,
“I didn’t vote for him, but he’s my president, and I hope he does a good job.”