Radiofree West Hartford - OCCUPATION: SCAPEGOAT by Tim Siggia

OCCUPATION: SCAPEGOAT

By Tim Siggia

May 18, 2006

Name: George W. Bush

Age: 59

Hometown: Crawford, Texas

Temporary Occupation: President of the United States

Permanent Occupation: Scapegoat

If you close your eyes, you can practically see it: the champagne flowing at the offices of the New York Times, the glasses clinking at CBS News, the dancing and merrymaking at the headquarters of MoveOn.org and the DNC. At long last, they've finally done it. They've finally turned America against its chief executive, as they gleefully report in the opinion polls that now get generated about 85 times a day, each one showing George W. Bush's approval ratings dipping lower and lower. It is no accident. Rather, it is the result of relentless campaign by the combined forces of the Democratic Party, the "mainstream" news media, and the endless list of 527 groups financed by George Soros and other liberal bankrollers. Now the opinion makers are even getting people to seriously consider impeachment. Ya-hoo, yee-hah! A Democrat in the White House in 2008 now looms inevitable, or so, at least, would practically every talking head in America not on Fox News have us all believe.

Consider all that Mr. Bush is being charged with these days. According to his ever-growing army of detractors, he has:

started the war in Iraq, to which there is now no end in sight, and sent our young men and women overseas to be killed.
taken prisoners without due process and deprived them of their civil rights.
imposed tax cuts to help the wealthy, and widened the gap between rich and poor.
collaborated with "Big Oil" to drive up the cost of gasoline, fuel oil, and natural gas.
arranged sweetheart deals with Halliburton for war-related contracts overseas, allowing that company to bypass the bidding process.
engineered the 9-11 attacks to make them look like terrorist attacks.

Oh, yes! There are those who actually believe that 9-11 was the work of George W. Bush, that the airliners involved never actually made contact with the Twin Towers, that those buildings were in fact imploded, and that Osama bin Laden was framed. But whether or not most Americans do believe this, they do believe that Mr. Bush is guilty of most of the rest of it. The "mainstream" media, of course, has been complicit in fanning the flames of such feelings. As Mark Twain once facetiously remarked about how churches unfairly treat Satan, "We have heard only the case for the prosecution, and on that we render the verdict! This -- is un-English! It is un-American! (long pause) It is French."

How appropriate that comment rings today in the trial-by-media of George W. Bush!

No matter what is wrong in the world, Bush is to blame for it. It is his fault, not bin Laden's, that there were four separate attacks on America on September 11, 2001. It is his fault, not Saddam Hussein's, that we are at war with Iraq. Iraqi citizens hate Bush and want the Americans out of their country, despite strong evidence to the contrary that is routinely suppressed by the "objective and impartial" news media. It is his fault, not OPEC's, that the price of oil is up. And yes, Halliburton did get those contracts. Why? Because it just happens to be the only company in the world able to do that particular job, a minor fact conveniently omitted in "mainstream" media reports. It is his fault that the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts were bungled. It is his fault that there even was a Hurricane Katrina in the first place. It is his fault that I had a bad day at work the other day. And yes, it is his fault that I now have diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. I had none of these conditions before Bush became president. They all happened on his watch!

To be sure, the presidency of George W. Bush has been far from perfect, and conservatives have reasons of their own to be irritated with him. There has been more government growth and spending under his administration than there was in that of Bill Clinton. He signed McCain-Feingold into law, knowing full well that it was unconstitutional. He allowed Ted Kennedy to literally write our education policy with the No Child Left Behind policy. He passed the most expensive government entitlement program since the days of the Great Society with the Medicare Prescription Plan. He campaigned against conservative Republican Pat Toomey's challenge to Pennsylvania senator Arlen Specter's seat in the U. S. Senate, and thus allowed the liberal Specter to become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

But let us consider some of the other things he has done. He passed a series of tax cuts which, despite endless howls from the left, have ultimately served to enrich our economy, with even the "mainstream" media now forced to reluctantly acknowledge the growth in income and the low unemployment figures. He has answered the challenge of Osama bin Laden, and sent him into hiding. He has passed stringent security measures, including the much-vilified Patriot Act, which have served to thwart numerous planned attacks on America in the vein of 9-11. He has removed the oppressive regime of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and given people there their first real taste of freedom, with girls now allowed to go to school where they previously had not been. Similarly, he has crushed the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and Saddam himself is now in the hands of his enemies. In Iraq, schools and hospitals are being built, and sanitation now exists where it did not before. And, ironically enough, as adults at home howl about their sons and daughters being sent to Iraq to be killed, reenlistment rates in the armed forces are higher now than they have ever been.

Never mind all this, however. Big Media is having its celebratory moment right now, and see themselves at the culmination of a six-year crusade to depose Bush and the hated Republicans, and install Al Gore to what they consider his place of entitlement in the White House. It doesn't really have to be Gore, actually. Any Democrat whose name isn't Zell Miller will do. In the meantime, however, they have accomplished one major objective: the demonization of George W. Bush in the mind of Average America. Hating Bush is now the national pastime. Baseball has been relegated to Number Two.