ENOUGH

The Press needs a few more modern day Murrows to get the country back on track.

Enough, already. Enough with a clueless and irresponsible President who has ordered the torture of innocent human beings, trashed the Constitution, and degraded the military. Enough with spineless crapweasel Democrats who have the power to stop the war by refusing to fund another dollar without deadlines to get the troops out of Iraq. Enough with an apathetic, dysfunctional press which won’t report the facts, fails to follow up stories, fails to put stories in context, and generally treats words coming out of the mouths of public officials as profound truths not deserving the slightest investigation.

We have had over four years of war, over six years of contempt for the liberties enshrined in our Constitution, and, from day one of the Bush Administration, the most incompetent and lawless government in our nation’s proud 231 year history.

Where is the public servant who will rise up and tell the nation that there is a third option to get us out of Iraq without leaving complete anarchy and a collapsed civilization behind? I’m talking about taking 10 or 20 billion dollars from our seemingly infinite supply of funds for war making ($500 billion and counting wasted on Iraq) and paying Egypt and Jordan enough money to rent half of their standing armies to replace American soldiers in Iraq as peacekeepers. That way, the Iraqi people can sort out what kind of government they want with Arabic speaking Muslims there to prevent all out civil war.

Where is the public servant who will point out that the debate on health care isn’t about socialized medicine- as long as our doctors are their own bosses and hospitals can be privately owned, the medical system isn’t socialized- it’s about devoting our resources to providing health care for life threatening illnesses and catastrophic injuries costing tens of thousands of dollars that would otherwise drain families’ bank accounts and force parents to put out penny jars in local restaurants in a desperate effort to raise funds to pay their sick child’s hospital bills? It’s about letting companies compete overseas without the burden of billions in overhead from medical expenses. It’s about letting people choose jobs based on satisfaction rather than medical coverage.

Where is the Senator Majority Leader or House Speaker who will stand up and tell the President “no more?” No more torture. No more Guantanamo. No more “state secrets” defenses to prevent human beings deliberately injured by our government from obtaining justice in the courts. No more secret spying on Americans. No more fear mongering to railroad Congress and the American people into preemptive war against Iran.

Where is the press that will relentlessly put every word coming out of Washington in the context of what those same people said before on the same subject? When Dick Cheney says that “we will be greeted as liberators” (March 2003) or “the insurgency is in its last throes” (June 2005), then every public utterance by him on Iraq must be accompanied by the context of how profoundly wrong he was every time he opened his mouth. When Paul Wolfowitz says that Iraqi oil will pay for the war, which won’t cost us more than a few billion dollars (2003), then every time the President goes to Congress with his hand out, that quote should be in the headline.

And when President Bush says that we are in Iraq to prevent Al Qaida from getting a foothold, he should be reminded of his public statements that Iraq had nothing to do with the 9-11 attacks and our military’s findings that Al Qaida didn’t exist in Iraq until we invaded.

So enough already. Give us back our liberty, now. Get our troops out of Iraq, now. Stop torturing, imprisoning, and killing innocent human beings. Take the billions going to companies like Halliburton and Blackwater and use it to insure every sick child in America. Enough.