Is this week in Ohio really news? Not if you read the local accounts. The Akron Beacon Journal's rendering of Bush's visit is overwhelmingly positive, with any critical response relegated deep into the story (here: http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/breaking_news/14150473.htm). Americans keep on swallowing the same old lies. We seem to still believe in America as an exception, but the reality is that America and Americans are no more good, honest, kind than the rest of the world. Americans, like everyone else, go along to get along. How could the East Bloc go from communist to capitalist overnight? Because the vast majority of the population didn't really care who was in control, certainly not enough to try to do something about it. The USA, with its dubiously elected administration, is in the same boat. We will limp along with our pathetic leaders until people can no longer afford to drive their SUVS, make the payments on their houses, etc. Until then, we really couldn't care if Washington is run by lying warmongers.

Already can't afford their homes or cars, forget about SUVs. And forget what the media says, Bush is in very sad shape even if no one acknowleges it. You have to listen to NPR. They gave a list of all who deserted him in Ohio, and it was so pleasing for me to hear alone in my '95 Mercury Sable station wagon in front of my broken down garage. I'm not terribly educated so I can only respond to Garrison basically on an emotional level and let myself indulge in the fantasy that he weaves. Imagining Dubya dumping Cheney while we all at Salon say, "but that's just what GK said to do! He's taking his advice--this is great! He must not be brain dead after all. Maybe he IS reachable." But no, again just fantasy, but a good one.

You said it well. We've always regarded the Constitution as bedrock for our republic, but now we see how fragile a thing it can be when tended by the craven and the incurious. It's going to take some rebuilding when all this is said and done, and I hope we can find people willing to take on the task.

Bush isn't the real President. Cheney is. For Bush to tell

Cheney to resign would be for Bush to get above Bush's place.

Wouldn't do. Wouldn't do at all.

As to what Bush could do for our country, to make up for

all he has done against it: stay on, loyally serving his

"Vice President", and fall apart with such spectular light

shows and sound effects that he Hooverizes and Nixonates the

whole Republican Party and the whole Conservative Movement.

His Party. His Movement. Not mine. And hopefully not

America's anymore, once the CheneyBushites get done with it.

Is W really incompetent? Its tempting to think he is someone in a job that he is not capable of doing correctly, that he is out of his depth. That explanation fits with his general inability to speak in public and the liberal characterization of him as a clueless dumb-ass.

However, I think the situation is actually worse than that. I think he is not incompetent, just wrong. He knew what he was doing when he got us involved in Iraq and he knew what the consequences were. He knew it would be a quagmire. He knew all of that and he still went ahead with his plan. Furthermore, he lied in order to get everyone to go along with him and his neocon buddies.

Why did he do this? He did it because the warped geopolitical view of the neocons said that it should be done. They believe that a democracy must be established in the middle-east, no matter what the cost.

I think we liberals need to stop characterizing W as simply incompetent. Instead, we need to point out that the invasion of Iraq was planned from day one of the administration, that W lied to get us involved, and that the administration knew that it would be a quagmire.

Choice. Really fine article. Still to ask to peacock to drop his tail when he is defined by it...not gonna happen.

I say he's in too deep.

Let the blind lead the blind. Soon they'll fall into a ditch somewhere together.

The domino effect has already begun...

Dumping Cheney would be tantamount to admitting that Cheney is the one running the government, thus confirming what many suspect, Bush is merely a figurehead. It might change the subject for a while, but it would do nothing to bolster the image of the President as competent.

I have a better idea. I am far more interested in fixing the US's image, then I am Bushes. Let's show the world that we are not the incompetent fools that believe us to be and dump Bush.

and to imagine he airs it for the farmers and flyedover. I remember how delicious it was when he surfaced almost magically in Time magazine to disembowel Newt's revolution with his feather pen. Nobody does nitwits better. Garrison you may be America's finest treasure. Please continue to take the measure of the shrub!

Bush has succeeded at every one of his goals. He has enriched is father and his father friends. He has driven French and Russian oil companies away from Iraq such that US oil companies are likely to eventually pocket that windfall whatever happens politically or militarily in the short run. He has eliminated much of the regulation on corporations. The only area in which his success has been only partial has been in privatizing social wealth in health, education, social security, and the military. Finally, he has spiked what little democracy our national founders afforded us so that those actions of his administration that are technically criminal will probably go unpunished. Barring a political cataclism, he has assured himself of the only legacy that he or most Republicans are interested in...increasing their wealth.

Likewise, when Kissinger and MacNamara are in the company of their powerful friends, they are worshipped and richly compensated for using Vietnam to smash the third world empowerment movement of the '60's thus preserving neo-imperialism and the vast machine of wealth concentration that we see today. Their only cost is that, when speaking publicly, they have to avoid defending themselves by explaining their real aims so as to keep these aims a bit quiet.

Throughout the history of imperialism, being thought of poorly by liberals has been a small price for the imperialist leaders to pay.

Perhaps if anti-imperialists talked about reality we might be more successful. Eventually the charges of "communist" etc. might wear thin. Of course, liberals in academia or media or entertainment can't do this because they would lose their careers before those charges did wear thin.