My first reaction to George W. Bush’s all-too-obvious politicizing of the memories of September 11, 2001, in his latest lame attempt to justify his illegal and immoral war in Iraq, was anger.

Than anger gave way to sadness.

Sadness over a morality-challenged politician’s use of the deaths of 3,000 plus Americans for his own political gain.

And even more sadness because there are still people out there stupid enough to fall for this kind of crap.

Bush has pulled this stunt before. He keeps 9/11 in his bag of tricks as a last-ditch effort to save his corrupt political hide when things go bad. And, according to polls, things are bad. An increasing majority of Americans no longer buy his lies about Iraq and oppose the war along with growing numbers who finally realize the President of the United States is a liar who cannot be trusted.

Reality, however, will not stop the dwindling numbers of Bushites from defending their failed leader to the end – and it is that maniacal devotion to Bush that may signal the end to America as we know it.

Sometimes it is difficult to decide who to fear the most – the ethically-bankrupt President whose madness drives what was once the greatest country on earth closer and closer to ruin or the blind, brain-dead lemmings who continue to follow him into the abyss.

In more normal times we might be able to dismiss Bush’s followers as just another gaggle of misguided political miscreants who bet on the wrong horse and now try to justify that mistake.

But these are not normal times and the wild-eyed fanatics who continue to buy this charlatan’s snake oil are, in too many ways, as dangerous as Bush himself.

Bush and his klavern of crooks, con-men and thieves have turned this nation into a monster that threatens world peace, an arrogant bomb-throwing bully who poses a far-greater danger than any Islam-spouting lunatic with a turban.

When you get past the hyperbole and sound bite rants of the rabid right, you are left with one sad fact – the United States of America, a nation that once prided itself in never, ever, being the aggressor in a conflict, invaded another nation on false pretenses, a nation that posed no immediate threat to us or our way of life.

It is no longer Osama bin Laden and his fanatical followers who pose the greatest threat to the future of this country. It is George W. Bush and his equally-fanatical, zoned-out legions who buy into his destructive, anti-American actions.

Osama’s still at large and still planning ways to attack this country but he remains at large because Bush ordered the military to all-but-abandon the search for the Al Qaeda leader and divert resources to an ill-conceived, ill-planned and ill-executed illegal invasion of Iraq.

Now the Army admits it is planning for “at least” four more years in Iraq as the death toll of young American men and women races headlong towards 2,000.

So a desperate George W. Bush goes to the well once more, invoking the memories of September 11, 2001 to try and save his political skin.

We can hope, of course, that this blatant political opportunism won’t work. We can hope that Americans will finally see through the sham that is Bush and the fanatics who follow him.

We can hope that Americans recognize that more than one terrorist seeks to destroy America and that the most dangerous terrorist of all lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

By Doug Thompson

08/22/05