George W. Bush: A Great Man Doing A Great Job
by Joseph C. Hinson
March 11, 2002

Last night I was in my old IRC chat room, #CafeNothing. There were only three of us there. Eej was talking about the CBS show on the 9/11 attacks. I didn't see it and she was apparently somewhat repulsed by it. The conversation went from there and I said something there that I've said here, that I do not understand how it was that the planes were missing for so long and no one seemed to notice, even after the first plane went into the first tower. I commented that even President Bush said his first reaction was that "that was a bad pilot." This is a quote from him from sometime after that day when asked about his recollection of what he thought when he first heard the news.

Eej went off on me. She said she hated how people were criticizing Bush over how he has handled everything since the attacks. She seemed to suggest that it was wrong for anyone to do so. Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott must agree with her. Trent Lott apparently thinks that anyone who doesn't follow in lock step with the president is guilty of, well, something.

I must say that George Bush is a great man doing a great job. I must say that, because evidently if I don't, I am anti-American in some way.

Lott went after Majority Leader Tom Daschle last week after the latter complained that President Bush did not fully apprise congressional leaders regarding the so-called "shadow government." The shadow government has been set up in bunkers outside Washington in case the capital is leveled by another attack. I do wish they had decided to call this contingency plan something a little less sinister. Maybe The Syndicate. Everytime I hear anything about the shadow government, I start whistling "The X Files" theme.

Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Daschle said the administration should provide Congress with "the operational information that would allow us to make as good a judgment about the overall success of the operation and the need for the resources that the president has requested. That is a constitutional obligation, that isn't just something nice to know. It's something we need to know."

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle

Lott went ballistic. "How dare Senator Daschle criticize President Bush while we are fighting our war on terrorism, especially when we have troops in the field!" If you follow the man's logic, you cannot speak badly against a president as long as there is a war going on. Lyndon Johnson certainly would have loved to hear about this.

Of course, this only goes so far. Lott saw things differently in 1999, when U.S. troops were on the ground in Kosovo. At the time, in asking President Clinton to clarify his policy in the Balkans, Lott said, "I think the president needs to show leadership. I think the president needs to tell Congress what the plans are. There are a lot of unanswered questions here." President Clinton often got the raw end of the deal. When he bombed what was allegedly "just" a pharmaceutical plant in Saudi Arabi, Lott and other Republicans claimed Clinton was just trying to deflect attention from the impeachment debacle. One wonders if Clinton had went after bin Laden, if the Republicans would have continued with their bashing. One gets the feeling that the Republicans don't particularly care about the outcome; they just want to make the Democrats look un-Amerian, un-Christian and against apple pie.

Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott

Of course, Lott had every right to call Clinton on this if he so chose. In fact, members of Congress have a constitutional duty to examine and challenge any administration's policies, at home or abroad. As well, the American public should be able to say what they want about any member of government no matter whether we are at war or not.

If questioning the actions of the president is akin to treason, this nation is in real trouble. I mean, Jesus, this is a man who recently waved at Stevie Wonder! For crying out loud!

While stifling debate might help Bush, Lott and their cronies politically for now, it is likely to be damaging for them in the long run. The president is fond of saying that terrorists have targeted America because its people revere freedom. But open dissent is one of the things that keeps us free. There is an inherent danger when this right is at risk. We lose something of ourselves, of our country, our Constitution. And no number of wars will ever get that back.

Since 9/11, people have been accosted and arrested for something that more often than not turns out to be nothing. Some examples:

• Atlanta police heard that a young man was taking photos of a downtown federal building, only to find that he was researching an architecture class project.
• In Amherst, N.Y., police responded to repairmen who thought they'd seen a photo of Osama bin Laden in an apartment, and a postman who said he'd delivered a letter with Arabic writing. But officers soon learned that the individual was an innocent engineering student.
• In Los Angeles, officers constantly receive reports about bags left unattended around City Hall - which inevitably belong to homeless people.
• More than four months after the terrorist attacks of September 11, Justice Department records show that nearly 500 Middle Eastern detainees remain in jail -- the vast majority of them arrested by federal agents after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. While the initial pace of detentions has died down, human-rights advocates are growing increasingly concerned about the plight of those being held. According to documents released by the Justice Department late last week, 725 people have been detained for immigration violations since September 11. Fewer than half of them have been released.
• “Our greatest concern is that we’ll turn the war against terrorism into a war against immigrants. We’re quite concerned that the shroud of secrecy does not allow the American public the ability to scrutinize government actions.” -- Anthony Romero, executive director for the American Civil Liberties Union

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