Worse Than Dickens: I'm Not a Actor in Dickens Stories, but I Play One in Real Life

Last week, columnist Maureen Dowd (Roanoke Times, January 29, 2006) drew an interesting allusion in her column titled "Delusion and illusion worthy of Dickens." Dowd's lament includes not only harsh criticism of Bush, but also the "cowed and colicky Democrats" who roll over and play dead for abusive administration and Republican congressional leaders.

Dowd writes of the Bush fantasy tour driving it's "truckload of lies around the country." And the lies continued Tuesday night. When Bush said he plans to cut dependence on Middle East oil, we are later told he didnd't mean it literally. When Bush signs a bill, he crosses his pinky or makes an I-don't-really-mean-it signing statement which, he thinks, exempts him from the law. This law-unto-himslef is so much more than the "unitary" executive he's claiming. One thing's for sure...

The Bully-in-Chief Doesn't Take No for an Answer. He's not too happy that Congress failed to pass his massive privatization of Social Security, erroneously called "reform" by Bush. You have to hand it to Bush. He's got nerve. If he doesn't win an election, he gets a buddy of his dad's on the Supreme Court to overturn it. And if he doesn't like that his grand scheme for privatizing of Social Security failed, then he keeps pushing. He thinks if he just explains it better to us, we'll see the "wisdom" of his idea. And since he thinks he knows better than we, he goes to town halls all over America to change our minds. He thinks that his road show (with its closed gatherings and planted questions) should change "misguided" Americans' minds. But he lost that fight too. We thought the issue was dead for now. Guess again. He just won't take no for an answer. In the SOTU, there he was dodging his menacing growl at Americans, trying to scare them, even order them into submission. The Bully-in-Chief thinks we'll change or minds, or just give up.

There's no imminent crisis with Social Security. And we know how to fix it in due time. In the 1980s a bipartisan commission studied and made adjustments that will see it through about 2040. The same type of approach is what's needed again when the time comes. But there's no crisis, except in the way Bush mismanages the nation's tax revenues. Neither Bush's bullying, nor his spendthrift ways, nor his cooked books should deceive Americans into buying into a ruinous privatization scheme. Such a plan will help only the buddies of Bush, who own the companies which will profit. The rest of us would be lucky to eat cake. To Bush, Americans are just so many urchins with hands out. That most Americans work harder than he ever has doesn't ever occur to him. He's running the country with long running sessions, abbreviated work days and a record number 9more than any president in history) of days goofing off. He funds his misguided adventures with our money and eats off our dime. He'll have a handy-dandy retirement. The rest of Americans need not apply, even for a paltry Social Security check. Let the real freeloader earn his keep, stop exploiting Americans, and stop biting the hand that feeds him.