There is a school of thought among those who run local journalism - as opposed to the bigger, sometimes better, sometimes not, national papers - that readers of local rags only want to read about their own neighborhoods and their own cities.
I can't argue that point scientifically, not having commissioned a poll or anything, but I can say from a personal point of view that people who read this paper regularly seem quite interested in things national.
Just the other day, while I was visiting a local tavern to down a semi-powerful libation with a friend from Olympia who stopped by to see the city sights from inside a bar, a youngish fella sort of sidled over. (By "youngish" I mean younger than moi.) He was wearing that "I think I know you look" that readers sometimes get. I assume their confusion is that in person I look a little like the Halloween picture gracing this space, and a little like Brad Pitt might look if he lives long enough. In other words, they think it might be me, but I seem sooo much more sauve-ish in person that they just aren't sure.
After introductions, this fella got down to it. He liked the column, but he felt, despite my many disclaimers about voting once for the elderly Bush back in the day, that I must be a Republican hater.
No, I assured him, it's Bush, Cheney, Rummy, Condi and their evil minions, like Tom DeLay, that stir the hairs on the back of my neck.
Heck, I told him, I've played golf with some Republicans.
This fella then said something most astonishing to me, since he didn't look that slow.
"Name a really bad or destructive thing they [Bush et al.] have done," he challenged.
This one time only, since I am not a fan of lists in columns, I will comply.
1) Almost immediately after assuming control of the White House five-plus long, dark years ago, President Pinhead sealed a bunch of formerly unsealed records from his daddy's administration. "National Security," they said.
2) The Downing Street Memo - that packet of old tired lies about weapons of mass destruction and African energy buys Saddam Hussein purportedly made. Lies the people spreading them from the White House must have known were untruths at the time, since later investigations have shown the true facts were known at the CIA and other places. Unless Bush never read any of those reports - a possibility, since he bragged of his lack of reading repeatedly until his poll numbers started sliding.
3) The no-bid contracts Halliburton was awarded to "reconstruct" Iraq. Billions of dollars of our money has disappeared, never to be seen again unless we somehow get a peek at Halliburton's books. You remember Halliburton, the corporation formerly headed by Dick Cheney.
4) How about all the pictures of Jack Abramoff (crooked lobbyist) with Bush Jr.?
4a) How about Ken Lay, the corrupt and thieving head of Enron (also known as Kenny Boy according to our prez)?
Despite Bush's problems remembering them now that they are convicted, he once knew them very well. How do you think they got away with what they got away with for so long? At the least, suspicious folks must have reassured themselves with the notion that any friend of the President ... well, he must be OK.
5) When did America, the country that calls itself the bastion of liberty, start torturing enemy combatants? And torturing guys who haven't even been proved to be enemy combatants?
5a) The Patriot Act, a draconian law the president claimed was essential to winning the war on terror, is now being used to arrest meth dealers and listen to the phone conversations of the citizenry at large. But we, those very citizens, don't need to know. We just must trust these same crooks who brought us the Iraq War in the first place under false pretenses.
6) You wouldn't know it by looking at all the condos rising on the Hill, but according to the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan outfit headquartered in D.C., making the president's tax cuts for the corporate rich permanent will prolong huge budget deficits into the next decade.
The United States of America currently has a projected fiscal-year debt of $337 billion!
There was a surplus under Bill Clinton a mere seven years ago, even though his policies certainly didn't punish the greedheads at the top who already own most of America. But it seems apparent that there is never enough money for the kinds of people who are currently pushing America down the road to financial and cultural ruin.
6a) The U.S. trade deficit widened to a record $68.5 billion in January.
I could go on, but this is a limited space. The above are just a few of the reasons I believe that historians, if that profession is allowed to continue (the truth may be a danger to national security), will put the current White House crew in the historical doghouse.
These are the worst, most corrupt (or oblivious) folks to run this country since I reached the age of reason. Much worse than Ike. Much worse than JFK and LBJ. Much worse than Nixon. Much worse than Ford. Much worse than Carter. These folks make the piracy and false patriotism of the Reagan era (remember ketchup as a vegetable and our triumph in Grenada?) look like daycare politics.
But, to end on a positive note, the latest polls show that more and more Americans seem to be waking up from their six-year sleep.
Bill Clinton this deep into his second term had approval ratings in the 65-percent range. As did that grand old Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower. Bush's ratings, in contrast, have slid to below 35 percent approval.
It's about time.
Dennis Wilken's column appears periodically in the BHN&SDJ. He can be reached at editor@sdistrictjournal.com.
[[In-content Ad]]
