COHEN As School Districts Choose Fictions Such As "To Kill A Mockingbird," Why Doesn't D.C. Choose The Bush Budget? 03.05.02 www.bushwatch.com

ARG Bush Approval Rating Drops 12 Percent 03.05.02 www.bushwatch.com

WP As Bush Practices Traditional Blame Game, He Breaks One More Campaign Promise 03.05.02 www.bushwatch.com

DIONNE Despite His Campaign Promise, The Bush Era Is Shaping Up To Be The Most Divisive Since The Early 70's 03.05.02 www.bushwatch.com

LAT ED Daschle Is Correct, Bush Has No Right To Keep The American People, Congress Out Of The Loop 03.05.02 www.bushwatch.com

NYT ED As More Americans Die, Bush Should Better Inform The People About The War 03.05.02 www.bushwatch.com

AP White House Prevents Bush's Homeland Security Dir. Ridge From Testifying To Congress 03.05.02 www.bushwatch.com

NYT Forget The Law, Bush Dept. Warns That All Baggage Will Not Be Screened For Bombs By End Of Year 03.05.02 www.bushwatch.com

NYT As Threat Warnings Continue, Congress Takes Its Time To Begin 9/11 Investigation 03.05.02 www.bushwatch.com

SMH "Afghans aghast as US military chiefs blunder into ambush" 03.05.02 www.bushwatch.com

NYT No Easy Victory Is Seen in Fierce Afghan Battle 03.05.02 www.bushwatch.com

CSM U.S. Is Now In A Riskier Kind Of War 03.05.02 www.bushwatch.com

KRISTOF We Think Saudis And Pakistanis Are Blind To Their Support Of Terrorism, But What About Our Similar Blindness In Angola? 03.05.02 www.bushwatch.com

WP Critics Fear BushAdmin Has Overlooked Human Rights Violations Of War Allies 03.05.02 www.bushwatch.com

ARCHIVES The Documents: Looking At Bush's Own Military Record 03.05.02 www.bushwatch.com

CSM Behind Bush War On Drugs In Colombia Is The War For Oil 03.05.02 www.bushwatch.com

KRUGMAN Bush Social Security Advocates Should Make Their Case With Math That Adds Up 03.05.02 www.bushwatch.com

NYT Senate Unable To End Debate On Election Overhaul 03.05.02 www.bushwatch.com

MORRICE Bush Family Will Have To Go On Without Enron's Support Of Their Favorite Charities 03.05.02 www.bushwatch.com

NYT Despite Agreement, Enron Execs Are Still In Control Of Employees' Pension Funds 03.05.02 www.bushwatch.com

REUTERS Bush Decides To Stiff Hundreds Of Thousands Of Steel Retirees Re Pensions 03.05.02 www.bushwatch.com

CSM Bush Nuke Trash Decision Could Lose Nevada For Him 03.05.02 www.bushwatch.com

CSM Most Polls See Jeb Beating Reno By 20 Points 03.05.02 www.bushwatch.com

NYT Senate Bill Says Beef Is Not Irradiated, It's...Err..."Pasteurized." 03.05.02 www.bushwatch.com

WP ED Copyright Owners Have Been Paying Off Congress To Extend And Extend Copyright. This Is Not In Our Best Interest And Should Stop. 03.05.02 www.bushwatch.com

Who Knows?
© March 5, 2002
The Daily Brew

First, his brother rigged the election by illegally purging voters from the roles, but he still didn't get enough to win. So his political party paid a mob of their employees to start a riot and stop the votes from getting counted. A few days later, a couple of judges with family members on his payroll provided the decisive votes to declare him the winner.

Within a year, he was repeatedly bragging that he had hit the "trifecta", by which he meant a war, a recession, and a national emergency. It was a strange thing to brag about, but it was true, all three had come to pass since his coup de tat.

The recession began when it became obvious that massive deficits would be brought on by his tax cut, the vast majority of which went to a tiny minority of millionaires who had funded his startling ascension to the pinnacle of global power. The war began after his surrogates deliberately threatened well-known terrorists with imminent extermination, while simultaneously softening the nation's key defenses against those very terrorists. As it happened, the attacks came while he was setting the record for the most time any President had ever spent away from his office. The terrorists then attacked the greatest super-power the world has ever known with knives, as he scurried about looking for someplace even more remote to hide.

During the days after the attacks he grounded all air traffic, but an exception was made for the relatives of the terrorists, who had prior business dealings with his father, who were allowed to fly out of the country. Simultaneously, the leader of the only branch of the government not controlled by his party was attacked with biological weapons, which almost certainly originated from an individual associated with an agency under his direct authority, or one of their contractors. While the opposition leader survived, the biological attacks forced he and his colleagues from their offices for months.

An irrational fear among the populace was then fomented by repeated announcements of unspecific threats of future terrorist attacks, attacks which never materialized. The pseudo-hysteria this propaganda campaign was able to muster was labeled a national emergency, and while the opposition party was unable to occupy their offices, he declared a never-ending war against an amorphous collection of enemies scattered everywhere across the globe. Despite the fact that he could not definitively identify the goals or combatants of this war, he demanded the country go into hundreds of billions of dollars of debt to pursue it. Leaders from his party attacked the patriotism of any who dared question any aspect of this ambiguous plan, and accused them of conspiring with the enemy. His military commanders announced that they would deliberately lie to the media but then later retracted the announcement, begging reporters to ask the question; where they lying then, or were they lying now?

It was impossible to tell, because from the minute he entered office, he systematically removed from public view all government records related not only to his administration, but also from his father's, dating back more than 20 years. He is currently fighting several lawsuits, one by the government's own independent auditors, to maintain the secrecy of those records. At the same time, he has freely released any records of his predecessor that could conceivably embarrass or discredit him. His surrogates have repeatedly lied about his predecessor, his commanders have repeatedly lied about events on the battlefield, and his Vice President has moved to a secure location, from which he refuses to release records related to the biggest bankruptcy in history of the world. Simultaneously, his senior staff set up a shadow government from secure facilities far away. The legislative branch was only informed of this shadow government through a press leak.

Who knows what the future holds?...