I have got to tell you: Just when you think life has gotten as surreal as it could possibly get, suddenly the Gods of Satire look down upon you and throw some interesting stuff your way.
Here's the story from the beginning...
Today, as I was driving to work, I heard a siren in the distance. Being the law abiding citizen that I am, I pulled over as I'm required by law to do. In my rear-view mirror, I could see the strangest contraption heading my way.
A red mirage? ...No.
A red fire truck...? Well... that would be using that phrase very loosely!
As it passed by me and pulled in front of me, I could see it more clearly. And the kindest thing anyone could say about the little red thingie making it's way up the road is that it was a fire truck wanna-be -- a cross between a jeep and a dunebuggy, painted red, and looking amazingly like a child's toy.
At least its presence provided a good laugh between my daughter and I as I resumed driving the long trek to work -- all the while following the little do-hickey fire jeep with the funny bars on top and its flashing red light. Before too long, it was just a tiny red blob in the distance.
Of course everyone knows where there's little red fire trucks, there's smoke, and where there's smoke, there's fire.
After following the little red jeep heading north, I shouldn't have been very surprised when I hit the highway and discovered the highway had turned into a parking lot waiting to greet me. (Lovely! Say goodbye to arriving to work on time!)
So there I was, sitting motionless on the highway, when it occurred to me, there was no traffic going the opposite direction! A little warning bell rang in my head as I inched my way forward in the traffic.
Eventually, I got to the trouble spot -- you know that spot, it's called, "Gawkerville" -- it's the place with the prime view, where everyone and their neighbor gathers to point at and watch with awe and glee whatever terrible thing has happened to someone else.
In this case, given the amount of gawkers and the lack of westbound traffic, I knew the problem was going to be a doozey. That's when I saw the four fire trucks, the one police car, a tow truck, and... (you guessed it!) my baby dunebuggy-fire-truck wanna-be up on the hillside with another wanna-be fire-truck-buggy racing along side him.
Imagine... the two dunebuggies swerving back and forth, running around in circles, speeding up and down the hillside next to the highway for about a half a mile. The charred dirt, still smoking, lay in their wake.
Not a pretty sight, but the scorched earth was another reminder of the old saying... where there's smoke there's fire.
Later, after I returned home, I saw this:
Bush orders Miers to defy House subpoena
Sara Taylor refuses to testify about firings
White House Invokes Executive Privilege In Tillman Investigation
And I also saw the videoof President Bush's press conference from yesterday. (Yes, I'm talking about the one in which he's all but saying, "Move along, move along..." the same way the police were doing that to us on that gawker-filled highway.) But here it is as translated into written Bush-Speak for the tv-impaired:
THE PRESIDENT: Michael, I -— first of all, the Scooter Libby decision was, I thought, a fair and balanced decision. Secondly, I haven’t spent a lot of time talking about the testimony that people throughout my administration were forced to give as a result of the special prosecutor. I didn’t ask them during the time and I haven’t asked them since.
I’m aware of the fact that perhaps somebody in the administration did disclose the name of that person, and I’ve often thought about what would have happened had that person come forth and said, I did it. Would we have had this, you know, endless hours of investigation and a lot of money being spent on this matter? But it’s been a tough issue for a lot of people in the White House, and it’s run its course and now we’re going to move on.
There's enough smoke around here to set off a city's worth of smoke detectors -- if we're lucky, maybe even a nation's!
Clearly, the Bush administration has jumped into their own little red fire trucks and are frantically trying to put out the flames that have been revealed by Congress's active oversight.
They have a big problem though. They have too many fires: a little lie here, an outing of a spy there, leaking a spy's name here, a little commutation there, a little firing of qualified prosecutors here, a little bit of tax money spent on Republican campaigns there, a little RNC email server here, a little embarrassed executive power there...
Their little toy fire-truck wanna-be's cannot move around fast enough to smother the flames. And there's so much smoke that we, the people, are not falling for their propaganda any longer either.
Ed Schultz said it best: "I think it’s a tired act, it’s an old act, it’s the same old stuff. He’s basically trying to buy some time..."
The problem for them is that all this smoke has left a scorched administration and a scorched party in the public's eyes. The black clouds of smoke lingering over Cheney and the sparks of corruption flaring from the White House have wormed their way into the peoples' consciousness now.
Thus, despite the White House's best efforts, more and more people agree with Ed Schultz and are calling out for impeachment. And how many more will agree, now that Bill Moyer's Journal has presented a damning case for impeachment that all the general public can see?
Let Bush and his gang keep circling their little red fire trucks. It's not going to work because even the most uninvolved citizens know that where there's smoke, there's fire. They understand that the obstruction of justice investigation is increasing exponentially, much like one tiny spark can cause a huge forest fire.
Gawking at the Bush administration frantically trying to smother these fires as quickly as the investigations keep revealing them is quite entertaining. But I see my role in this differently. I see myself as a little fire-starter (symbolically speaking, of course) by keeping the heat on them, and by not letting them put out those fires before each person who crosses my path understands their crimes.
I've got my torch, and it says, "Impeachment!" And I intend to carry it with me wherever I go. My torch is the truth and a cell phone. Because each time I reveal the truth to someone, I offer them my phone with this special number pre-dialed for them:
202-224-3121.
And now they can carry the torch, their phones, and that number too.
Does your heart burn for impeachment the way mine does? If so... grab your torch, grab your phone, and let's keep those flames alive together!
(Reprinted with the author's permission from the Democracy Cell Project)