The latest rat to flee the Bush administration's sinking ship is presidential mouthpiece
Scott McClellan. While I'll miss having McClellan's lying, smug presence gracing the briefing room, you can be sure that his replacment will do little to bring a breath of fresh air to a suffocating White House.
McClellan isn't the first high-profile West Wing departure in recent weeks, changes billed as a re-invigoration of the top brass. Nor will he be the last. And while the clamoring for Donald Rumsfeld's ouster grows, President Bush Tuesday made sure to remind Americans that he's the "decider," not us.
I hate to burst your bubble, Mr. President, but that's simply not true. You may claim you're the decider, just as you claimed to be a uniter and a compassionate conservative. But now, Mr. President, we're the deciders. You've done enough to hurt this country. And we've decided that it's time for a change.
We've decided that, no matter which underlings you replace, the cancer remains. Do you honestly belive, Mr. President, that replacing your chief of staff, spokesman and other mid-level officials changes the climate in Washington? As long as you, your vice president and your secretary of defense, to name a few, remain, nothing will have changed other than the official Bush administration staff directory. And everyone knows it.
We've decided that it's time to get out of Iraq. You knew that basing a pre-emptive war on lies, half-truths and faulty evidence wouldn't work over the long run. Not only that, but you've also refused to send our troops into a deadly situation with the proper support, just as you've ignored the military leaders warning you against the course of action you followed. And, because of you, Vice President Cheney and Rumsfeld, more than 2,300 Americans made the ultimate sacrifice. Mission accomplished.
We've decided that a second pre-emptive war is out of the question. Iran isn't Iraq, and the implications of a massive attack there are far greater and far deadlier than any of us could imagine. We've seen you panic in the face of inflated threats of your own creation before. We don't want to see it again. There's no rush to a military solution when a diplomatic one is still possible. Yet you're doing the same things you did before we attacked Iraq. Only this time, your actions could bring about World War III.
We've decided that it's time for honesty and integrity from our president. Ever since you took office, Mr. President, you've been incapable of being straight with the American people. In fact, you and your surrogates have turned dishonesty into an artform. You're just as afraid to face your citizens as you are to face the facts. You can't speak to Americans or the troops without it being staged.
We've decided that we're ready to hear from the religious left. In your America, Mr. President, unless you're a far-right, anti-choice, anti-family bigot shrouding yourself in a free-market vision of faith as a tool of persecution, you simply don't count. We're ready tor religious leaders who speak about caring and compassion in the same manner today's leaders speak about detachment and disregard. If there can be room in the Oval Office for an End Timer bent on apocalypse, there should be room in America for athiests who are tired of having others' irrationalities placed upon them.
We've decided that we're tired of you, Mr. President. We're tired of you being the decider. We're tired of you deciding who lives and who dies. Who deserves equal rights and who doesn't. Who can chase the American dream and who can't. Who's an American and who's a traitor. Who wins and who loses.
The most important words to remember in this case aren't you shouting, "I"m the decider." No, Mr President, they come from the preamble to the very document you treat with such wanton disrespect, the U.S. Constitution: "We the People ..." Starting this fall, you'll come to respect the power of those three words. Three simple words, but words imbued with the power to set things right again.
You're not the decider, Mr. President. We are.
