When the weapons of mass destruction thing turned out to be not true, I expected the American people to rise up... they didn't.

Then, when the Abu Ghraib torture thing surfaced and it was revealed that our government participated in irendition, a practice where we kidnap people and turn them over to regimes who specialize in torture, I was sure then the American people would be heard from. We stood mute.

Then came the news that we jailed thousands of so-called terrorists suspects, locked them up without the right to a trial or even the right to confront their accusers. Certainly we would never stand for that, we did.

And now it's been discovered the executive branch has been conducting massive, illegal, domestic surveillance on its' own citizens. You and me. And I atleast consoled myself that finally, finally, the American people will have had enough. Evidentally we haven't.

In fact, if the people of this country have spoken, the message is we're okay with it all. Torture, warrantless search and seizure, illegal wiretappings, prison without a fair trial or any trial, war on false pretenses. We as a citizenry are apparently not offended.

There are no demonstrations on college campuses. In fact there's no clear indication that young people seem to notice.

...

She could have protested the old fashioned way, made a plackard and demonstrated at a presidential or vice-presidential appearance, but we've lost the right to that as well. The secret service can now declare free speech zones to contain, control and in effect criminalize protest.

Stop for a second and try to fathom that.

At a presidential rally, parade, or appearance, if you have on a supportive t-shirt... you can be there. If you are wearing or carrying something in protest, you can be removed.

This in the United States of America.

This in the United States of America.

...

What I'm most sick and tired of... is how every time somebody disagrees with how the government is handling things, he/she is labeled UN-AMERICAN.

(Lawyer: Evidentally it's speech time.)

And speech in this country is FREE, you hack! Free for me, free for you.

I object to governments abusing its power to squash the constitutional freedoms of its citizenry. And God forbid anybody challenge it, there smeared as being a heretic.

Melissa Hughes is an American!

Melissa Hughes is an American!

Melissa Hughes is an American!

...

Last night I went to bed with a book. Not as much fun as a 29yr. old, but the book contained a speech by Adlai Stevenson. The year was 1952, he said,

"The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live, and fear breeds repression. Too often, sinister threats to the bill of rights, to freedom of the mind are concealed under the patriotic cloak of anti-communism."

Today, it's the cloak of Anti-Terrorism. Stevenson also remarked, "It's far easier to fight for principles, than to live up to them."

I know we are all afraid, but the bill of rights... we have to live up to that. We simply must.

Day of reckoning for the Current Occupant

Garrison Keillor, Tribune Media Services
Published March 15, 2006


Spring arrived in New York last week for previews, a sunny day with chill in the air, but you could smell mud, and with a little imagination you could sort of smell grass. I put on a gray jacket, instead of black, and went to the opera and saw Verdi's "Luisa Miller," a Republican opera in which love is crushed by the perfidiousness of government. A helpful lesson for these times. I am referring to the Current Occupant.

The Republican Revolution has gone the way of all flesh. It took over Congress and the White House, horns blew, church bells rang, sailors kissed each other, and what happened? The Republicans led us into a reckless foreign war and steered the economy toward receivership and wielded power as if there were no rules. Democrats are accused of having no new ideas, but Republicans are making some of the old ideas look awfully good, such as constitutional checks and balances, fiscal responsibility, and the notion of realism in foreign affairs and taking actions that serve the national interest. What one might call "conservatism."

The head of the National Security Agency under President Ronald Reagan, Lt. Gen. William Odom, writes on the Web site NiemanWatchdog.org that he sees clear parallels between Vietnam and Iraq: "The difference lies in the consequences. Vietnam did not have the devastating effects on U.S. power that Iraq is already having." He draws the parallels in three stages and says that staying the course will only make the damage to U.S. power greater. It's a chilling analysis, and one that isn't going to come from the Democratic Party. It's starting to come from Republicans, and they are the ones who must rescue the country from themselves.

I ran into a gray eminence from the Bush I era the other day in an airport, and he said that what most offended him about Bush II is the naked incompetence. "You may disagree with Republicans, but you always had to recognize that they knew what they were doing," he said. "I keep going back to that intelligence memo of August 2001, that said that terrorists had plans to hijack planes and crash them into buildings. The president read it, and he didn't even call a staff meeting to discuss it. That is lack of attention of a high order."

Over the course of time, the Chief Occupant has been cruelly exposed over and over. He sat and was briefed on the danger of a hurricane wiping out a major American city, and without asking a single question, he got up from the table and walked away and resumed his vacation. He played guitar as New Orleans was flooded. It took him four days to realize his responsibility to do something. When the tsunami killed 100,000 people in Southeast Asia, he was on vacation and it took him 72 hours to issue a statement of sympathy.

The Republicans tied their wagon to him and, as a result, their revolution is bankrupt. He has played the terrorism card for all it is worth and campaigned successfully against Adam and Steve and co-opted whole vast flocks of Christians, but he is done now, kaput, out of gas, for one simple reason. He doesn't represent the best that is our country. Not even close.

He openly, brazenly, countenanced crimes of torture at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and Bagram. He engaged in illegal surveillance, authorized the arrest of people without charge and "disappeared" them to foreign jails. And he finagled this war, which, after three years of violence, does not look to be heading toward a happy ending. And now it's up to Republicans to put their country first and call the gentleman to account.

The Current Occupant is smart about handling a political mess. The best strategy is to cut and run and change the subject. You defend the Dubai ports deal in manly terms until you lose a vote in a House committee and then you retreat--actually, you get the Dubai people to do it for you--and that's it, End of Story.

Harriet Miers was fully qualified one day and gone the next. Social Security was going to be overhauled to give us the Ownership Society, and then the stock market went in the toilet and Republicans got nervous, and suddenly it was Never Mind and on to the next new thing.

Let's bring the boys home. Otherwise, let's send this man back to Texas and see what sort of work he is capable of and let him start making a contribution to the world.

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Garrison Keillor is an author and the radio host of "A Prairie Home

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