Doubleplusungoodspeak

You gotta hand it to the Repugnicans: They are masters of doublespeak. The Israel-Lebanon ceasefire was not a day old and Bush was already using it to lay the groundwork for starting yet another war:

"Iran has made clear that it seeks the destruction of Israel. We can only imagine how much more dangerous this conflict would be if Iran had the nuclear weapon it seeks," Bush said.

As he sits there proud as a preening peacock because a cease-fire has finally been announced, Bush is welcoming the end of the hostilities out of one corner of his mouth and stoking anti-Iran sentiment with the other. I'd be impressed with his subtly nuanced speech if the implications weren't so bloodthirsty.

I agree that a "sustainable peace" should be everyone's end-goal, but to use that as a justification for prolonging the conflict, as Condi and Bush repeatedly did, is just heinously unconscionable. Couldn't we have stopped Israel from killing mothers and their babies while we work towards that sustainable peace? Hezbollah was firing missiles, of course, but the drastically disparate death toll is a good indicator of how dangerous those missile attacks really were. And what's more, is there no such thing as "being the bigger man (or woman or country or what-have-you)" any more? Of course Israel should defend itself, it's madness not to; but as everyone can see they were not merely interested in "defending" themselves. Israel wants revenge. Bloody, bloody revenge. Their tactics were more commensurate with a dictatorial regime engaging in ethnic cleansing than a super-powerful state defending itself from a far-less-capable enemy. It seems as if, when they say "sustainable peace," what Bush and Condi mean is Israel lives and everyone who opposes them dies. That's one way to achieve peace, I suppose.

The Repugnicans aren't even trying that hard to mask their doublespeak any more, either. Witness: How did they cast Lieberman's primary loss? To quote press secretary Tony Snow, the sound bite of the day seemed to be that "if you disagree with the extreme left in [the Democratic] party they're going to come after you."

I thought the official Repugnican line was that Democrats were spineless flip-floppers??? Now all of a sudden they're rabid ideologues? I'm incredulous about the fact that Repugnicans can get away with characterizing the results of the Connecticut primary as a witch hunt, when it really amounts to the Democrats doing some much-needed house-cleaning — thoroughly democratic house-cleaning, too. The people voted, and a majority voted for Lamont. Where's the witch hunt? Oh, right, the people behaved in a way that can't be described as "cowed in fear" or "supplicant to Emperor Bush." How could we have expected him or any of his cronies to recognize what actually happened? They wouldn't know democracy if it wrapped itself around their crusty members and died.

I'm actually ashamed as an American living under the Bush regime that the Repugnicans blatantly and purposefully misread the democratic process in action as anything less than the process they tout so highly and are so keen to spread across the globe. Why does anyone take them seriously? Even more importantly: How can anyone believe in the Repugnicans when they stand for absolutely nothing? Because words alone do not make a philosophy, you must follow through with actions. And at every step, the Repugnicans' actions belie their flowery, well-crafted, carefully-marketed words.

These people don't want fair access for all, they want power for themselves. Hence they'll even denigrate what they supposedly exalt higher than anything (save God, of course; they're all pious, pious men of God, naturally) if it serves their partisan purpose. Hence they brokered a peace deal only for the "political capital" they acquired — which they instantly spend trying to start another war. Hence when democracy happens in their own country, it is characterized as evil because it threatens the Bushies' power.

How many innocent people have died for the Repugnicans' great "Get Out the Democracy!" drive? I don't know, maybe I'm crazy, but if we were trying to spread democracy to them, we should have at least let them vote on whether or not they wanted to be smart-bombed, or gunned down at a roadside checkpoint, or raped and murdered by our troops...

Oh yeah, and speaking of doublespeak, when Bush says he's doing everything he can to protect our nation, it's just more empty rhetoric. We are not safer.