Big Mike: The Bush Team Won – We Lost

August 22nd, 2009

I’m pissed. I’m so mad right now you might confuse me with all those rabid anti-Obama-ites in the news these days, only my anger isn’t born of fear and hatred.

Tom Ridge, the former Department of Homeland Security boss, has written a book in which, apparently, he claims he was pressured by the Bush White House to jack up the terror alert color code for reasons other than threats posed by wild-eyed extremists. If Ridge is to be believed the Bush gang was motivated by a far more dangerous threat – democracy.

In 2004, John Kerry came out of the Democratic National Convention with the usual popularity bump that Bush strategists sought to nip in the bud. So they leaned on our man Ridge to scare the poo out of America by painting the whole nation orange. They knew, of course, that a terrified America was far more likely to lean toward a hard-assed, dick-waving, inflexible, mad-as-all-hell militarist like Bushy-boy rather than an effete, intellectual, Massachusetts-commie-fag-abortionist. The election turned out just the way they expected (and manipulated.)

You might think I’m pissed at the former president and his minions led by the billowy Karl Rove. But I’m way past that. Bush is gone and good riddance. I don’t hold hatred and anger in my heart for decades like some people I know (ask a right winger what he thinks about Bill Clinton, then take cover.)

No, my ire is directed toward those bastards who knew evil men were directing them to do wrong yet still did as they were told. Ridge didn’t have to change the color code. He could have refused. He could have quit. He could have called a press conference and spilled all the beans. He could have done anything but what he did – that is, pervert an election.

He’s trying to dry-clean his conscience by penning this confessional but, for my money, it ain’t gonna work. Go talk to your wife, your minister, your shrink or whoever else you unload your sins upon, Tommy-baby. I hope you feel better. I hope the rest of your life is lived in utmost integrity and honor. I really do. I believe in redemption.

What I don’t believe in is blind loyalty. That’s what Ridge exhibited when Rove or whoever whispered in his ear that the country was in great peril of an honest election.

Ridge wasn’t the only Bush co-conspirator to choose loyalty and obeisance over decency. The oft-sainted Colin Powell smudged his eternal soul when he blathered to the United Nations about Saddam Hussein’s imagined nukes, again at the Bush gang’s behest. He didn’t have to do it. He had the same choices Ridge did. He opted for the wrong one.

Ridge, Powell and too many others in Bush’s syndicate were good team players. Yuck. I’ve never been a team player and I’m proud of it. In fact, my feelings on teams were perfectly articulated by one of the finest philosophers of the 20th Century, one George Denis Patrick Carlin:

Teams suck! I don’t like ass-kissers or team players. I like people who buck the system. Individualists. I often warn kids: “Somewhere along the way, someone is going to tell you, ‘There is no I in team.’ What you should tell them is, ‘Maybe not. But there is an I in independence, individuality and integrity.’ Avoid teams at all costs. Keep your circle small. Never join a group that has a name. If they say, ‘We’re the so-and-so’s,’ take a walk. And if, somehow, you must join, if it’s unavoidable, such as a union or a trade association, go ahead and join. But don’t participate; it will be your death. And if they tell you you’re not a team player, just congratulate them on being so observant.”