How the Bush Administration Hates America

According to our dear Yale-educated President, to disassemble means to "not tell the truth." Imagine the astonishment of all those illiterates out there who had been long operating under the apparently false impression that to disassemble meant to take something apart. One hopes that dictionaries are being revised nation-wide.Nonetheless, and regardless of any disagreements Webster's might have with his definition, Bush declared last month that the accusations of torture and abuse by detainees at Guantanamo weren't credible because they were made by "people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble."Sadly, detainees at Guantanamo are not the only haters of America who are trained to lie. It is clear that the Bush administration hates this country, those who defend it, and those who call it home. It is also clear that the Bush administration, notwithstanding all claims about Bush being a straight-shooter, is  well-trained in the art of dissembling.If Bush & Co. didn't hate America, they wouldn't take advantage of every opportunity to lie, cheat, and steal in furtherance of their and their cronies' selfish ends. If they didn't hate this country and those who defend it, they wouldn't have instituted a war through fraud and sent thousands of men and women off to be killed and wounded for a lie. If they didn't hate this country and its citizens, they wouldn't be so hell-bent to exploit our fears to curtail the very civil rights and liberties that purportedly distinguish us from the rest of the world.But they do hate America and they demonstrate their hatred through their lies, deceit, and manipulation.The latest examples of the Bush administration's contempt for the truth and for the U.S. came to light this month. First, the Inspector General of the Pentagon deleted 45 references to White House officials from his report to the Senate Armed Services Committee on the incestuous $30 billion air-tanker deal between Boeing and the Air Force. In a letter to the Committee leading up to the report's release, the Inspector General revealed that the redactions were made at the White House's behest.The redaction of White House officials from the report is particularly telling in light of revelations from the former Secretary of the Air Force that the White House was "involved in the earliest days [of the Boeing deal] and frequently along the way." In other words, the White House was involved early and often in what Committee Chairman John Warner (R-Va.) characterized as "the most significant defense procurement mismanagement in contemporary history."At a press conference following the release of the Inspector General's redacted report, White House spokesman Scott McClellan proudly clucked, "The people who were involved in wrongdoing are being held to account." True, so long as one doesn't count the White House officials whose identities have been concealed from Congress and the public.The second example from this month of the Bush administration's contempt for truth, justice, and the American way (particularly the truth part), came in the form of revelations that a White House official and former energy lobbyist doctored reports on global warming to minimize links to greenhouse emissions. The dissembler-in-chief was Philip Cooney, chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality. By sheer coincidence, Mr. Cooney's previous job just happened to be as a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, the largest oil-industry trade group and staunch opponent to limits on greenhouse gasses. Go figure.Never mind that he's a political hack without any scientific training. Who better than a shill of the oil industry to "edit" the White House's report on global warming? How else can the oil industry be expected to make a (literal) killing, free of pesky governmental regulations?As if that weren't blatant enough, during his "editing" of the White House's report on global warming, Mr. Cooney reached out to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, to help the White House "clean up the mess" created by the "Climate Action Report 2002." The CEI, as it turns out, just happens to have benefited from more than $1.3 million in funding from Exxon/Mobil, the world's largest oil company. Predictably, two days after CEI agreed to help Mr. Cooney, Bush repudiated the "Climate Action Report," which inconveniently concluded that global warming was caused by man-made emissions and would have major environmental impacts.In other words, when it comes to the Bush administration's (de)regulation of the environment, industry money trumps science, and facts are edited with one hand while the other pockets the cash.Bush and his henchmen are not the first band of thieves and liars to occupy the hallowed halls of government. They are merely the current occupants. Nevertheless, through their willingness to lie, steal, and kill, Bush & Co. reveal their hatred and contempt for America and its people, while simultaneously demonstrating their love and passion for power and riches.