July 21, 2003

Loyalty to the truth or loyalty to the GOP?
If, as former White House counsel John Dean explained a few weeks ago in an interview, there is “no chance” the Republican house would impeach Bush for lying to the American people, the nation has transcended mere blind partisan politics and entered a time of living fiction.

This is the same Republican Party whose members badgered and hounded President Clinton until he was caught in a lie. His prosecutors, the legions of right-wing radio listeners, organizations dedicated to unearthing damaging material on Clinton’s past, showed a disgust for immorality in the White House. But when Clinton’s impeachment came, the vast majority of Americans refused to march on Washington demanding his removal from office. In fact a few went so far to march in his support. Americans, both for and against President Clinton, knew in their hearts, if not minds, that the question he was asked should have never been asked because it involved his personal life; not his public life.

Now, the situation has reversed. We have an unelected president who lies to the American people and the world, sacrifices innocent American and Iraqi lives to create a distraction from his disastrous ineptitude at home. This president can’t poke his head out in public without an angry crowd forming.

Still, the Republicans are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. The Republicans I know, the little rank and file footsoldiers who spent the late 1990s jeering at President Clinton, can’t defend Bush themselves. Something about American commonsense knows a high crime from a misdemeanor. - Chris Zappone.

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