Bob's Links and Rants

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Saturday, February 14, 2004

Were they waiting for Kerry to be in...
Before throwing Bush out? It sure seems that way to me. Call me a conspiracy theorist if you want (I won't deny it!), but the whole Kerry thing seems completely orchestrated to me. Somewhere there's a smoke-filled room with a bunch of rich guys sitting around. They've made their list, checked it twice, and have decided what they want in a president:
  1. Ivy League;
  2. Skull and Bones;
  3. Expressed ambivalence about Vietnam, either by ducking out while supporting it, or fighting in it and opposing it;
  4. Supported the Patriot Act to keep a lid on dissent;
  5. Supported war against Iraq;
  6. Keeps Americans and the rest of the world scared;
  7. But not so much that it hurts business.


They thought they had their boy in W, but he has botched things up so much that he is starting to fail on the last one. So the powers that be have orchestrated a suitable replacement: John Kerry. Kerry meets the requirements, and he doesn't scare anyone except for those of us who think the status quo needs serious changing. They arranged Kerry's coronation by first building up Howard Dean because he is fiery and energetic, then destroying Dean because he's fiery and energetic (they destroyed Kucinich's chances by simply ignoring him). Once you clear the sky of the stars and comets and supernovas, all that is left is the background noise--John Kerry.

So now that they've pretty much handed Kerry, someone they are completely comfortable with, the nomination, Bush is fair game. Scandals that have been lying there for months (no WMD's, Valerie Plame) and years (AWOL) are now fair game for the media. No politician, whether decent (Carter), devious (Nixon), slick (Clinton), or mean and clueless (W) can keep his ratings up once the media is unleashed to go after him. It wouldn't surprise me if even the stolen 2000 election finally becomes an issue used to skewer Bush. The backup is in place; the monkey can safely be run out of town.

Last summer I spent many hours passing out Kucinich flyers at Ann Arbor's Farmers' Market. Some people would ask me why I thought Kucinich had a chance, when most people had never heard of him. I would reply that over time the truth would become known about Iraq, while more soldiers died, and the jobs kept disappearing, and so on. As people started to realize the multiple disasters that Bush's policies had wrought, they would seek out candidates who had opposed those policies. They would see that there was a candidate who had opposed almost every element of the Bush agenda--he had voted against it and spoken out against it. The Bush disaster would be so thorough that people would finally be looking for real change.

But the powers that be delayed the media onslaught on Bush until after Kerry was safely on his way to the nomination. By this summer, Bush may well be fully discredited, with ratings similar to those his father had in 1992. And a lot of people will be looking for real change. But the only real option they'll have is John Kerry. How sad.