<font color=orange>If you liked the last one, you will really like this one. I think she may be PINKO COMMIE!!!<font color=black>
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Published on Saturday, August 23, 2003 by the Minneapolis Star Tribune
When It Comes to War, Bush is an Inaction Figure
by Deborah Morse-Kahn
I can't stand it.
For $40 you can now buy a President Bush action figure, dressed in a naval flight suit like the one he wore on his photo op aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln three months ago.
This is the same President Bush who demanded to be flown to the vessel, halting the ship's progress so he could make the flight on taxpayers' dollars; the same President Bush who never showed up for National Guard duty for a period of approximately one year in the early '70s to avoid service in Vietnam?
Unlike Sen. John McCain and former Vice President Al Gore, Bush refused during the 2000 campaign to release his military records to the public.
I decry the hypocrisy of this administration, which has placed thousands of our young men and women in harm's way. I decry the black-hearted marketing strategy that found rolling out this toy to be acceptable or even defensible.
This administration has consistently pressed Americans to consider those who protested our involvement in Iraq to be reviled as un-American. From one White House press briefing to the next, former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer intoned the Bush administration's mantra that peace activists, war protesters and all who found the specious connecting of an invasion of Iraq with the horror of Sept. 11 should be considered somehow unpatriotic.
Let's all take a look at this neocon Bush administration:
<font color=black>Vice President Dick Cheney: When asked about his avoidance of military service, he blithely replied that he had "other priorities" in the '60s -- referring to his marriage and college deferments.
Attorney General John Ashcroft: No military service.
Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz: No military service.
Howling for war and decrying antiwar activists: Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.; Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss.; House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas; former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich; radio commentator Rush Limbaugh. No military service. No military service. No military service. No military service. No military service.<font color=black>
The one mensch in the entire administration who is undervalued? The marvelous and humane former Gen. and Secretary of State Colin Powell. He claims the rumors of his departure in 2004 to be just that. God forbid that Bush should be reelected, but please, Secretary of State Powell, if he is, don't leave us alone with this crowd!
<font color=red>Ann Richards, where are you? Al Gore, start yelling! John Kerry, get angry! Howard Dean, stay angry! Hillary Rodham Clinton, get in there, girl!
Sens. Charles Schumer, Tom Daschle, Edward Kennedy, Robert Byrd, cross arms and block the gate.
Molly Ivins, Paul Krugman, Maureen Dowd, keep writing.<font color=black>
Meanwhile, there is hope. The 1998 Classic Colin Powell GI Joe Action Figure -- mint in box -- is running at auction for a very healthy $289.99.
Buy now; supplies of true heroes are almost gone.
Deborah Morse-Kahn, Minneapolis, is a sociologist.
© Copyright 2003 Star Tribune
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