July 26, 2003

I get quite amused sometimes by the Bush Administration’s simplistic view of the world. Since the deaths of Qusay and Uday, the news has been full of speculation, much of which came from the White House, that the daily attacks on Americans would stop. While a captured bodyguard of one of the Hussein brothers’did confirm that Sadam set up the guerilla warfare as he fled American forces, he also confirmed that some of the attackes were due to basic Islamic fundamentalism. It is also to be expected that simple nationalism will fuel the fires at some point, whether it is doing so today or not.

My sister sometimes sends me some interesting ditties from other websites. One of those is from a journalist named Greg Palast who has a website at http://www.gregpalast.com. Mr. Palast claims to have evidence supporting claims that George Bush, Sr. used his influence to get his son (our current President) into the Texas Air National Guard during Vietnam to shield him from the draft, not to mention securing a pilot slot he could not qualify for on his own. I visited the website and saw the letter that made the claim. It’s impossible for me to verify the authenticity of the letter, so what really happened remains an open question. But I wouldn’t be surprised…

What I do see is the hypocrisy surrounding the image of Bush, Jr. as a pilot. He is not one, even if he used to be one. He seems content to use the image when it suits his political advantage, but he has shown no interest in aviation other than that. He has demonstrated and continues to demonstrate, in fact, an unfriendliness to general aviation. To be fair, I’ve seen that same behavior from airline and military pilots who have never been associated with general aviation. I write it off to arrogance. I can’t say whether this is true for Bush as well.

I saw on the news today where the Justice Department sent an unsigned letter to Congress telling them the Department would fight their attempts to rescind delayed notification of search warrants. From the reports, I’m not sure if the letter was an attempt from someone inside the department to tip Congress off or whether it was from a Justice Department official who wanted to thumb his nose at Congress from behind a bush. If it was the former, it was an act of courage. If the latter, and my bet is on that, it was nothing short of cowardice.