Doug Thompson - Politics, shame & the truth

After watching what George W. Bush and the Republican leadership of Congress have done to the country I love, I am sorry I ever had anything to do with these people. They are, I believe, a much bigger threat to freedom and the American way of life than any terrorist with a bomb or foreign dictator with a hate-America agenda.

Their actions are not only a crime against the Constitution but a crime against humanity, against common decency and against the soul of a once proud nation called America.

America is mired in a war that cannot be won because George W. Bush used manufactured intelligence to sell that war to a Congress that should have asked more questions and demanded more evidence. Republicans and Democrats alike voted to give him the power to wage that war and then sat on their hands and did nothing.

Likewise, both Republicans and Democrats voted for the rights-robbing USA Patriot Act, the law that the Bush administration has used to undermine the Constitution and eat away at the freedoms of all Americans.

And the mainstream media, caught up in the post-911 bloodlust, failed to do its job and ask needed questions before the Iraq war. Both The Washington Post and The New York Times, symbols of liberalism in the eyes of most Republicans and conservatives, supported the war. The New York Times now admits it sat on a story about domestic spying for a year at the White House;s request. Had the Times printed that story last year, before the 2004 elections, would George W. Bush still be President? Good question.

Some 10 days ago, we reported that Bush, angry in a meeting where reauthorization of the Patriot Act was questioned, called the Constitution “just a goddamned piece of paper.”

I agonized for some time over whether or not to go with that story. I had it from two sources but went to a third one for additional confirmation before running it. As usual, we have been castigated far and wide for printing the story based on three unnamed sources and for refusing to release the names of those who gave us the information.

I am truly ashamed that, as a one-time political operative, ever had anything to do with putting people like George W. Bush or his cronies in Congress into office.

However, I am not – nor will I ever be – ashamed for printing the truth about him and other abusers of public trust.

Tags: Bush, lies, trust, constitution, GOP, DC, Thompson