The Biggest Losers
by Missy Comley Beattie
from www.opednews.com

I don't know why I am nervous about the midterm elections. After all, the Democrats offer little hope for change. Most have rubber-stamped the cataclysmic disasters of George Bush. My senator, Hillary Clinton, says she supports antiwar Ned Lamont but sounds exactly like Joe Lieberman on the issues. She and Joe voted to give Bush the authority to go to war. They continue to fund the war that will cost more than two trillion dollars. And the strongest criticism either can muster about a war that has killed 650,000 Iraqis and 2,837 U.S. troops, 19 in the first week of November, is of Donald Rumsfeld. No wait, Clinton has expressed outrage about the lack of body armor for our servicemen and women. And she should. Everybody should. Lately, though, many of the candidates have simply denounced Rumsfeld. The buck doesn't stop there.

When George Bush shouts that the Democrats don't have a strategy for Iraq, he's right. But what makes his rowdy behavior in the red states so mind-numbingly preposterous is that neither does he. Obviously, if he had a vision for winning, we'd have won. It's not just the Bush lies that will matter to voters though; it's that W. has deceived with such enthusiasm. He seems to relish the lying. The dishonesty is loud, full of self-righteous certitude, and, well, massively incredible.

Despite the tepid convictions of most of the Democrats, I want a landslide victory for them for two reasons, one to drive a stake into the heartlessness of George Bush's neo-con agenda-to say with megaphone volume that the electorate has decided on the "decider" and judges his presidency a failure. I want a booming message that echoes in his head for the rest of his life, "George, everything you touch turns to mountains of turds and tsunamis of grief. This is your legacy." And the second, to show Dems that we are demanding a change, that their victory is not a result of support for them but a rejection of President George my-way-or-the-highway Bush.

Then, I want Bush to write a letter to the world in which he says, "I am a deceiver and a liar. There's a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all of my adult life."

I want Dick Cheney to read this statement on behalf of George and, then, add, "Ditto, for me." In fact, the statement should be passed to all members of the Bush Criminal Conspiracy who took us to war, who cherry-picked evidence to justify the invasion of Iraq, who betrayed our military and their families, who continue to betray our military, who have destroyed our image, endangering us for generations, and who are continuing to kill Iraqis for oil, for greed, and for power. All those responsible (you too, Lynne Cheney) should have to confess.

And instead of allowing them to resign and seek spiritual counseling, we should convict them for crimes against humanity.

Missy Beattie lives in New York City. She's written for National Public Radio and Nashville Life Magazine. An outspoken critic of the Bush Administration and the war in Iraq, she's a member of Gold Star Families for Peace. She completed a novel last year, but since the death of her nephew, Marine Lance Cpl. Chase J. Comley, in Iraq on August 6,'05, she has been writing political articles.