Trolling for Trash

Six years and more than $50 million in taxpayer money later, an independent counsel has concluded there is “insufficient evidence” to charge President Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton with any criminal wrongdoing in the Whitewater land deal in Arkansas.
“It’s ironic that the president’s potential legal troubles relating to the Lewinsky investigation would outlast, if you will, his legal troubles over Whitewater – which of course started it all,” said Cohen.
“I think what you are seeing is gutter politics,” he said. “The American people deserve better. There are some who are not interested in their facts. They are simply trolling for trash.”

OK, I admit it. The last paragraph isn’t about Bill Clinton. It’s about questions into Bush’s service record.

You have to admit the Bush administration has a point about dirty tricks, though. They themselves are certanly unimpeachable in that regard. Bush advisor Karl Rove is well known for the very principled manner in which he runs campaigns. The man never says an unkind, untrue word about any of his political opponents.

The real question of the day, though: does the National Guard thing really matter? I mean, more than Janet Jackson’s boob?

Well, once upon a long time ago, insofar as it helped establish Bush’s character as someone who made serious commitments and then easily broke them. Perhaps if more people had paid attention to Bush’s past behavior like this, Bush would never have had the opportunity to:

• Reverse a campaign pledge to ask US Factories to reduce CO2 emissions
• Promise “First Responder” funds for New York that never arrive
• Close the Women’s Initiative and Outreach Office after campaigning that ”’W’ Stands for Women”
• Cut budget money for Pediatricians, Libraries, Boys & Girls Clubs, and mine safety after having photo ops with pediatric hospitals, libraries, Boys & Girls clubs, and Miners.
• Run on being a “Uniter, not a Divider,” and promise to heal the wounds of the Nation left by Election 2000, then pursue a decidedly and intentionally divisive agenda.
• Demand we get Osama bin Laden “Dead or Alive,” then several months later declare him “marginalized” and focus on Iraq.
• Promise to rebuild and bring democracy to Afghanistan, then forget to budget money for those activities. (Republican Congressmen had to add it in themselves afterwards.)
• Declare that America is “safer” after the capture of Saddam Hussain, when the war has sapped much of our military strength, money, and created more chaos and instability in the Middle East and given Middle Eastern Terrorists a new fund-raising PowerPoint item.
• Insist “we know” there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, then claim he really said we had good reason to believe Saddam had weapons of mass destruction-related programs, accusing critics of being “revisionist historians.”
• Swear to defend the Constitution, then systematically seek to weaken the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Nineth, and Tenth amendments.

Now, in comparison to all of the above the National Guard thing is small-time. But if we had paid attention to that early on, perhaps we would have missed all of this other stuff. If not Al Gore, then maybe we would have elected, say, Elizabeth Dole or John McCain. Wouldn’t that have been nice?