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I have a friend who is a Master Punster. He runs a little group of like-minded wordsmiths and word butchers from his home base in Austin, Texas. While he's not a highly politically-charged fellow, he's always been fair and philosophical. Every once in awhile, he sends me his little ditties. Here's an excerpt from his latest:
Why does Bush have such great attraction
To press for this bellicose action,
Our troops to amass
To kick Saddam's ass
A whoopin' of massive distraction?
Now I've tried not to make this column an opportunity for me to be a George W apologist. But I think the issue that the naysayers have with W is not that he hasn't presented enough evidence, but that his actions are not evidentiary. There's something downright mystical about W -- perhaps a side effect of his religious beliefs -- but every time I begin to doubt him, or his motives, I end up chiding myself at a later date, and saying, "Ohhhhhhhhh...THAT'S why he did/said that." I learned that while he was governor of Texas.
My punning friend seems to think it's "oil" about oil. I'm not sure how anyone can think that when we don't buy oil from the Iraqis. In the last 10 years or so, we've used Iraq as a foreign source less than 5 percent.
Mr. Punster also implies that the whole war is a distraction away from the economy. Free markets don't like uncertainty, and terrorism is all about uncertainty. I believe the war and the economy are interrelated, and that's why handling Iraq is part and parcel to handling the economy. Speaking of interrelationships, let's look at Clinton. He was the king of distraction. His authorization of the Kosovo bombings was about as sincere as his desire to tell the truth to a grand jury about the Monica matter. If W is using a war in Iraq as a distraction, the UN must really be in cahoots with him, because they're helping him drag this issue out indefinitely.
I wasn't impressed with W's press conference on March 6. Same old stuff. Downright boring in its tone and execution. But when W takes a prevaricating tack in a nationally aired press conference, I believe he's doing it to protect our overseas ops and the American people as well. When Clinton took an equivocating attitude, he did it to protect himself.
And it's for that reason that something tells me we're going to find out a few things once this battle is over, and we'll find out why he was so uninspiringly sober in his tone.
Anyway, I couldn't resist a response poem:
Bellicose? Yes. Vain? No.
If the Saddam bastard could have his say,
He’d gas the revolting Kurds away.
Sunni or later he’s going to have to pay.
What good is WHO when we are poxed?
What good is screaming when you are VeXed?
If his own people are dead, aren’t we next?
To publicly announce the al-Qaeda ties
Would be a treacherous compromise
We need to keep the spies on the prize.
With France’s “X”, Bush men haven’t a chance.
They seem to frog-et our little WWII dance.
Calumny to do the job, while the UNscum rants.
It’s a big fat Mesopotamia, these plans,
but as long as Saddam’s in good Hans,
The beast’ll rule his day as well as Iran’s.
For those who pooh-pooh a protracted battle:
Where were you when Bubba banged his war rattle?
And are 40 bloc-building nations considered “unilateral”?
Iraq is a hard place, hard to fight it.
To let Iraqis wallow in their own squallor is short-sighted.
Twenty-two mill call for the States United.
Our speech-challenged prez has made it understood.
A world with a murderous tyrant does US no good.
So let’s make Saddam take a Ba’ath in his own blood.
