We heard them at the last Republican National Convention emerge as big oil shills. One by one like so many white rabbits John McCain, Sarah Palin, and Rudolph Guiliani were trotted out to deliver the major pitch of the moment:
"Drill, baby, drill!"
That simple three word declaration rocked the convention hall that evening in St. Paul more than any other. As the television camera panned the convention floor a huge constellation of signs merged with the loud shouts of approval from Republican speakers.
These were the true, red-blooded Americans who spurned all this sissified conservation nonsense. Conservation is the kind of nonsense that emerges from places that shirk real honest to goodness patriotism, places like San Francisco, Madison, Berkeley, tree-hugging Seattle.
After all, weren't the Republicans nominating for vice-president rooting, tooting, honest to goodness hunter Sarah Palin? Wasn't Senator Fred Thompson on point when he directed praise for her as someone who can kill a caribou and then dress her dead victim?
Yeah, and what do we see on the other side? We have some folks who are even, god forbid, vegetarians and eat no creatures at all. Now how un-American can you get?
Yes, these self-designated patriots loudly extolled the proposition that the moral do-gooders should get out of the way and let the drilling commence in the interest of America.
So now we have the latest tragedy in Louisiana and what do we see behind it all when the smoke has cleared?
We see the face of those bona fide, flag loving American de-regulators George W. Bush and his faithful partner and shot caller Dick Cheney. Was it an accident that Cheney as then chief honcho at Halliburton was named as then Texas Governor George W. Bush's running mate?
It all started with Cheney heading the task force to choose a running mate for Bush. Shirking any claim of modesty, it did not take long for Halliburton chieftain Cheney to conclude that he rated above anyone he could have selected for VP.
Then there was that rush to war in Iraq. No, we could not wait for Hans Blix and his UN inspection team to conclude that those alleged "weapons of mass destruction" of Saddam Hussein did not exist.
We had to move into action and launch a "shock and awe" campaign under Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld before that "giant mushroom cloud" that Condoleezza Rice warned us about would envelope America occurred.
As for that UN inspection team and French President Jacques Chirac warning that it was imperative to finish that task in the interest of international law and human safety and not rush to judgment, there was a vigorous response.
The great scientific minds of the right led by Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and Sean Hannity refused to condone such delaying tactics forestalling the necessary rush to war.
Besides, as the right's smear merchants proclaimed, the Swedes and that whole international crowd calling for delay were just a bunch of wimps and as for the French quiche eaters, let's show them by changing the name of French toast to freedom toast, as they did on Bush's Air Force One.
We then learned about those secret meetings in Dick Cheney's office where Iraq was divided up among corporate conglomerates such as his own Halliburton and Bechtel.
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