Change of Heart by a Conservative Republican

by Duncan E. Beaton, Bangor, Maine.


I have been a registered Republican since the early 1950s, as has my wife, Dot. In fact our dedication to the Grand Old Party was such that we used to ride our horses around our Buckingham Township, Pa., neighborhood with Republican candidates' bumper stickers on their backsides. Now, we never considered the implication, but we found out later that one of those candidates was a real "horsesass."

If we had horses today, that's right where we'd stick George Bush's bumper sticker, on our horse's asses.

This is the worst administration in our memory. As a Fiscal Conservative, I began disliking Bush when he proposed major tax cuts as a means to get elected in 2000. Despite that, given the choice of two inept presidential candidates we voted for Bush as "the lesser of two evils."

Little did we know.

Once elected he immediately borrowed $49 billion to fund the massive tax cut, which primarily benefited the wealthy, increased the deficit and the national debt.

After Sept. 11, 2001, I wrote an op-ed that appeared in the Bangor Daily News condemning the atrocity, but suggesting we need to find the root cause which drove those Arabs to do what they did. Despite numerous articles by people more knowledgeable than I or this administration on matters of the Middle East, urging the same, it has stupidly maintained its tunnel vision focusing only on terrorism and the terrorist, but not the root cause.

Instead, three years ago, Cheney (Halliburton), Bush and Rumsfeld, had allegedly already made plans to invade Iraq which many people suspect was for its oil. They built the case for war by giving us and Congress false information about Iraq's stockpile of weapons of mass destruction and its involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks. All lies with no foundation in fact.

So, for illegitimate reasons, we invaded the sovereign nation of Iraq, which was not threatening us.

Three years later we still have no business being there. Neither the Iraqis nor we can safeguard their oil facilities. Their infrastructure throughout the country is in shambles and newly "elected" government is mostly inoperable because of opposition from various fanatic religious factions and insurgents.

We have lost nearly 2,400 troops and thousands more have been maimed for life. Forty to 60,000 Iraqis have been killed and probably 100,000 wounded and maimed as well, nearly all civilians. Currently, our troops are at risk from fanatical insurgents and religious zealots.

They should not be.

Well, the time has come, long overdue, for our two senators to disavow this deceitful and conniving president and lead the Congress into forcing him to withdraw our troops from Iraq starting immediately. George "Dubya" never should have put our sons and daughters in harm's way for such a brainless mistake.

In fiscal matters, from 2001 through 2008, Bush will increase the National Debt by $3.919 trillion to a projected total of $9.689 trillion by 2008 according to the Office of Management and Budget. That's an average Annual Deficit of $489 billion, and a 72 percent increase in the national debt. Yet, he has the gall to cut many domestic programs including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Half or more of this debt increase has or will go toward financing this stupid Iraq war.

We can't impeach Bush because that would put Cheney in the Presidency. Unfortunately we have no recall mechanism that would allow us to remove an administration for egregious malfeasance in office.

The sad truth is that we are stuck with this deceitful collection of incompetents until 2009.

Perhaps the time has come to develop a more intelligent process for selecting presidential candidates that will save us from getting another loose cannon on a rolling deck.

Duncan E. Beaton is the former town manager of Easton and Mapleton-Castle Hill-Chapman, and is the current chairman of the Aroostook County Finance Committee.

© 2006 Bangor Daily News. and Common Dreams website.