BUSH: The Lame Hawk

Forget your lame duck President, Bush is our first lame hawk. He may have lost credibility and lost direction, as claimed by Congressman Murtha, but it would be foolish to see him after this election as powerless, chastized and tamed by the judgment of the American people. He will remain George Bush, making a false show of bipartisanship, if only to wait his moment to strike and make his kill.

A lame duck will hobble along for two years, quacking and quaking, but George Bush is an opportunistic predator, and like the American kestral, he feeds on mice and insects, keeps his talons sharp, and an eye out for the weakness of his timid prey. So unless the newly elected Dems wish to become the meal of this predator, they cannot hide their views in the name of collegiality, they cannot scamper away from the big issues; removing our troops from the Iraq war, repairing the environment, or scutter away insect like from the outrageous disparities in American economic life. Like a hawk, George Bush is a social predator, he will cling to his right wing views and conservative friends, pretend to be flying above the fray, and wait for an opening to swoop down and strike the timid Democratic prey. Never has it been more important for the Democrats to act in a fearless, forthright manner, or our lame hawk will swoop down once again and make a meal of them. He may have lost the public confidence but he has kept his talons. So this is no time to celebrate the defeat of the worst President in American history. As President he keeps some enormous power intact. It's time for the Dems to go to work, and the work of this government is a clean-up greater challenge than the Katrina mess. This business of saying that the Dems should not investigate the criminal war profiteering and corruption of the Republicans - and should not investigate the origins of this war because the American people want to move on - is so much sliced baloney. You can't move on until you clean up the ground. Americans have asked for a change, and the Democrats had better find the way to do it, without hoping that this President will see the error of his ways. This hawk of ours, George Bush, will not change, cannot change, so that must always be kept in mind as the Democrats attempt to repair the great damage he has inflicted on America and the world in the past six years.