I haven’t done much “patting” on my own back lately, but I can still remember writing posts at the beginning of Barrack Obama’s first term as president explaining the gravity of his decision to “look forward instead of back” regarding the illegal activity of the Bush/Cheney “crime family.”  I pointed out that the republicans should have been exposed for the reality of what they were at that time – the American public deserved no less.  I also pointed out this, in my view, was one of the major executive branch blunders in my lifetime.  (This is following the “blunderest” administration of all time – Bush/Cheney)  It was not hard to see that this mistake would come back to haunt Obama and the democrats and it has – OVER and OVER!  Couple this with a spineless bunch of Democratic Senators and the republican propaganda “machine” (which has been operating at “full throttle” ever since) and you now have a recreation of the “Clinton years” as the topic coming from the “right” is “impeachment.”  Tonight, on my way home from work, I heard a clip on the radio of Dick Cheney (of all people) claiming (to Sean Hannity – go figure) that the Benghazi incident last year was the worst national defense disaster in the history of our country.  Other republicans, evidently, are comparing it to Watergate and who knows what.  And, the word is that the House is intent on impeaching President Obama.  OMG!

Talk about your “pot calling the kettle black!”  OK, I know I need to come up with a better analogy, because the real problem here is that the President of the United States is half BLACK.  The racists have been fulminating out from under their rocks since before Obama took the oath of office.  They even were blaming him for the failed economy and the TARP bailout before he took the oath of office.  And, their thoughtless “minions” have gone along with all the BS since the day the reality struck them that over 50% of America would vote for a Black person as president.  Who knows, some day it could be a woman – or even a Latina!  These people are in full out panic mode and it would be embarrassing if they didn’t have so much money and control of the media behind them.  This is exactly why I’ve been calling for the removal from office of every possible republican – until this right wing fringe group gets expunged from any kind of position of authority.  Really, is there anyone out there who really believes Benghazi was a worst disaster than 9/11, or the lying our nation into invading a sovereign country (for the first time ever without provocation) causing HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of lives to be lost and MILLIONS to by uprooted?  Was Benghazi worst than over 200 Marines killed in Lebanon (yes, during the republican’s god Reagan’s watch) with virtually no push-back from America?  Was this more dishonest than Iran/Contra? (I’m saying this not knowing what level of misinformation came from the Benghazi incident, because the republicans are simply recreating the “Whitewater” “witch hunt” that took place during the Clinton years – and the reports I’m hearing are pointing out the right wing “info machine” is “doctoring” their evidence.  I don’t know why that doesn’t surprise me)

The loss of the diplomats in Benghazi was a tragedy, no doubt, and there may have been mistakes – who knows at this point.  But, it seems a bit curious to me that the same people making a big deal out of this terrible situation gave not even a whimper during the Bush/Cheney years when something on the order of 60 American diplomats perished on duty in various places around the world.  The sad reality is that, due in large part to our militaristic government, being a diplomat in America’s diplomatic corps is very dangerous.  There are many places in this world where Americans are “Persona non Grata.”  And, the idea that none of them are going to be in harms way is absurd, even more-so in the face of a congress that has chosen to cut back on the available funds necessary for protection.  Again, this would be ridiculously funny if it wasn’t so real and so absurd.  How anyone in America can give any credence to media outlets such as Fox “news,” or radio talkers such as Rush Limbaugh is beyond me.  These republicans stated from the first day of Barrack Obama’s term in office that their number one goal was his defeat (they used the term FAILURE) notwithstanding the effect of that policy on our nation and our attempt to recover from the ills of the Bush/Cheney administration – which left America on the brink of financial and military disaster as they left Washington DC with their “tails between their legs.”

I hate to revisit all the ills of Bush/Cheney, but since Dick Cheney is right in the forefront of the most recent attacks on President Obama, I’m guessing some in America are suffering from severe political partisan amnesia.  And, I’m saying that as an elderly person who sometimes can’t remember if he washed his hair when he gets out of the shower in the morning.  However, I don’t think it’s possible for me to forget the damage Bush/Cheney did to this nation I love.  I can agree that Obama has committed some serious mistakes, but Benghazi and its aftermath are way down the list for me (whatever those mistakes might be).  Blocking the investigations into Bush/Cheney was – if Obama has committed an impeachable offense – a failure of massive proportions – he took an oath to enforce the laws FAIRLY.  For starters, both George W Bush and Dick Cheney have repeatedly admitted to being WAR CRIMINALS.  Both have confessed on national TV that they authorized WATERBOARDING – and worst, in my mind, they both have said they would do it again.  (click here to read about how America prosecuted Japanese interrogators who waterboarded American prisoners during WW II) This is a direct violation of American law and International law – CLEARLY violating the Geneva Conventions ban on this form of interrogation.  Additionally, you don’t have to read many books on Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo to realize that torturing was much more severe than the waterboarding.  Prisoners were killed and brutally tortured by Americans and sent to “black holes” (ie Egypt, or Central Asian “prisons”) around the world knowing what would happen to them upon arrival.  I guess GW Bush and Dick Cheney – two men who “chickened out” of the Viet Nam war wanted to demonstrate how “tough” they are.  This is ABSURD!  You have to have your “head in the sand” not to understand that the orders to torture prisoners came from the White House and the office of Donald Rumsfeld in the Pentagon.

Yet there’s much more.  How about outing a CIA agent because you don’t like her husband exposing the truth about the lies used to get America entrenched in Iraq (which subsequently has destabilized the entire world to this day).  This was clearly Cheney’s doing but he was all too willing to “throw” his assistant, Scooter Libby, “under the bus.”  Of course, Bush commuted Libby’s sentence so that he could disappear into the sunset and Cheney, once again, could “get away” with breaking the law.  (Cheney even proved he can shoot people in the face while being drunk and avoid any consequences)  In case you wondered, outing a CIA agent is a treasonous offense.  Of course, we’ll never know how many under cover agents perished once Valerie Plame’s identity was on the front cover of every paper in the world – but, there’s a reason why disclosing the identity of a CIA agent is such an egregious violation of the law. (now, I’m no fan of everything the CIA does, but “I’m just saying…….”)

Then, you’ve got the undermining of the Justice Department (which, in my view, is still reeling to this day) where assistant attorneys general were fired for refusing to politically prosecute democrats – or for investigating republican lawbreakers.  They actually had a young attorney (from Regents University law school – home of Pat Robertson) who was forcing attorneys hired at Justice during the Bush/Cheney regime to take a “loyalty oath” to the republican party – in itself, a felony.  Undermining the appearance of impartiality at the Justice Department is, to me, an attack on the very foundation of our government.   And, then Attorney General Gonzales had to be quietly sent out to pasture because he got up before congress and perjured himself OVER and OVER for about three days of absurd (“I can’t remember”) testimony.  Of course, the democrats were unwilling or unable to call him to account for his lies and he was ushered out of town quietly and “all was forgotten.” (obviously, not by me – and, I suspect, millions of other Americans who believe the Justice Department has an obligation to be non-partisan and operating with integrity.)

Let’s get back to 9/11.  Whether Bush/Cheney will admit to this or not – this disaster happened on “their watch.”  They had more warning for this than I think Obama had on Benghazi if you want to look at it that way, but this was terrorists invading the United States from Saudi Arabia (mainly) with the response aimed at Afghanistan and Iraq.  Go figure!  I’ve read books that document that the NSA knew at least some of the “attackers” were in the country as early as January of that year and there were plenty of warning signs that went without response even suggesting an attack using aircraft.  That being said, I never tried to place blame on Bush/Cheney until their irrational and incompetent actions required revisiting EVERYTHING they did.  I actually was totally in support of the United States going to Afghanistan to get Osama bin Laden, which of course the Bush/Cheney regime had no intention of following through on because that would have undermined their REAL intention which was to FIND a way to justify invading Iraq.  When I listened to Cheney tonight on the radio (as mentioned above) it was clear that much of his motivation regarding the attack on Obama for Benghazi was an attempt to undermine the success Obama had in “getting” bin Laden, which of course, Bush/Cheney failed miserably in doing.  These people (republicans) are desperately attempting to rewrite HISTORY in a way that “looks forward instead of back” and, unfortunately, their biggest ally in this is President Obama himself.

I could go on and on with the FAILURES of the Bush/Cheney administration – or the illegal behavior – like the undermining of the very institutions they were under oath to protect (again, for you Obama “haters” – he’s under oath to enforce the laws which is why letting Bush/Cheney “off the hook” is such an egregious failure on his – and Eric Holder’s – part), the tax cuts which turned a 250 BILLION dollar surplus ultimately into a multi TRILLION dollar debt (which they, again, blamed on Obama before he’d taken the oath of office), and the deregulation which led to the “Too Big to Fail (Jail)” bankers and the TARP bailout under BUSH’S “watch.”  Remember, Hank Paulsen did not act until it was evident that Goldman Sachs was within days of crumbling into a pile of unredeamable debt – just like Lehman Brothers – one of their main competitors – Goldman Sachs being the company Paulsen had led prior to his stint as Treasury Secretary – and undoubtedly, in my mind, the home of his fortune in stock or stock options that was about to go away without government intervention.  I might be wrong on this, but – again – not even a hint of an investigation.  And, not one Wall Street Banker who had a hand in almost destroying our economy (and succeeding in destroying many a workers pension plan) that I know of was prosecuted and went to jail for their reckless gambling of public funds.  Again, for all you Obama haters out there – this lack of prosecution is on “his watch.”

The end result of “looking forward and not back” is the revitalization of Richard Nixon’s claim that “if the president does it, it must be legal.”   Is Obama’s message to us little folk that there’s a fraternity of presidents and that they really are “above the law.”  When I look back at Ronald Reagan and then look at George W Bush and Dick Cheney that’s the message I get.  Well, if I was face to face with the president right now I would ask him, “How’s this plan working for you now?”  Because, obviously, the republicans operate in an entirely different sphere.  Now, I really believe that the public is smart enough to see past any attempt to impeach our president over whatever excuse they’re (republicans) going to come up with, but none of this had to happen.  The investigations (as I believe I pointed out around 4 years ago) were inevitable, but they should have been about the actions of the administration that began (or accelerated) the downward trend of America in the eyes of the rest of the world as we emerge into the 21st century – Bush/Cheney.  There’s the old saying, “Those who ignore history are destined to repeat it.”  We’re seeing how true this is OVER and OVER again in the recent past of America.  I would love to put it all on the republicans (really, Iraq – to me – was from DAY ONE Viet Nam all over again – perpetrated no less by two Viet Nam “chicken hawks”) but President Obama should have known better than to let Bush/Cheney off the hook!  Now we’re likely to have to endure another ridiculous republican impeachment circus.  Really, at some point maybe the American public will listen to me and people like me and vote these thugs (right wing republicans) 0ut of office so that we can regain some semblance of a working representative democracy in our nation.  If democrats want this dream to have any chance of reality it’s time to quit placating republicans for a few meager votes (ie – putting Social Security and Medicare “on the table”) and start FIGHTING for the values this nation stood on from the end of WW II until the days of the “Reagan Administration” which began this terrible “lurch” to the “right” and set the precedent (Iran/Contra) that republicans can violate America’s laws and it’s OK because the democrats don’t have the stones (in the words of Bill Clinton at the last democratic convention) to hold them accountable for their blatant lawbreaking.

One last thought – it just popped into my head – the reality is that is how this site evolves – As usual, I believe the republicans are always “one step ahead” of the democrats because their tactics ALWAYS have a diversionary component to them.  That is, there seems to be an obvious “point” to their actions, but there usually also is a “hidden agenda” to every move they make.  You have to give them credit for being conniving and overtly dishonest in a way that almost implies people operating without conscience.  They CLEARLY believe “the end justifies the means.”  I believe they DO want President Obama to FAIL in the worst way – yet, they also understand that impeachment has no chance of being upheld in the Senate.  It’s a political side show and circus designed to throw “raw meat” to their most rabid base.  However, it’s entirely possible, in my mind, that the real object of their attempt to impeach Obama will be Hillary Clinton.  (via the Benghazi “blame game”) I ask myself, what could be worst for these racists who’ve been less and less covert about their motives since the day Obama took office?  Well, the obvious answer is how about another Clinton? – and, a woman at that.  Believe me, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, the Kochs, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, and I could go on and on, DON’T want a woman as president AND they really don’t want another Clinton.  One thing they know for sure about Hillary Clinton is that she will not be as amenable to their CRAP as President Obama has been.  I believe it’s very possible all this Benghazi “to do” of the past few days is directed as much at the possibility of Clinton running for president in 2016 as Obama being impeached in 2013 or 2014.