IF THIS IS PATRIOTISM, KEEP IT

By Ted Rall

Bush and Company's Grab for a Blank Check

We've been treated to some astonishingly vile images over the last two weeks: office workers hurling themselves into a hundred-floor-high abyss. A gaping, smouldering hole in the financial center of our greatest city. George W. Bush passing himself off as a patriot, even as he disassembles the Constitution with the voracious glee of piranha skeletonizing a cow.

"There is no opposition party," Republican congressional leader Trent Lott chillingly announced as Democratic counterpart Tom Daschle watched in silent, cowed assent after Bush's speech to a joint session of Congress. And even if it's mainly the result of our pathetic desire to follow someone -- anyone -- in the aftermath of Sept. 11, there's little opposition out in the cities and towns across our vast continent: Bush's job-approval rating is hovering up there with puppies and sunny days.

It may have seemed meaningless at the time, but now we know why 7,000 people sacrificed their lives -- so that we'd all forget how Bush stole a presidential election. And as it turns out, national amnesia was only the beginning.

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