Predators circling

Remember Paul O'Neill? Former Secretary of the Treasury, CEO of Alcoa, respected economist? Well, he wrote a book critical of the Bushies, and the reationary slime machine turned him into a hack only interested in selling books. Mind you, he's a millionaire dozens of times over, and doesn't need the money.

How about Richard Clarke? Noted terrorism expert, worked in the White House starting under Ronnie's tenure, registered Republican, and in charge of the response to 9/11 while Duhbya was circling around the country. He also wrote a critical book, and was instantly smeared. Turns out he was only in it to sell books, too.

Joe Wilson was appointed by Duhbya's daddy to two ambassadorships. He was the last American diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein - because he remained in our embassy in Baghdad after the invasion of Kuwait, daring Saddam to take any of the occupants hostage. Subsequently, he wrote an editorial pointing out that Bush lied about Saddam's purported acquisition of fissile material - and was promptly revealed as a partisan, lying hack. Never mind that there was, indeed, no evidence to support the claim that Saddam was trying to build nukes.

Paul Hackett returned from Iraq four months ago, and made the big mistake of running for Congress as a Democrat. The slime machine came out swinging, accusing him of going to Iraq to 'pad his resumé'. Funny how, when he went to Iraq to do the resumé-padding, the seat he then ran for wasn't free.

Max Cleland lost three limbs in Vietnam. He was accused of being friendly with terrorists. Oh, and he lost his three limbs - two legs and an arm - in an accident, so he shouldn't be crowing about it.

John Kerry, Senator from Massachusetts and holder of five medals, was accused of being a flip-flopping, traitorous coward. His opponent never saw combat, but hey.

And now, Cindy Sheehan, a Catholic youth pastor and mother of an American soldier slain in Iraq, currently camped out at the gates of Duhbya's toy ranch, is being painted as a communist, terrorist-loving harpy. There's an anonymous letter floating around that purports to be from 'family members', none of which have signed their name, but all of whom conveniently love Duhbya. She's being slandered by right-wingers around the country.

Stalin smells something fishy. He's seen this before. It would appear that anyone who dares to point out something that Duhbya doesn't want you to hear has to be a bad person with ulterior motives. The lesson here is clear: shut your trap about the Bush government if you value your reputation.