Three years, eleven months, five days, sixteen hours and ten minutes.
But who’s counting?
That’s how long until we are rid of George W Bush once and for all. And neither the Supreme Court, who elected him the first time, nor Osama Ben Laden, who elected him the second, can change that.
I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait for 2008.
I was out of the country for the inauguration – was out for the last one, too – but the best thing I’ve heard is the Sunday Morning Gasbags are already talking about Bush as a lame duck, which is about the best thing I’ve ever heard anybody say about him. I have another waterfowl in mind though – one we have a lot of around here. Two parts honk and one part slippery…well, never mind.
But we’ve still got four years to get through, and god knows they can do a lot of damage in four years.
And to start with the issue that got them elected:
I don’t accept that after they lied about the reasons for the war, and every bit of evidence suggests they knew they were lying,
I don’t accept after spending three hundred billion dollars so far, on a war they wanted to fight on the cheap;
I don’t accept that after two years – so far, with no end in sight, of a war Rummy promised would be over in weeks;
I don’t accept that after 1,461 Americans have died, over ten thousand Americans wounded, and an unknown number of Iraqis dead and wounded and no end in sight –
I don’t accept that because they’ve held something like an election over there, that none of those lies, none of that money, none of those lives matters, and everything is now okay. I don’t buy any of it, the Democratic party doesn’t buy it and more and more of the American people don’t buy it.
And here at home, they’ve wasted no time. The Bush League has submitted a budget that has more to do with fantasy than reality, except in the very concrete ways it solidifies the advantages they’ve been building for the super rich for the last four years into a permanent burden on the American people. And the Great Republican Noise Machine goes on – trying to manufacture a crisis in Social Security where none exists. They have found one crisis, though: they’ve discovered a critical situation in the retirement planning of the people who gave the most money to George Bush - in the securities industry. And to make sure those folks have plenty to retire on, George and the boys want to privatize social security, providing a permanent cash cow for their buddies on wall street. Making the American People pay for the biggest tax breaks in history wasn’t enough, the Republicans want us to give them annuities, too!
Well, it fits, doesn’t it. After all, Bush and his boys found ways to take care of their friends in the awl bidness. In the minin bidness. In the health insurance bidness. And how about the drug companies? Do you remember the Medicare Prescription Drug Company Benefit plan? The one that was going to cost less than $370 billion? And the day after they passed it, oops, it was really $400 billion, fire that guy who told the truth? Well now it looks like it’s gonna cost at least $720 billion. That’s about twice what they said it would cost when they ramrodded it through Congress at 2 in the morning. And most authorities think it’s more like $1 trillion. That’s an error of half a trillion dollars! Ladies and gentlemen, that’s three thousand dollars for every man, woman and child in the United States! And these guys want us to trust them with our money?
And how about the Republican Congress? – that Great American Asylum for the Helpless.
They didn’t even wait to reconvene before they changed the rules to say that their leaders could keep right on working even if they were indicted. Now, I want you to note something there: Tom Delay hasn’t actually been indicted - yet. But it tells you something about what his colleagues think of the man’s level of integrity that they changed the rules, just in case!
And on the other side, old Arlen, you remember Arlen "courage, clout, conviction" Arlen? Took him a couple of microseconds on November 3rd to start backing down about judicial appointments. Almost as long as it took for Frist the Fist to propose changing the rules to completely stifle opposition voices by banning the filibuster.
45 million Americans don’t have health care insurance. The United States spends more per capita for health care than any other nation in the world, but when The World Health Organization "ranked the countries of the world in terms of overall health performance, the U.S. [was] ... 37th." In the fairness of health care, we're 54th! In infant mortality, the US ranked 41st! Cuba scores higher! And what’s the Congress of the United States worrying about? Whether professional athletes take steroids! Don’t these guys have work to do?
The electoral process is for sale to the highest bidder, huge portions of the media are controlled by a handful of right wing companies, money flows into the Capital in torrents, and what’s the FEC investigating? Whether the NAACP liked John Kerry better than George Bush! Don’t these guys have work to do?
One-third of all U.S. children are born out of wedlock. One-half of all U.S. children will live in a one-parent house. Americans are now spending more money on gambling than on movies, videos, DVDs, music, and books combined. Nearly one out of four Americans [believe] that using violence to get what they want is acceptable. Forty-three percent of Americans think torture is sometimes justified. Nearly 900,000 children were abused or neglected in 2002, the last year for which such data are available. And what’s the moral value issue Congress is getting ready to amend to Constitution over? Gay marriage.
I ask you, Don’t these guys have work to do?
And we don’t have to look to Washington to ask these questions. We don’t have to look any further than right here in Media, where corruption, patronage and crony politics are so much a part of how this county is run that the people who run the county think that’s how it ought to be! When a president judge plays fast and loose with his taxes, and the AG won’t investigate it, there’s something wrong. When the patronage rolls are so overrun with solicitorships, no-show jobs and mystery commissions that tax money flows out as fast as it runs in, when pay to play, no bid contracts are the norm, when then health of the people of this county is placed in direct jeopardy because the leaders of the county won’t have a Health department, there’s something very very wrong.
We all have work to do, my fellow Democrats. And that is why we are here tonight. We have work to do in our municipalities, in our county, in our state and in our nation. Tonight, we will nominate the best ticket for County office we have ever nominated, and that includes the one I was part of. I look forward to working hard for that ticket and to supporting them in every way I can. With John Innelli, Nancy Baulis and Anne O’Keefe leading the way, we will begin the process of taking back our county.
With Howard Dean as Chairman of the Democratic Party, we will begin the long process of taking back our country.
Last year, in a purely volunteer, late starting, underfunded campaign, with your support, I got more votes than any Democrat in Delaware County History. Many of you have asked me whether I will run again. It’s not a question of running again. We knew when we started that it wasn’t a three month campaign, it was a 27 month campaign. This is not a question of starting over, it is one of continuing the race we started last July. I am in this for the duration. I am this until we defeat the politics of fear, of divisiveness, of dishonesty. I am in this until American can again have a government we can be proud of. I am in this until we defeat Curt Weldon and take the 7th Congressional district back for the Democratic party, and for the new majority in Delaware County.