Fearmongering Finally Blows Up in GOP's Face

At one time, fearmongering was the best thing that ever happened to George W. Bush and the NeoCons, as they cynically exploited 9/11 to advance their agenda. But now it's backfiring, as fear is fueling the economic meltdown.

For the past seven years, the GOP repeatedly did its best to scare the living bejesus out of the American people.

It's a strategy that worked, time and time again, and even played a key role in returning Bush to the White House in 2004.

The American people have been kept in a state of fear ever since 9/11, thanks to Bush's fearmongering. But it's a strategy that's now blowing up in the face of Bush and the GOP.

Fear, after all, is what fuels stock market crashes and panic selling. And fear is clearly playing a big role in the current economic debacle. Although the underlying economic reasons for the crisis are real enough, it's clear that panic and fear among investors and consumers is making the crisis even worse.

The American people are increasingly afraid of doing anything with their money, outside of stuffing it into a mattress. They don't trust mutual funds. They don't trust banks. They don't trust Wall Street. And they don't trust the Fed. Increasingly, they're embracing the mindset that Americans shared during the 1930s Great Depression.

For seven long years, Bush cynically used the fear of terrorism to manipulate the American people. As a result, Bush even got the American people to initially support his disastrous invasion of Iraq.

Between color-coded terror alerts and the constant scare words and language of fear and confusion, Bush got the American people so scared that they were ready to accept anything he wanted. As a result, Bush got whatever he sought, from shredding the Constitutions to embracing torture as official state policy.

But now it's backfiring. A terrified and fearful American people are simply going to stop spending money. They're going to sell their stocks. They're going to bail out of their mutual funds. And the U.S. is going to enter a lengthy and brutal second Great Depression. By the time this nightmare is over, the U.S. could easily become a Third World-like nation. It will almost certainly lose its status as the world's only economic superpower, as the world's balance of power shifts to East Asia.

And now, along with the Project for the New American Century, the Republican brand is now severely tarnished, perhaps forever.

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How Bush and the NeoCons Lied America Into the Iraq War

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This video does a good job of summing up the blatant, outrageous lies that George W. Bush and the NeoCons told in leading America into the $3 trillion Iraq War fiasco, which has led to the deaths of over 1 million Iraqi men, women and children.

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Why Al-Maliki Had Better Watch His Back

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is starting to become a real pain in the ass for the Bush White House. Instead of being a good little client state puppet, he keeps shooting his mouth off, asking for a timetable for the U.S. military to leave his shattered nation.

If Al-Maliki is smart, he really needs to start watching his back. His days are clearly numbered.

In order to realize this, you don't have to put on a tin foil hat. All you have to do is look at America's own sordid history in dealing with foreign heads of state who don't stick to the script. Time and time again, they wind up deposed or dead.

Take Saddam Hussein, for example. For decades, he was a U.S. ally in the Middle East. We armed him and funded him and even helped him ruthlessly purge his opponents in Iraq. It was only when he stopped following the script from Washington that he became an enemy of the U.S.

But Saddam is hardly alone among heads of state who ran afoul of U.S. policy over the years (and wound up dead or deposed as a result).

In fact, the CIA has been running around the world deposing foreign heads of state for decades, (including such democratically elected leaders as Iran's Mohammed Mosaddeq and Guatemala's Jacobo Arbenz Guzman).

Now, Al-Maliki is latest leader to run afoul of U.S. policy. In the latest controversy, he has expressed approval of Barack Obama's plan to get U.S. troops out of Iraq within 16 months of next January. He made the remarks in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel.

This latest stunning development has the NeoCons reeling. In a desperate attempt to spin the story to their advantage, the NeoCons have been claiming that Al-Maliki's words were mistranslated or misinterpreted.

Much to the NeoCons' dismay, however, Der Spiegel has stood by its story. As Juan Cole points out, Der Spiegel still has the audio recording of the interview and what's more, it turns out that the translator involved works for al-Maliki, not for Der Spiegel.

Thus, the last fig leaf that the NeoCons could hide behind has been removed. The whole incident has become an enormous embarrassment for Bush and his allies.

There can no longer be any doubt: Al-Maliki now clearly wants a firm timetable for getting U.S. troops out of his nation and he even explicitly supports Obama's plan.

It's clear that Al-Maliki has turned into a big, big problem for Bush and the NeoCons.

Unfortunately for Al-Maliki, he lives in the most dangerous nation on earth: a country where bloody shootouts and bombings occur on a daily basis. What's worse is that he has increasingly turned into a thorn in the side of the NeoCons who fiercely reject any timetables for withdrawal.

Like I said, Al-Maliki had better start watching his back. His days are clearly numbered.

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Growing Right-Wing Chorus Backs Impeachment. When Will Pelosi?

When Lou Dobbs recently called for the impeachment of George W. Bush, he became only the latest in a growing number of Right-Wingers who are harshly criticizing the White House these days. Dobbs joined Conservatives like Pat Buchanan and Chuck Hagel in slamming Bush and raising the prospect of impeachment.

In fact, when Rep. Dennis Kucinich recently introduced articles of impeachment against Bush, no less than 24 Republicans joined Democrats in voting for an impeachment inquiry to begin.

And on June 21, no less a Conservative figure than Paul Craig Roberts, the "Father of Reaganomics," bitterly blasted the Bush Administration, calling it one of the most "lawless regimes" of the 21st Century. Last year, Roberts (who in 2006 called Bush supporters "Brownshirts") urged the immediate impeachment of Bush and Cheney.

Note that we're not talking about Noam Chomsky or Ward Churchill here. We're talking about Roberts (a man who served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration).

These days, the growing chorus of Right-Wingers calling for Bush's impeachment range from articulate writers like Roberts all the way over to Right-Wing radio hate spewers like Michael Savage.

With all these Conservatives raising the issue of impeachment, it's all the more baffling as to why Nancy Pelosi continues to insist that "impeachment is off the table."

Not only that, but the Democrats continue to be bullied by a deeply unpopular president who has approval ratings that are in the toilet. Just in the past week, the Dems meekly caved in on FISA, as well as the massive, no-strings war-funding bill.

When former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan recently added his voice to the anti-Bush chorus, the White House quickly sought to portray him as a lone disgruntled employee, with an ax to grind.

What they didn't address, though, was why so many Right-Wingers are now criticizing Bush in the harshest possible language these days. One thing that is certain, though, is that if the shoe was on the other foot, does anyone think that GOP would hesitate one second in launching impeachment proceedings?

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