post the fourtieth

Truly, a momentous occasion, my fourtieth post. You're all very lucky to be a part of this. Really.

I don't generally make known my opinion on political matters, but I feel strongly enough about this to post about it. Just recently, President Bush gave a speech in which he warned the Democratic party against criticizing the war in Iraq. He specifically said that by criticizing the administration the Democrats were giving "comfort to our enemies" and would accordingly suffer defeat in the coming November elections if they didn't get in line with the administration. Bush stressed that he welcomes debate in the political process; it is, after all, a vital part of the American political system. However, he warned against mentioning things that put the administration in a bad light.

Does this worry anyone else?

When I first read about this, my immediate thoughts were of Joseph McCarthy in 1953. It reminded me of his denouncing enemies as Communists and saying that anyone who defended them must also be Communists. There wasn't a shred of proof to back him up. This situation seems strikingly similar. How can we know that by criticizing the current administration - a government that has repeatedly bungled critical issues, I might add - we give comfort to potential terrorists? Wouldn't they prefer an administration that seems incapable of getting the job done? Wouldn't placing someone else in charge be worrisome to them? The whole thing seems a lot more self-interested than altruistic to me.

The second parallel I saw was to 1984. The Ministry of Truth is out to silence anyone who wants to think otherwise. Blessedly, we still live in a society where you're allowed to think something contrary to what the government wants you to think, but it still worries me. What worries me even more is that this isn't getting more attention than it is. Why aren't thousands of people protesting this? How is it that I'm the only one who picked up on this?

Thus concludes my political rant. I doubt there will be another one of these in the near future. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.