False Premises
June 15th, 2006George W. Bush has “got[ten] his mofo back” — didn’t you hear? His trip to Iraq has given him the boost that he needs to govern, says the New York Post! This is more a declaration of accomplished missions than a sign of things to come, though. Bush’s Presidency will need far more than a day’s visit to Iraq to set his course right. He’ll need better policies, for one, and he’ll need aides who aren’t crooked. Oh, sure, they’ll point to Fitzgerald not charging Rove as proof of innocence for King Karl, but how about this corruption?
Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt’s trips seemed routine - visits to dozens of cities to launch the Medicare drug benefit and to help states plan for a potential pandemic. How he got there is creating controversy. Leavitt was criticized Wednesday for using a jet leased by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for emergencies. HHS estimated the cost of the flights at $720,000, and Democrats called it a waste of resources to do what Rep. John Lewis of Georgia called “public relations for the president.”
But, as we should all know from the last six years, there’s no such thing as a conflict of interest.
Bush recently said that he’d like to close Guantanamo, but I don’t buy it. Bush is a liar, haven’t you caught on? But let’s pretend that he’s being sincere when he says that, all things being right he’d close the jail, and look at that. Would it be a smart move? Absolutely. At this point, Guantanamo Bay needs to be shut down. It doesn’t do anything for us that a prison in Afghanistan or even here in the United States couldn’t do, and for all intents and purposes it appears that almost everyone held there is a low-level fighter. My opposition to the prison has nothing to do with the suicides recently there, but with the fact that it’s not a necessity. We don’t need Gitmo.
The Supreme Court has ruled that the police don’t have to knock on your door when searching with a warrant. That makes sense to me, and seems reasonable enough. I can’t say I see this case becoming an invitation for police officers to never knock. As long as everything else stays the same, and you have to be served with the warrant and notified and all that, I don’t see a problem with this.