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While the mainstream media is participating in a feeding frenzy regarding the supposedly shocking behaviors of Tom DeLay and several members of the Bush administration (behavior allegations … some false and others magnified beyond recognition … that I will not dignify by repeating here), I’d like to propose a refresher course of sorts, regarding genuinely shocking behaviors exhibited by President Bush’s predecessor – behaviors that found themselves generally underplayed, and occasionally ignored, or referred to as politically and/or legally irrelevant, by the very same mainstream media.

No commentary. Simply a list of facts:

The President hosted more than a hundred fundraising dinners in the White House in which he solicited, and received, huge financial contributions from our ideological enemies.
The First Lady made a mathematically impossible fortune in cattle futures, virtually overnight.
The President consistently ‘invented’ principles of law for no other reason than to delay or avoid prosecution.
Friends of the President, the Lippo Group’s John Huang and James Riady, gained illegal access to classified material at the Commerce Department.
Subpoenaed documents (the First Lady’s billing records, documentation of the White House Travel office firings, etc.) disappeared.
900 personal FBI files of the President’s political opponents were illegally obtained and reviewed by Craig Livingstone.
The White House obstructed the FBI’s investigation of Vince Foster’s office, following his ‘suicide’.
The Vice President and the First Lady’s chief of staff solicited, and received, millions in illegal campaign contributions.
Under presidential direction, sensitive missile and satellite technology, secure communications, high-tech machine tools, and supercomputers were transferred to Communist China, primarily by two American companies (Hughes and Loral), both of which were heavy contributors to the President’s campaigns.
Under presidential direction, the deployment of an American missile defense system was road-blocked, leaving us vulnerable to the very ICBMs that he was helping our enemies produce. American military manpower, materiel, and equipment (especially ships and aircraft) were also cut by roughly one-half.
Under blatantly unconstitutional presidential directive, nearly two million acres of barren, undesirable, completely non-historic state and federal land were declared a ‘national monument’, thus preventing the mining of one of the largest deposits of clean coal in North America -- the only other major alternative source of clean coal being owned by the Indonesian Lippo Group (among the fortunate, living ‘friends of Bill’).
The President hired a squadron of lawyers, often providing them White House offices and government salaries, so that they could perform large amounts of personal legal work for the Clintons.
The President engaged in oral sex in the Oval Office with a White House intern.
The President sexually assaulted a White House volunteer, the wife of a deceased friend.
The President committed and suborned perjury, and concealed and destroyed evidence.
The President and his operatives saw to it that those who remained silent about his crimes either received lucrative jobs or promotions, outrageous ‘consulting fees’, or pardons ... while, at the same time, they demonized and ruined the lives and careers of those who came forward with the truth.
The President was very possibly indirectly complicit in the execution-style murders of intern Mary Mahoney in a Washington, DC Starbucks, and Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, who mysteriously received a bullet hole in the back of his head during a ‘plane crash’ in Croatia.
The President raped Juanita Broaddrick.
The President sexually molested Paula Jones.
As a result of their acquaintance with him, and possible knowledge of his character flaws, many of the President’s friends are dead.

I am tired of hearing that people are losing respect for, and confidence in, the Bush White House because of fabricated and/or exaggerated ‘crimes’ committed by friends, or members, of the administration.

My criticisms of the Bush administration are many, but the next time someone mentions the media's coverage of this administration’s present and potential scandals, I intend to hand him this list, ask him to read and reflect upon it, and then answer three questions:

(1) As regards a political theory of relativity, which of the last two administrations has been more relatively corrupt than the other?

(2) Upon which have the media’s ‘investigative efforts’ been focused?

(3) Why?

~ joanie …