You stated:

“In a parliamentary system, Bush and his people would have been out on their ears after this month’s election.”

Actually in a parliamentary system, with a small majority, any break in party discipline could lead to a “no confidence” vote and necessitate an election. But the flaw in the “parliamentary system = good” idea is exemplified by Blair and England. In England the press hasn’t been completely Fauked (not a reference to Guy Fawkes). The English weren’t subjected to an unexamined fantasy world of past and future war glories that the American media and press used to saturate the American public dialog. Yet the Blair government has continued on undeterred in spite of being tied to the same disasters of the Bush group (including a further terror strike). That, along with the added cache of being viewed as a lap dog to a dangerous idiot.

To use a programming metaphor, whenever I do this sort of look at the mess that is America today I get a sense of top-down programming, seeing the big mess at the top – the Bush White House. Then going to the Republican parliamentary behavior, and continuing down the top-down outline. But I always seem to get stopped when I hit the question of how these idiots and their obvious lies could be allowed to so pervert and destroy everything that was special about America and its jewel, the Bill of Rights in the Constitution and the Constitution. The Constitution itself being the jewel of the Age of Reason, built on the Age of Enlightenment, though somewhat compromised to insure unity.

For me the flawed tool, function, object, message – whatever – in the mix is the press and media. That these dangerous thieving murderous idiots could so lead the nation into such obvious disasters (Iraq is only one of many disasters America has been lead into) is the result of Americans being ill informed. “Ill informed” is much too gentile a phrase for what has happened. Americans have been lied to on a fundamental and monumental level for years now and those lies have not merely been transmitted to the people with little examination, they’ve been megaphoned with high praise.

I’ve commented elsewhere that it isn’t even the lying that was ever much of a concern to the American public. That’s expected from politicians. It isn’t the lying. It’s the losing. But in every case, the Bush and Republican lying, facilitated by the press and media, has lead to losing for Americans. Iraq, Medicare donut holes, Katrina, Social Security privatization, Enronesque oversight. And on and on. Average Americans are the losers in the lies.

I’m ever grateful for the rise of the Internet and the voices of reason that have appeared and given some semblance of truth and insight to the public dialog. My fear is that with the current power leadership, including those newly elected, there will be attempts to end the freedom of speech on the Internet that dares speak truth to power.

But Bush and Cheney aren’t going to resign. You know that. If they did they’d be open to prosecution without the unitary executive to protect them. “You and what army?” as a counter to the congress and courts won’t have any meaning.

It’s not in their make up. I’m reminded of a story that appeared in Salon a couple of years ago.

George W. Bush’s missing year
http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/09/02/allison/index.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/salon/0,14779,1295936,00.html

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Around the same time, for the 1972 Christmas holiday, the Allisons met up with the Bushes on vacation in Hobe Sound, Fla. Tension was still evident between Bush and his parents. Linda was a passenger in a car driven by Barbara Bush as they headed to lunch at the local beach club. Bush, who was 26 years old, got on a bicycle and rode in front of the car in a slow, serpentine manner, forcing his mother to crawl along. “He rode so slowly that he kept having to put his foot down to get his balance, and he kept in a weaving pattern so we couldn’t get past,” Allison recalled. “He was obviously furious with his mother about something, and she was furious at him, too.”
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We’re all in that car being slow ridden into oblivion and no one has the guts to give that moronic self centered fawker a bump to get his sorry ass out of the way.

…

Here’s another image that came to mind years ago about Bush and the rest of us. It’s been mentioned on the Net.

It’s a Good Life (The Twilight Zone)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It’s_a_Good_Life_(The_Twilight_Zone)

As for the “Iraq Study Group,” it’s political theater. The search for the new “Peace With Honor” with the same disregard for any that may be seen hanging from our helicopters. It’s just a matter of working out the stage sets to control the finger pointing when “genocide” replaces “civil war” in the press style sheet debates.