Keillor Unhinged: Impeach President George W. Bush for ‘War Crimes?’
by Gary Larson | View comments |
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Lake Wobegonites know intellectual fraud when they see it.
Cranky old Garrison Keillor, humorist from Lake Wobegon, claims it’s high time to impeach the president. Charges would be, he writes, (1) “war crimes” and (2) “failing to attend to the country’s defenses.”
Got that? George W. Bush, war criminal. Sort of a Hitler, a Pot Pol or a Milosevic? Crackpot charges emanate nowadays from the useful idiots. The first could be from the cave-parched lips of Osama bin Laden. The second is strictly from the theater of the weirdly absurd.
Did Keillor call for impeachment of Bill (“he reads books”) Clinton? Nope. The big lug was only perjuring himself, obstructing justice, et cetera, while not protecting the nation from 9/11 after the first attack on the World Trade Center, the embassy bombings, and the assault on the USS Cole.
"Big Creep," intern Monica called him, was busy trashing our nation’s intelligence-gathering, treating terrorism as mere criminality, not war, when he was not granting pardons wholesale to lowlifes. Passed up a golden chance to nab Mr. bin Laden, too, he did. (“Insufficient evidence.”)
Holy terror Keillor, with fellow travelers on the left, pushes now for impeachment of Bush. (Payback?) They hate him, really hate him. Seething might lend “meaning” to their existence. In an existential way, their hatred mirrors Al Qaeda’s full-blown madness.
Such loathing goes beyond partisan. Beyond the savage resentment of not calling the shots in Washington, D.C. Rather it is an ill-bred hostility, nearly pathological, infused by an elitist “liberal” hard core belief system that tends to dismiss all au contraire views as heretical, somehow villainous.
In his Tribune Media Services syndicated column on March 6, “Is It Time to Impeach?,” Keillor presents his case against his hate object, one Emmanuel Goldstein in Orwell’s 1984 — no, it’s George Bush in 2006:
Count #1. “…wiretap surveillance of Americans without a warrant.” So? Our Constitution imposes the duty on the president to protect us. Case law holds that whoever is chief honcho has an "inherent" — i.e., constittional — right, with our nation under threat, to authorize “wiretaps” without warrants. It is not “domestic spying,” as suspects’ surveillance is dubbed, falsely, by mainstream media (MSM), taking their cue as usual from liberal Democrats.
Count #2. “…turning over American ports to a country more closely aligned to 9/11 than Saddam Hussein.” Ports are NOT being “turned over,” let alone to any “country.” Keillor’s bogus claim is rivaled only by Senator Hillary Clinton’s hilarity, saying we are giving up the ports’ “sovereignty.” Terminals within ports, not ports, are managed, under port authorities, under U.S. statutes and regulations. Period. Port security continues fully with U.S. Customs and the U.S. Coast Guard. So what's the problem: Demagoguery a work?
Keillor libels our staunch ally in the war, the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Does its middle name vex him? Fact is, the UAE was threatened as much as nearby Kuwait by Saddam Hussein. UAE was not “aligned with 9/11.” Here, Keillor again shows his contempt for truth.
Count #3. “…they [Donald Rumsfeld and John Yoo] seemed to be arguing the president has the right to order prisoners to be tortured.” “Seemed to” does not make it true. “Torture” is a buzz word now, shorn of meaning, Orwellian-like, a partisan bomb tossed into antiwar conversations, to become an article of faith.
No excuses, but look again: Abu Ghraib and “Gitmo,” too, were more about prisoner abuse than torture. Notice is taken, punishment meted out. The mistreatment — God-awful, yes — was analogous to the worst of frat boys’ hazing, and just as criminal. But by definition, “torture?”
Count #4. “Our adventure in Iraq…has brought that country to the verge of civil war.” Earth to Keillor: Sectarian violence, horrific as religious strife is, does not make for a “civil” war, no matter how earnestly you and your pals in MSM hope it is, or will become, to slash at President Bush. Is it forever his fault, always?
Count #5. “…our airspace is not secure.” Witness any aircraft crashing into buildings lately? Absence of domestic attacks by Al Qaeda since 9/11 speaks volumes. Nothing is 100%, but zero attacks is a darn good start.
Count #6. “Our seaports are wide open…” This is news to U.S. Customs, the Coast Guard, and port authorities. On guard always, dogs sniff, X-ray machines scan cargo, ship manifests draw scrutiny, hands-on inspections go on routinely. Still reason for concern? Certainly. But our seaports are hardly “wide open,” unless you’ve just read Vince Flynn’s latest, Memorial Day.
Impeachment, anyone? “Let the Senate hear the evidence,” insists Keillor, mocking reality. There’ll be no takers, naturally, with specious “evidence” such as Keillor’s wild-eyed allegations.
Would folks at the Chatterbox Café in Lake Wobegon fall for Keillor’s proposal? Not likely. They’re too patriotic. Of above-average intelligence, too. They realize impeachment would be a smash hit on the Arab Street, sowing further hatred, killing and maiming Americans, as did Michael Moore’s popular, deceitful Fahrenheit 9-11. (Moore‘s money-maker still packs ‘em in at Middle East cinemas — a box-office bonanza, at such a terrible price.)
Besides, Lake Wobegonites know intellectual fraud when they see it. They do not suffer fanatics gladly, with apologies to epistle-writer St. Paul. Folk there by the lake also know partisan dishonesty, e.g., Bush cast as a Hitler, has consequences, bloody ones, something their aging native son has yet to learn on the edge of being elderly, at age 62.
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RIGHT ON, GARY! I fine it increasingly difficult to enjoy Keillor's humor as I once did. Although the Constitution allows him freedom of expression, I wish he and the Clooneys and Streisands would stick to their craft, abandon their political vomit, and ask for forgiveness, so that I could once again enjoy them as entertainers.
Comment by Bob Dryden | March 22, 2006
Good rebuttal of Keillor, who is out of his depth. He is better off sticking to local color and folksy story-telling about people he knows something about. Keillor has ventured into deep water before, when he worked for the New Yorker, but then, as now, one has the impression he strives to impress the liberal intellectuals, who represent to him a higher plane than the provencial soils, where he grew up. The folks in Nashville call it gettin' above your raisin'.
Comment by Bill White | March 22, 2006
As Lake Wobegone is not a real place (its women are no stronger, men no more good-looking, and children no more above-average than Keillor's wistful imaginings can make them), it's hard to see how they'd catch on to Keillor's fraud unless he wanted them to. It might make for one of his better monologues (casting himself as Lake Wobegone's conspiracy-haunted, Lutheran deity invoking, schizoid lunatic and bombast dispensing killjoy) if he did. ;-)
I used to like Keillor’s show until late 2003 when he started getting unhinged over Bush in the lead up to Election 2004. He brought his loathe-Bush angst center-stage of his normally warm and charming program. Suddenly, it was like listening to Jane Fonda howling against Vietnam atrocities or Hillary weeping and complaining how much she was hurt to find out Bill had cheated on her (The wife’s the last to know – Yep, she still cracks me up!), and he wouldn't get off it. I sent a note care of the show telling him he needed to lighten up and let it go, but he wouldn't or couldn't. I guess I'm not the only one he tuned out.
Comment by Bob Stapler | March 22, 2006
WHEN WILL ENTERTAINERS LEARN THAT TO BRING THEIR (INVARIABLY LIBERAL) POLITICS OUT INTO THE SUNSHINE WILL COST THEM A GOODLY PORTION OF THEIR AUDIENCE? I CAN'T BEGIN TO RELATE THE NUMBER OF ACTORS I NO LONGER CAN STOMACH BECAUSE THEY HAVE AIRED THEIR HERETOFORE HIDDEN LIBERAL BIAS. TANTAMOUNT TO SHOOTING ONESELF IN THE FOOT. I BELIEVE A COPY OF A GARRISON KEILLOR BOOK IS SOMEWWHERE ON MY BOOKSHELVES. WHEN DISCOVERED, IT WILL HEAD TO THE LANDFILL. THANK YOU MR. KEILLOR
Comment by ROBERT N. ANDERSON | March 22, 2006
I get a kick out of these silly liberal entertainers going around calling for the impeachment of Bush. As has already been pointed out, they're don't seem to get that Dick Cheney would be Prez. if they got W thrown out. If they wanna push for that, I say let the crazies do it. As the article said, these people are useful idiots. They won't get anywhere, they'll look like fools, and if a one in a billion chance happens and they succeed, we get a president who's a little more to the right and quite a bit smarter than the current one.
Comment by Shane Atwood | March 22, 2006
Shane, the thing is that the Left's plan is to impeach both Bush and Cheney. I can see it pretty plainly - get control of Congress back, force Cheney to step down, get his replacement bogged down in comittee/filibuster, impeach Bush and force him out, and then the Democrat Speaker of the House would automatically become President according to the rules of Succession. Nothing short of an outright coup d'états. I would really be afraid of what that President would do with things like Emergency Powers and the Patriot Act.
Maybe I'm being paranoid, but I really fear for the day that the Democrats get control of Congress back with this President is in office.
Comment by Michael Breen | March 23, 2006
I remember as a child in Minnesota that I was proud a renowned humorist and author like Garrison Keeler came from my home state. He would be on TV every once in a while, his show would come on PBS and NPR. I was so naïve.
It was sad to find out Bozo was an alcoholic. It was sad when I realized pathetic Adam West was Batman. A year or so ago while watching the O’Reilly Factor, it was sad when I found out Garrison Keeler is a freaking moron. He bumbled, fumbled, and thought he was so funny, and O’Reilly chewed him up for a while and finally took pitty on the mental retard and just let the segment go to commercial.
It felt a little like finding out there was no Easter Bunny. I already knew there was no Santa, so it made sense, but I hoped something could still be pure and real. I knew that many other liberals, literary figures and Minnesotans were ridiculous liberal sheeple. It just hurt to see this one, this guy that once made me proud, turn out to barely have enough brain power to control his bowel movements.
Thanks for the icing on the “you can never go home again” cake.
Comment by Ruslfish | March 23, 2006
George W Bush is a war criminal. Under international criteria agreed to at the time by America and others during the trial of Nazi war criminals at Nurenberg, George W Bush is in violation of national and international law.
Comment by Max Godwin | March 29, 2006
Hey Max:
Retard says what?
Comment by Ruslfish | March 30, 2006
I get a kick out delusional conservatives. Keillor is absolutely correct. The war against Iraq was NOT authorized by the U.N. Resolution oft cited by Bush and Bushy. Even Bush admits that Saddam had NOTHING to do with 911. Therefore, our attack was NOT in self defense. The U.S. was never in danger of an attack by Saddam Hussein's army nor did Saddam have anything to do with Bin Laden, who is all but forgotten by GWB. NO WMD have been found…though the WMD figured prominently among the MANY ex post facto justifications for the war. In fact, Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations was a gestalt of lies, plagairized student papers, old out of date B&W photographs and other claptrap. Nothing said by Powell on behalf of Herr Busch has turned out to have been true. Read my lips: NOTHING SAID BY POWELL WAS TRUE. In fact, Powell has since apologized for having lied to the world. When everything said by Powell was bunkum, it is hard to imagine that his effort was anything but a deliberate attempt to deceive the world. It's also hard to imagine a hand's on guy like Bush not giving the Powell the OK to spout that junk on world wide TV. Bush, in other words, is most surely a co-conspirator in a fraud. Here is a simple syllogism that is lost upon the mentally constipated conservative mindset: IF every rationalization for war was untrue (and they are all untrue) then the war is a violation of the principles of international law that had been insisted upon by the United States itself. By the standard that WE, as a nation, applied to Nazis at Nuremberg, then the war against Iraq is a war crime in and of itself—nevermind the program of "rendition" about which the Bush administration has told nothing but lies. For having ordered a war of naked aggression against a sovereign nation that posed no threat to U.S. national security, Bush is prosecutable under the Nuremberg Principles. Moreover, U.S. Codes, Section 2441 bind the U.S. to Nuremberg and prescribe criminal penalties for violations thereof. Read it! With his approval ratings in the toilet, Bush will eventually be impeached. When he is tried and removed, an international movement is already organized to bring him to justice in the Hague. A first year law student can make the case against Bush in either domestic courts or at the international tribunal. I will support either effort with my campaign contributions, my loud mouth, and the moral superiority of my position. At last, the world has awakened to the endemically crooked GOP —not a political party, but a crime syndicate. Likewise, the Bush administration is not a "Presidency", it is a criminal conspiracy.
Comment by Len Hart | May 2, 2006
Bush is a war criminal and Max Godwin is correct. And, Michael, you can count on the left to do everything it can to impeach both Bush and Cheney. While the GOP cannot get elected unless it lies about its position or, in other ways, hides behind meaningless platitudes and "feel good" Reaganesque claptrap and slogans, the left will tell you straight up, jack: we are going to impeach and indict the war criminals and conspirators that have waged war on the Constitution and aggressive (but utterly failed) war against Iraq and Afghanistan. I often wonder: why do conservatives hate America? Why does Bush hate the Constitution? Why does Dick Cheney distrust his fellow Americans?
Comment by Len Hart | May 2, 2006
I find it amusing that so many rabid conservatives (see above) loved Keillor until they found out what a liberal he really is. That shows how lame you really are! Keillor and his retarded little "Prairie Home Companion" show are so feeble that even minimal exposure makes me want to vomit. And true, his politics are moronic — but no more so than yours. They are simply pointed in the opposite direction.
Comment by Christopher John | May 31, 2006