Originally posted at TexasKaos.com WITH Pictures
The Sam Fox - or as I call him Sam Faux - nomination has nothing to do with John Kerry, though I am happy he got a chance to confront the S.O.B.
This this is about Values. An Ambassador is the face of America - do we want a liar to represent us?
We have one as President already!
Please follow on the flip. And let you friends know. Thanks.
| John Kerry finally got some justice yesterday when the man who financed the Swiftboat Veterans for Lying came before Kerry's Senate committee after being nominated by George Bush to be ambassador of Belgium.
It disgusts me that this man, Sam Fox (or is that Faux?), could be nominated to represent our nation after the ugliest and most misleading political ad against another candidate. What was Faux' defense? He didn't know and everyone does it. Like the group he funded, he is lying on both counts.
But this thing isn't about Faux. And it's not even about John Kerry, though he nailed it in his opening remarks to Faux during the hearing (partial transcript): |
Kerry: Let me ask a few questions that go to something that I think is important, which is a question of both a combination of citizenship and judgment, if you will, is the way I might phrase it. And I want to try to ask these questions as fairly as possible, and not try to play some kind of gotcha game here, I assure you. But it's important to me in thinking through this issue of judgment to explore this a little bit. I assume that you believe that the truth in public life is important. (my emphasis)
Already Faux News and the fundies are pushing Kerry's grilling (and it was masterful) as revenge. Even some progressives feel a little vindicated that we finally got some payback. What nonsense.
Kerry's grilling of Faux isn't about payback. Faux's appearance before the Senate raises questions about citizenship and judgment and whether or not Truth is important in public life.
Faux of course claimed to value truth and citizenship, but then why did he give $50,000 to a group of liars a month after they were discredited by his own newspaper? When the rich do wrong, whether it be Paris Hilton driving drunk or Faux lying to Congress, we are expected to wink and nod and look the other way.
Why should you be upset about this nomination? Because it once again highlights that there are one set of rules for the very rich like Sam Faux and George Bush and another set of rules for the rest of us ordinary Americans.
Faux's nomination once again proves to me that George Bush is full of it when he talks about bi-partisanship. In the same State of the Union speech in which he claims to reach out to the new Democratic majority, he pointedly insults them by using the "ic" slur.
What Bush and other rich men really mean is do as I say (always) not as I do
It's a motto rich men like Bush have always practiced. Bush sends ordinary Americans to fight and die in Iraq for his war but when it came time for him to serve his country as a young man, he used Daddy's influence to stay out of Vietnam. He skipped several hundred better-qualified candidates, whose parents weren't rich or powerful, became a pilot in the Alabama Reserves, and then inexplicably went AWOL.
Training one pilot costs tax-payers millions and thousands of men and women spend thousands of hours of training to fight for each coveted seat - a seat which the Bush family gave to Little George who did NO training, and like some spoiled brat bored by an expensive toy, George Bush turned his back on a career that millions of Americans crave
Paris Hilton's luxury Bentley was recently impounded after Hilton was caught driving on probation with her lights off and speeding. America has chided her for her irresponsible and spoiled behavior but how can we scold Hilton when we elect as President a man who behaved so recklessly in his youth?
And if parents are upset that a billionaire porn star has become their 10-year old daughter's role model, what message did they send their children when they elected as President a man who also relied on his father's money and influence to keep him out of jail and bankruptcy?
Do as I say not as.... Parents, has that ever worked on your child?
And yes, I did say Bush behaved recklessly in his youth, a thing he admitted, but has he become any more responsible since then? Did you know that George Bush knew about the first plane to hit the World Trade Center BEFORE he had even arrived at his now infamous photo op at Booker Elementary where he read "My Pet Goat" as America was being attacked?
8:45 am. Reporter asks Bush "Do you know what's going on in New York?" He responds that he does, and says he will have something about it later as he leaves his hotel for Booker Elementary School. [ABC News, 9/11/01]
8.48 am. American news stations first broadcast images of the first plane to hit the World Trade Center.
9:00 am. According to official records, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card tells Bush a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center in the limo to the school. This is TWELVE minutes AFTER millions of Americans have seen it on TV and after he claimed to the above reporter he knew what was going on.
Upon arrival, Condi Rice updates Bush via the phone about the situation. [Christian Science Monitor, 9/17/01]
9:01 am. Bush quips to reporters before entering his photo-op, "That's one terrible pilot."
His country, the one he had been elected to protect, was being attacked and our Commander-in-Chief is carrying on with a photo-op? I am positive the world and the children of Booker Elementary would have understood why the President of the United States had to cancel to go protect the nation. What should have been the responsibility of our leader at that moment?
Here is the full footage of George Bush's My Pet Goat moment in which he sits in a chair reading a children's book for several minutes after he was informed about the second plane hitting the World Trade Centers
You owe to yourself as an American to see this video (courtesy of MemoryHole). And frankly you have an obligation as a citizen to know what the fuck happened to our nation and our leaders in the worst terrorist attack on our soil.
I know, I know. What's this got to do with Sam Fox and why can't we just forget about 9/11. Because as a citizen of this nation you have a responsibility to elect as President a person who has the experience and values to carry out the responsibilities given to him or her.
The video and the transcripts of the day will tell you a great deal about the man many Americans elected as President and made the role model of millions of children in this country.
I saw a rich, rudderless man who never worked a day in his life and so did not develop the backbone and leadership skills to handle the position he was elected to handle. Bush and his Cabinet have never paid the price the expect ordinary Americans to pay and yet he expects all the rewards. (see So, George, What price have you paid?) Further, the lies he told that day and days after to cover up his incompetence shows me a man who does not live by the ethical standards he sets for others.
Once again, do as I say....
And Bush has now nominated an equally rich man to become the US Ambassador to Belgium. A man who aided a group of liars and then claims under oath to Congress to not remember the details of his involvement.
But why is Faux's nomination important? Why should you care about it all? Because an ambassador is the face of America and they represent to the world and to Americans, especially young Americans, what we as a people value.
Do you want a liar to represent America? Would you want that person to be the role model for your children?
Do you value Truth in our public officials?
I would hate for the world to associate America with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. It's something many terrorist organizations and fundamentalists do as means of demonizing America.
To those who hate us, I implore you to visit our nation. We are not perfect, but we are more than our movie stars and entertainers. America is such a beautiful land and nation and our principles and culture is as beautiful as yours.
Yet what is the basis for my argument when two liars represent my nation: President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney (vice indeed).
These two travel the world and America and look people straight in the eye and lie over and over and over again. Iraq has WMDs. Saddam helped Al Qaida carry out 9/11. Iraq is turning a corner. Britain withdrawal of its troops is good for our soldiers in Iraq. Our Medicare, energy, and New Orleans levee budgets are accurate. I have never seen Senator John Edwards before.
When their mouth piece, Press Secretary Tony Snow, is a liar or lies for them. Iran's government gave arms to Iraqi insurgents.
When their Secretary of State, who did nothing for 9/11, claims to love "her people" in Alabama and leaves them to die during Hurricane Katrina while spending over $1000 for shoes in New York City?
Over and over and over...and yet we Americans elected them again. It literally took Hurricane force winds to blow the blindfolds off our eyes.
And so here we are once again. Once again another rich man has come before us professing American values and asking for our approval.
Sam Faux gave $50,000 to a discredited group aimed at political assassination of a Vietnam veteran who could have also used his family's influence to stay out of war. Instead Kerry served his nation, saved his men's lives (according to his men AND naval records), and came back to prevent other Americans from being sacrificed in a war he found little purpose fighting.
And it was Sam Faux who helped take that away from Kerry in 2004 with the Swiftboat Liars. He claims he did not know where the money was going, Do you really believe that? One month after his own newspaper in a lengthy article discredited the Swiftboat Liars?
And isn't it irresponsible to give away $50,000 if you don't know where it's going? Faux could've funded a terrorist organization. That's irresponsible behavior from any citizen but it's unacceptable and possibly criminal from someone who wants to be an ambassador and will serve as our children's role model for citizenship.
And again, do you really believe Faux's story? Does he really believe we're so naive or does he hide behind legalities and his money?
So we have been given a choice, a moral choice, which will send a message to our children and the world about what values and role models we - and they - should follow.
Will we once again tell our children to do what we say and not what we do? Or will we actually live by the set of rules and examples we expect them to follow?
If America's children are not living by the standards we want, perhaps we as a people need to start looking at our own sense of citizenship and the actions we have undertaken.
Perhaps we need to do what we say this time.
H/T to Crooks & Liars for the video & follow-up to Kerry, Sam Faux, and the SwiftBoaters. You should check it out. Kerry was sharp and eloquent and he responded quickly to Faux's misdirection and lies.
Kerry learned the lessons of 2004. Hopefully, the rest of us do too.