Doesn't Understand the Nature of the World

Bush claims his opponents, particularly the Federal judge who ruled his warrantless wiretapping program unconstitutional, "do not understand the nature of the world in which we live." I would submit it is the Chimperor who is not quite aware of the nature of the world or the restrictions on the office he holds.

I just returned from a trip to Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, my hometown. I was met by an astonishing poverty, something I never noticed while I lived due to what Jared Diamond calls "creeping normalcy." I observed this trip quite plainly how many people were living at or below poverty levels, some above the minimum wage but below what the Democrats would raise it to. Yes, these were people living on less than $12,000 per year. Many were involved in the work of being poor, some of these family members willing to talk with me about it. If you've never known poverty personally, it's hard, uncertain work. Many in this situation turn to drugs - I have family members in jail for making meth to give their children Christmas presents. Yet the Shrub and his Republican allies would tie an increase in the minimum wage to a tax cut for the richest 1% of Americans. An increase to $14,000 per year won't pull anyone up out of poverty but it might have kept a cousin of mine out of jail.

It's this reality, the reality of my own situation of losing buying power faster than my salary increases, of urban and rural poverty, of hopelessness that the Shrub and the Republicans don't understand. They're not willing to listen when anyone talks with them about it, the poor don't have advocates with deep enough pockets to buy an audience with a Republican Representative, let alone a Senator or the President. The Judge who ruled the Shrub's wiretapping unconstitutional had a far greater grasp of the nature of the world.

Bush can't concern himself with his job, much less the plight of others.