Perle Is No Gem
You’ve got to admire the audacity, chutzpah, and gall of the Bushites. Even as they relentlessly push their economic and military agenda of global conquest … they still take time for the small things.
Richard Perle is a sparkling example. He’s a right-wing ideological extremist who’s been a chief architect of George W.’s doctrine of preemptive military. His longtime buddy Donnie Rumsfeld, has ensconced Perle as chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board — a very powerful entity that develops Bush’s policies to keep America in a perpetual state of war.
But Richard, bless his loving heart, has taken time to use his governmental influence to help someone in need. That someone is Global Crossing — the telecommunications giant whose top executives were more greedy than skillful. They bankrupted the corporation, but not before bailing out with hundreds of millions of dollars for themselves.
Now, Global Crossing executives want to sell the company for a pretty penny to a Chinese billionaire. But a top government agency has to rule on such sensitive sales to foreign investors — and it’s balking. As luck would have it, though, Perle heard Global Crossing’s cries, and he’s now working his insider Bush connections to grease the skids for the sale.
He’s also being paid $725,000 to get the deal done. Hey — no one said he was an altruist.
Isn’t this, shall we say, tacky (not to mention unethical)? “I’m not using public office for private gain,” Perle says flatly. Really, Richard? Then what about that legal document you signed to get the lobbying job with Global Crossing — the one in which you claim to be uniquely qualified because of your position at the Pentagon? Oh, says Perle, “It was drafted by lawyers, and I frankly didn’t notice it.”
Frankly, Richard, there’s no other reason that they would hire you except for your tight connections with top officials. What a self-serving sleaze!
War Profiteering
While a bloody and costly war raged in Iraq, while such domestic needs as health care and infrastructure repair are crying for attention, while state governments are so strapped that they’re slashing even basic services — you’ll be thrilled to know that our stalwart congressional leaders, by gollies, have stepped up and delivered! Delivered what to whom? Delivered a $726 billion giveaway from our public treasury to the richest people in America.
Question: What’s the opposite of progress? Answer: Congress.
Yes, the Republican-led Congress that has refused to debate something as profound as the declaration of war in Iraq has found the time to ram through an obscene grant of much-needed tax dollars to the country’s least needy and most frivolous people.
The vote in the House came at 3am and passed on a party-line vote just hours after George W. launched his attack on Iraq. Even some Republican members were gagging on this sickening giveaway, so GOP leaders wrapped it in the flag, saying that it was “crucial” not to hand an embarrassing legislative defeat to Bush at the outset of the war. I can only imagine the surge of gratitude that our troops must have felt when they learned that their sacrifice was used by these shameless scoundrels as a rationale to give billions to rich families whose kids don’t have to fight in their country’s wars.
Later that same day, the Senate passed its version of Bush’s tax scam, with one little twist. Senator Russ Feingold offered an amendment to take $100 billion from the rich people’s windfall and set it aside to cover the cost of the Iraqi war — and it passed.
Incredibly, the White House is maneuvering to get the House-Senate Conference Committee to drop Feingold’s patriotic war-funding provision and hand the full $726 billion to the wealthy. After all, they shouldn’t have to give up any of their tax break just because of a little ol’ war, should they?
What an embarrassing moment for American patriotism.
This article appears in April 11 • 2003.