Pete Rose Held to Higher Standards Than Bush

Pete Rose is being crucified by many for lying about betting on baseball. Bush and his administration misled the US public and world (lied to us) on WMD in Iraq, but it seems the Bush Faithful (think Wildman Walker and the Rail Gang's view on Pete) will let the ends justify the means. The "ends" are not really clear, but I don't they care.

Eric Alterman made this comparison first and did so quite well:

If only Pete Rose had claimed he bet on baseball games and then lied about it because he suspected other teams of harboring ties to Al Qaida and building weapons of mass destruction, then the Washington Post editors would have called him a patriot and supported him down the line, even without that lame apology.

We don't even get an apology from Bush Inc. We get no acknowledgment that they were at least wrong. CNN has a story indicating that the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has issued a report that provides evidence that Iraq has not had WMD since at least the mid 1990's, and has not a WMD program beyond one on paper for just as long.

Bush supporters are going to overlook this. There was no threat from Iraq on the USA, but that does not matter. Operation Inigo Montoya will go on without consequence. How many more wars will the USA fight under a second Bush term that will be based on lies? I fear Bush supporters don't care. They are either blinded by their "savior," or they have bought into the new "red herring" in American culture: "terrorism." Communism was the propaganda tool for 75 years in American politics, but now that it has failed, something had to take its place. Fear of Islamic terrorists is driving otherwise logical people into Bush's camp of perpetual war. I don't see a cure for this brand of emotionally based political discourse. Fear is powerful, and not much can take away fear when terror alerts pop in and hatred of Islam is allowed to fester as a form of "fighting terrorism."