A little perspective, please

So presidential candidate Barak Obama’s pastor for the last 20 years thinks that U.S. foreign policy created the 9/11 attacks and that the global white elite is responsible for the HIV/AIDS crisis? I don’t think the ruling elite is willfully spreading HIV/AIDS, though I am sure the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and I would agree that the response of the “international community” would be much different if the infections rates in North America and Europe were anywhere near those of central and south Africa. His first remark also contains some truth—U.S. foreign policy toward Israel, Palestine and elements of the Muslim world certainly contributed to the 9/11 tragedy—but to claim that it alone “caused” the strikes lets the attackers off way too easy. Their pre-mediated killings are indefensible.

What is equally indefensible, and certainly more damaging to all of us in the long run, are the imperious actions of the Bush administration, which has made a mockery of the Constitution through the destruction of privacy rights, the desecration of habeas corpus, the trashing of the separation of powers, not to mention gross economic mismanagement, willful violations of international law, the institutionalization of torture, and oceans of misery for hundreds of thousands of civilians and soldiers. There has never been a stronger case for impeachment of the president and the vice president in our nation’s history. Furthermore, the overwhelming evidence against George Bush and Dick Cheney directly related to the War on Terror warrants a separate international investigation for war crimes.

So excuse me, but I don’t much care what Obama’s pastor or Bush’s pastor has to say about anything. I hear worse lies, greater deception, more venality, arrogance and stupidity out of the White House, their check-writers and apologist in the Congress, and their lap dogs and stooges in the national press corps every week than I’ve heard from Wright in his lifetime. Allow me to suggest a little perspective, please. Can we dispense with trashing the preacher and return to the task of throwing these bums and their bag men out of the White House and get them prosecuted as soon as possible?