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November 11, 2005
Alaskan in Exile
by Neil Zawicki

    It’s never a good sign when a world leader decides to send his staff to remedial ethics classes.

    President Bush did that last week. Really. The president has ordered his staff to essentially study Ethics 101 in the wake of the Libby indictment.

    Isn’t that strange? Isn’t that like putting a life vest on a drowned man?

    These are strange days. People who have achieved positions of power and influence at the top of the free world are sitting in little groups, listening to an ethics expert expound on notions like Right and Wrong, and listening to anecdotes on Fairness and Goodwill, and they’re taking notes.

    I think it’s a little late for classroom instruction.

    I have been operating in a condition of relaxed spectatorship these past weeks, because for a long time now I’ve listened to Right Wing people gloat and brag about their vaunted Republican leaders. I’ve listened to rhetoric about moral majorities and political capital and common sense leadership. And now the spell is fading, and the self-serving savages are running out of alibis.

     It’s time to sit back and watch The Beast die.

     I say they’re all guilty. They’re guilty by action as well as association. But there are those among the GOP who are turning away. A lot of them, actually, and that is refreshing. Republicans are distancing themselves from the President, because he has become political poison these days. There is real fear among Republicans now that Bush has severely damaged any chance of a GOP victory in 2008.

     That is why I have hope; it’s a hard-wired self-righting mechanism in our political system: when a crook starts getting sloppy, he loses support among the other crooks, and he loses power.   

     Former president and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Jimmy Carter feels deeply that Bush, in his arrogance, has used his fundamentalist ideals to take the nation in a direction it does not want to go. In his new book, “Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis,” Carter has broken ranks with all former presidents who adhere to an unwritten rule that they should not criticize a sitting president.
These are special circumstances.

    Indeed. Secret prisons around the world, across-the-board rejection of existing treaties and human rights standards, and preemptive war are all side effects of an insecure nation.

    It is Carter’s place to say such things, and I agree with him. But I have a little twitch of faith in my nation that assures me that Bush and his ways will not take hold, as they fail to stand up to the bright light of truth. Senators, activists, and our laws are all surrounding the president, like antibodies surrounding an infection. The tide will turn, and in fact is turning.

    I believe our nation will regain its security. I hope that it does.
   
    “Okay class, can anybody come up to the blackboard and spell the word ‘ethics?’ C’mon up Karl, don’t be shy…”


   

 















Neil Zawicki, exiled Alaskan, is Editor at Large for Insurgent49, a former reporter for the Alaska Star, and winner of the Alaska Press Club's 'Best Columnist' award. He is now living out the rest of his days in an undisclosed location in Oregon. He can be contacted at -  neil@insurgent49.com
- Columnists -

Editor's Desk
by Aaron Selbig

Red Alert
by Soren Wuerth

Alaskan In Exile
by Neil Zawicki

The
Bramble Bush
by Kevin Morford





- also by this writer -
Copyright 2005 Insurgent Media. All Rights Reserved.
in-sur-gent (in sur'jent), n. 1. a member of a group which revolts against the policies of its leadership.