Breaking with tradition

It's not that I'm addicted to the Washington Post, or that I rely on that one publication as my sole source of pertinent information. It's just that the following four editorials in today's edition so thoroughly summarize my feelings about the Administration, Congress, and Iraq that I'd be ridiculously conceited to believe I could say things any better.

Richard Cohen addresses the one man in America with the least right to call anyone "dishonest and reprehensible".

Eugene Robinson lambasts the continuing muddled rationale for the war, and the unbelievable lack of accountability suffered by anyone in the Bush Administration.

E.J. Dionne Jr. notes that our own Congress needs a lesson in the workings of democracy.

And blogger Emily Messner provides a wide array of important links relevant to the intelligence that was, at the very least, misrepresented by the White House as it sold its case for pre-emptive invasion.

Is it not obvious to a majority of Americans by now that the Bush Administration no longer deserves to operate with official impunity on our "behalf"? That this group in Washington have more than proven their ineptitude, and lost the privilege of remaining in power? That every day they do retain their positions of authority, that fact weakens our nation, makes us more vulnerable to attack, destroys our credibility and global image, and brings us one step closer to financial ruin?

Can we afford as a nation to wait more than three years longer for this Administration's contract to run its course?

The upcoming mid-term elections should be about more than deciding the fate of a handful of Congressional representatives. It's time to begin thinking in earnest about demanding a special referendum in 2006 on the competence of Mr. Bush and his minions. We need to remember as a people that America is our nation to protect and preserve, and it would simply be irresponsible to sit idly by and watch this country further harmed by an unqualified CEO and his reprehensible management team.

Wake up, America. Precedent be damned! The Bush Administration has already demonstrated its disregard for precedent by launching an unprovoked war against a sovereign nation for the first time in our history and then dismissing the time-honored Geneva Conventions as "outdated and quaint." It seems to me that the hour has come to return the favor, and break with electoral tradition ourselves.

The stakes are too high for us as a citizenry not to act now, and use the mid-term election cycle as an opportunity to make a vitally needed change in leadership. An Administration with nothing to fear, one that is proud of its performance and stands by its plans for the future, should have no concerns about putting that reputation to a vote in a special election. And for the sake of our survival as an enlightened nation, we need to demand that we be given the chance to cast our ballots now.

"The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." --Frederick Douglass