Greg Palast on the Presidential Debate

Mr. Tall and Mr. Small
By Greg Palast

Thursday September 30, 2004
Our President told the debate audience, "You cannot lead if yousend mexxed missiges." I certainly hope not.But that's exactly what we got. You watch our President, the nervoushand-hiding, the compulsive water-glass-fondling, the panickedI-wish-I-had-a-whiskey look, and you think, "My god, this is theguy who's supposed to save us from al Qaeda."And how are we going to win the War on Terror, Mr. President? "First of all, of course I know Osama bin Laden attacked us. Iknow that," he said. Well, that's a start, I suppose.But it doesn't have to stay this way. This is America, home of thebrave and where, I remember from school, we could vote for presidentand the votes would count. So we looked to the tall man next to himto show us the way out.In Iraq, "We don't have enough troops there," said the tallone. Really, Senator? We should send MORE? Not exactly: Mr. Tall'sgot a plan to get our troops out. He'll have a big meeting of"allies," and after he talks with them, they will all jumpup and volunteer to send THEIR kids to Fallujah. France andIndonesia and Kuwait can't wait to ship in soldiers and extra bodybags. Right. We love you, John, but there’s no band of Hobbitscoming to the rescue -- that's just a movie.Well, he looked kind of "presidential." But given theline-up includes Nixon, Ford and two Bushes, that's not a big trick.I'm sorry. I know I'm supposed to stand up and cheer that John Kerrydidn't get Gored. In fact, if you look at presidential debates theway the media plays it, as something akin to Olympic figure skating,where you score for the competitor’s style, you could say Kerry won.But I don't feel WE won anything.I mean, when Jim Lehrer asked how the candidates would make Americasafe from terrorists, Mr. Tall said he'd hire more firemen. And addmore cops. Maybe he thought he was running for mayor.It was disappointing, but then Mr. Small's answer was downrightfrightening. We have to "stay on the offensive," and"stay on the offense," and "I repeat, stay on theoffense." We have no doubt that Mr. Small can beextraordinarily offensive, but even he can't take his offensivenessto the bad guys if he doesn't know where they are. And on thatpoint, he's clueless.There were two words I was hoping to hear from Mr. Tall: "Saudi" and "Arabia." Imagine if he laid it onthe line, "The terrorists didn't put the hijackings on a creditcard, Mr. President. Their Saudi sponsors are fattening on thebloated war-driven price of oil. But you can't touch yourbuck-buddies in the Gulf, can you, Mr. President?. AsCommander-in-Chief, I'd cut'm off at the spigots, beginning with therelease of oil from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve. And then I'dseize their fat assets in the USA to compensate the victims of terrorattacks."When Mr. Tall was asked what whoppers the President has told us,surely there was something a bit more memorable than Mr. Small'sfailing to win over allies for his whacky crusade.Here's what Mr. Tall said … in my dreams:* "Beginning in March 2001, your Administration began a seriesof meetings with oil company executives to map the conquest of Iraqand its oil, a plan Americans would pay for in blood. You originallycalled this scheme, 'Operation Iraqi Liberation' -- O.I.L. We don'tappreciate your little joke, Mr. Small."* "One month after seizing Baghdad you fired General JayGarner, the man you put in charge of Iraq, after he called for rapidelections in Najaf; after he refused to impose your plans to sell offIraq's oil fields. In Najaf, citizens denied ballots, turned tobullets. And then, as General Garner predicted, the seizure ofIraq's assets resulted in the type of war one expects -- when seekingto impose colonial control."* "Mr. Small, you claim we've given a thousand lives to bringdemocracy to the Mid-east. But so far, your democracy, Mr. Small,comes down to a puppet prime minister, we've installed in Iraq and apuppet government, the Saudis have installed in Washington."OK, I can't expect all that in a presidential debate, where themessage has to fit through a tube. But still, Mr. Tall could havewon my vote with two words. It's the two-word answer John Kerry gavethree decades ago when asked the same question -- “How can we get ourtroops out of a disastrous war?”Then, the clear-minded, tall young men said, "In ships."==================
View Greg Palast's exclusive interview with General Jay Garner forBBC Television in the film, "Bush Family Fortunes,"available this week on DVD in an updated edition from Ryko at http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/video/39944000/rm/_39944105_iraq_palast19mar_vi.ramTo receive Greg’s investigative reports hot off the press click here:http://www.gregpalast.com/contact.cfm============================================If you would like to have your e-mail address removed from thismailing list. Cut and paste the following URL into your browseraddress bar. This will automatically remove from the mailing list andyou will receive no further mailings.http://www.gregpalast.com/emailremove.cfm?id=5257