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Chuck Thompson

Greenwich, CT

ANSWER:
Excuuuuuse me? Did you say the words,
“weapons of mass destruction”?
Take it back. I SAID TAKE IT BACK! I swear to God if I hear those words once more in my lifetime I’m going to punch somebody—and I’m a pacifist!

No greater lie was ever spoken to the American people than the lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. That whopper bamboozled the country into war, a war that has brought death and injury to countless Iraqis and Americans. The vast majority of Americans initially supported the war and gave Bush an approval rating of 70 percent. That’s how good of a lie it was.

So, here’s my new policy: If any president or general or cable news pundit (are you listening, Wolfie?) says that “Country X has weapons of mass destruction,” or is “building them,” or is “thinking” of getting them, or is seen shopping at the Weapons of Mass Destruction Mall, I am going to say, plain and simple, “You are lying.” My automatic assumption will be that not only am I being
lied
to, I’m being played big time so that Uncle Sam’s hand can dig into my pocket and grab my money to pay off the latest batch of military contractors. I will not care how many speeches you make, how many cartoon drawings you show to the members of the United Nations, how much evidence you claim to have, or how many network reporters you’ve snookered. I will never, ever believe you.

On the outside chance there may be a legitimate threat to the United States, I will not be convinced of such threat until I actually see it with my own two eyes. So you can claim Iran has a “nuclear weapons program” all you want, but I will not believe it. For me to believe it, that Ahmadinejad guy would literally have to walk onto the stage of
American Idol
WITH THE VERY BOMB ITSELF IN HIS HANDS. Seriously, I will have to see the actual friggin’ bomb, and THEN I want him to show me that he knows how to use it. (Of course, I don’t want him to actually detonate the thing—at least not before they announce who’s being cut this week from the show.)

Then and only then will I believe. But belief alone won’t be enough to get me to do anything about it. Why should I? Nine other nations have the bomb and we’ve done nothing about
that
. We’ve let all the old Soviet missiles be scattered over who knows where, so why start to pretend that now we give a hoot?

A wise man (I.F. Stone) once said, “Every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.” Our lazy, useless, gullible media starts with the assumption the government is telling them
the truth
, and only when someone from outside the mainstream presents the evidence that a lie has been told do journalists get off their butts and investigate anything. After 8 years of a lying administration, you’d think the media would start with the assumption that their chain is getting jerked again.

Will I ever live to see the day when just one reporter at a White House press conference stands up and says the following: “Based on what you just said, Mr. President, we’re going to assume you’re a lying sack of sound bites. Would you please prove to us that what you said is not one more in a pile of lies we’ve had shoveled down our throats since you took office?”

Scott McClellan, Bush’s former press secretary, could not believe how EASY it was to play the gullible press. Says McClellan: “If anything, the national press corps was probably
too
deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to . . . the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq.” The so-called, “‘liberal media,’” he continued, “didn’t live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served.” And when asked whether the early critics of the Iraq war had been right, he responded, “. . . certainly on the buildup to the Iraqi war, we should have been listening some more to what they were saying, the American people should have been listening a little bit closer to some of what was being said.” (Thanks, Scott. Now you say it. Wasn’t that you booing me off the stage at the Oscars?)

So, no, Iran has no “nuclear program” or “weapons of mass destruction.” That’s the position we should all take and not budge from it until we see the mushroom cloud over Boise. Which, my fans in Boise, I can assure you, will be NEVER.

But didn’t the Ayatollah have something do with 9/11?

Marilyn Wolcott

Midland, TX

ANSWER:
God#@&*$@!!!! DIDN’T YOU HEAR WHAT I JUST SAID?! No!! Nobody had anything to do with 9/11 other than the bastards who killed all those people. Oh, and the very, very smart people who trained them and funded them. Who were
THEY?
Yeah, just a bunch of guys running around in a desert and living in a cave. Hey, I bet they have WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, TOO! HAHAHAHAHAA!! ME LOVE A GOOD LAUGH!!!

Okay, sorry. To answer your question, no, neither the Ayatollah nor the Iranians had anything to do with 9/11. No Iranians were on any of the planes. They were mostly Saudis (our friends who sell us the $150-a-barrel oil). But if Bush and McCain want us to go to war against Iran, then I fully expect to hear a 9/11 connection before this modest tome even hits the bookstores.

Remember the rule: THEY ARE ALWAYS LYING. MAKE THEM PROVE IT. How would they prove this one to satisfy me? I might accept independently-shot videotape of the Ayatollah at his travel agent’s office buying 19 one-way first class tickets.

Let’s leave Iran alone. The Iranian people want to be free and they will take care of their freedom by themselves. Just like we did in 1776. Just like the French did a few years later. Just like Nelson Mandela did. Just like the Sandinistas did. Just like the Spanish after Franco, and the Italians after Mussolini. Freedom isn’t something you dispense like a Happy Meal. It has to be wanted by those being oppressed—and then they have to
fight
for it
themselves.
The French could (and did) lend us a hand in 1776, but they couldn’t have just handed us our independence by ousting the British themselves. We had to be willing to risk our own lives in order for independence to work.

The Iraqis (as we see from their daily bombings and killings) clearly had it in them to wreak havoc on Saddam—but didn’t. That was their choice. We went in there and overthrew him for them.
That
doesn’t work. I’m sure they hated Saddam, but I’m also sure they liked going to the movies every week, having a drink every night, and I’m certain women liked wearing whatever they wanted and going wherever they damn well pleased.

Now most of the movie theaters have been shuttered and the bars driven underground. At least 40 Christian churches have been bombed or otherwise attacked, as has the only Jewish synagogue (Baghdad was one of only a few Arab capitals with a protected and open synagogue under Saddam). And since 2000 the life expectancy for an Iraqi male has dropped from 65 to 48 years. If the Iraqis had wanted Saddam gone, there’s one thing history has proven—he would have been gone. People desperate to be free will stop at no lengths to be free.

But they don’t get freedom from the barrel of a gun. All that brings is chaos, death, and $5-a-gallon gas.

Which presidential candidate do I want to have a beer with?

Billy McKenzie

Zanesville, OH

ANSWER:
You are asking the wrong question. Because more people wanted to have a beer with George W. Bush than John Kerry, they elected Bush president. But if the guy you want to go drinking with is not allowed to drive you home, should you even be near him? Let alone put him in charge of the Free World?

They say we Americans don’t want to elect someone smarter than we are. They say we’d rather elect someone who is shitfaced and dumb. Why? So we can feel superior? So we can laugh at the idiot? Is that a nice thing to do? Do you think it was fair to put so much responsibility in W’s hands when he clearly wasn’t able to touch his nose with his finger or count backwards from 10? Looking back on it all now, it seems quite cruel of us, doesn’t it?

The point of electing someone more sober and brilliant than we are is to make sure the country moves forward under a president who seeks to create a better world. Open up new worlds with new ideas. Find the cure for cancer. Make sure everyone has a home and a job and a great education. Make friends with our neighbors in the world. Believe that the earth is round and that it has an ozone layer as thin as a piece of dental floss.

When Hillary Clinton said that she didn’t realize that Bush was lying to her about the weapons of mass destruction, she was essentially saying, “I’m dumber than the dumb guy who is trying to get one over on me. And therefore that makes me not as smart as the 100 million Americans who were against the war from the beginning, the third of the country who
knew
Bush was lying.” It simply doesn’t work if 100 million Americans are smarter than the President.

Hillary then went campaigning around the country, pounding back brewskies in bars and honkytonks in the hopes of getting the “Who Would I Like to Have a Beer With” vote.

John McCain, too, is going for the same “Real Men Drink Bud and Fight Wars for 100 Years” crowd. His entire M.O. is that folksy, gee whiz, “Listen, my friends,” demeanor. It’s “my friends” this and “my friends” that. McCain proposed that he and Obama hold a series of down-home town hall meetings so that he could continue his have-a-beer-with-me persona. The idea of a real debate with tough questions where he would have to give hard facts is simply something he can’t do when he’s buying everyone in the town hall a round.

Fortunately, it seems that the American people (or at least those voting in the Democratic primaries in 2008) have wised up. After having the crap kicked out of the country for eight years by a dry drunk at the wheel, the last thing anyone wants is someone who can drink them under the table.

Fortunately, no one this year is asking, “Who do I want to have a beer with?” Rather, the new question is, “Who Do I Want to Have Sex With?” Now isn’t that a better question? And isn’t the answer obvious?

I cannot wait, ‘til 2008