Henri Reynard Speaks Out

All Offense And No D Fence?

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I keep hearing rumors about the lack of defense exhibited by the Bush teams. That includes all of his teams from our misnamed defense department, to the misnamed Texas Rangers baseball team; which he built a Stadium for with taxpayers money. The Bush years in charge of that team saw an offensive core built that could score lots of runs but had the range of an armadillo in the outfield and the speed of Escargot in the infield. Now make no mistake the best defense against criticism is to build a powerful offense and let it play. Everyone likes an offensive minded coach and offense sells tickets, evidently to wars as well as the athletic competitions that only simulate war. It never wins titles but the fans pay for tickets and show up in droves to watch hitters drive the ball out of the park. And that is the sum and total of the purpose of professional sports teams, to make money, isn't it? Especially if it can be done with someone else's investment capital, which is how stadiums get built these days.

The question is whose investment capital is being used to field this fine offensive team of Donald Rumsfield pitching with Wolf wits (spell checker says its right) on first and Karl Rove ranging in right field. Of course then you have Tom (Rain) Delay calling the plays from the outfield House (The one with the crescent on the door). Then there is the administration's chief of surgery at third base in the Senate. There is no shortstop on the field but this is an offensive minded team and in center field you have the heavy hitting Secretary of State Colin Powell. There is no left field in this ballpark. The fence starts right behind third base and runs toward second base until it veers off toward the bleachers. Rounding off the team is the second baseman Christie Whitman who can never get her proposals for improving the environment off first. Oh yes and you have Tom Ridge catching the flack. Then there is Ari Fleischer mowing the flack catchers in the press box. It is a fine and truly offensive team.

The only problem is this question; can it defend us against its own excesses? Does this team lack balance and brakes on the pitching mound golf cart? Will it run amuck in the world during its time on the field? Some of us think it already has, but we are in the minority so far, so there's nothing to fear except the fare itself. What will this team cost us in all of the measures of cost we can assemble on one sheet of paper? Well so far it has cost us an unique position of credibility in the world regarding War and Peace, Environmental affairs, Economic policy and the integrity of the election process in this country. Not bad for starters. It is showing signs of costing us the credibility that has kept the dollar strong in spite of huge balance of payment deficits. It is also weakening our equities markets with its reckless fiscal policies and a fine lack of sensibility about what huge deficits in government spending mean to foreign investors. What else can it do? Why it boggles the mind and makes the knees go weak even on a jaded old warhorse like me.

It is only running through the third inning of the four it has at bat, and it is hoping for a contract extension negotiated by Dick Cheney who got Halliburton a doozy of a contract to put out fires that were never lit. That's Dick the relief Pitcher Cheney we're talking about here who killed off the energy crisis that cost California billions by blaming the consumers for a bum deal. Meanwhile he was lunching with his crony's in the energy industry while Enron was destroying billions of dollars of investor capital for its second act. Yep that's the guy, aren't you pleased that he's there waiting in the wings. It make you want one of God's angels, maybe the one with the big sword, watching over our President no matter what you think of W himself. Oh yes, then there's W, cast as manager of this team, who else could manage this conglomeration of special interests supporters and simpering sycophants of the ultra wealthy?

Ask me how I really feel about this team? If they were playing in the bush league, where they belong, the Dingbat Dogcatchers could clean their clocks! It takes us four hundred billion dollars to support our defense establishment in peacetime and they just upped the ante by another hundred billion or so for this year in order to liberate some museum pieces in Baghdad. They should be handling the budget for the lower Texas mosquito control district, not the two trillion dollar budget for our nation. Yes that's trillion with a "t", isn't it enchanting to see all of that money pass through these slippery palms? They are sooo slippery that it makes you wonder what they were whacking in the clubhouse between innings. Enough abuse for one day I will return to their lack of defense another time, Meanwhile Tom Ridge can defend the whole perimeter of the nation himself can't he? I hope so because the budget for defense of the homeland is less than we are spending to liberate Iraq's looters. God bless and keep you, our team, our troops and our protestors safe now and always.