Belling the President

[LiberalEsto]

Do you remember Aesop's fable about Belling the Cat?(*see below)

The mice agreed that putting a bell on their enemy, the cat, would protect them by warning when the cat approached. But who, they wondered, would take the risk of hanging the bell on their mortal enemy?

More and more Americans realize that George W. Bush, occupant of the office of the president, must be stopped from escalating a spuriously-conceived war, defying Congress, and destroying the rights guaranteed under our Constitution.

He has been called delusional more than once in the media. Members of his own party and previously supportive right-wing columnists are distancing themselves from his latest moves. He says he intends to escalate the unwinnable morass of the Iraq war by sending 20,000 more American soldiers into harm's way.

His decision flies in the face of advice from his own Iraq study group, some of his own military commanders, and growing numbers of Republicans as well as Democrats in Congress. Iraqis do not want the additional troops, and the vast majority of Americans oppose the plan.

Yet who will stop his actions? Will the hearings planned next week in Congress over the escalation deter Bush? Unlikely. Will Democratic leaders in Congress change their minds about impeachment? That remains to be seen. Will a politically split Senate vote to convict him if the House votes to impeach? Extremely unlikely at this juncture.

Even if a miracle happened and he were convicted, who would convince him to relinquish office? His party leaders? His wife? The vice president? Condoleeza Rice? This is an extremely obstinate man.

We learned when the war began almost four years ago that mass demonstrations and letters and calls from millions of Americans would not sway "The Decider". We are now learning that the Democratic takeover of the House and Senate will not prevent him from staying his irrational course.

Will the nation's top military brass stop him? Will the Supreme Court act? Will it require guys with butterfly nets?

I don't know how this is going to play out, but I pray to God that someone in our nation finds the courage and means to hang a bell on the president and remove him from his position of power for his own safety and the world's.

I don't know where he should go from there - impeachment, a fair trial, prison, hospitalization, exile or freedom. But the rule of law must apply to him as to all of us, in the name of our democracy.

God help us all.

LiberalEsto



*Belling the Cat
Long ago, the mice had a general council to consider what measures they could take to outwit their common enemy, the Cat. Some said this, and some said that; but at last a young mouse got up and said he had a proposal to make, which he thought would meet the case. "You will all agree," said he, "that our chief danger consists in the sly and treacherous manner in which the enemy approaches us. Now, if we could receive some signal of her approach, we could easily escape from her. I venture, therefore, to propose that a small bell be procured, and attached by a ribbon round the neck of the Cat. By this means we should always know when she was about, and could easily retire while she was in the neighborhood."

This proposal met with general applause, until an old mouse got up and said: "That is all very well, but who is to bell the Cat?" The mice looked at one another and nobody spoke. Then the old mouse said:

"It is easy to propose impossible remedies."

http://aesop.thefreelibrary.com/Fables/2-4

[fasttense]

1. I hadn't heard that particular fable.

Out here, they put bells on cows and steers that have a habit of jumping fences. That way they know where they are.

I also understand putting a bell on a cat does not prevent that cat from killing thousands of birds and mice. Saw it on the animal planet.