I am starting to hear what sounds to me like a stump speech in my head...
I look forward to a time, with your help a time very soon, when we can stop discussing the process of Iraqi Debathification Reform and get down to the work of American Debushification Reform.I wonder who's voice it sounds like?
We certainly have a lot to do. The current administration has taken us places no reasonable American could have imagined, and although Goodling, Myers, Gonzalez and others are now gone, for each of the Bushies we've managed to move out there are many more entrenched throughout the apparatus of our government. My administration will make it an urgent priority to root out the remainder of this partisan army and to undo the changes they have made to the greatest country in the world. We will recalibrate the American experiment. Reboot and restore the system settings as the framers set them out.
All is not lost however. This Debushification process allows us to deliver on one of recent history's most woefully dashed promises, because as the agent of change I get to be a uniter, not a divider. Restoring the integrity of our government is not a Democratic or Republican issue, it is an American issue. Without looking very far one can find legislators on both sides of the aisle to explain how the combative, litigious posture of the past several years has eaten away at the very credibility of our nation. Rebuilding the credibility and integrity of our nation is not an issue for the right or for the left, it is an issue for all the people of this nation. Without scanning too far up or down the dial one can find outlets from Fox News all the way to NPR explaining how the concept of the unitary executive has eroded the very foundation of our democracy. The country can and will be united in setting things straight.
It will not be enough that the term will end and the leadership will retire back to their privileged, corporate lives. In their path they have cut a swath of destruction through our government; a selfish child's mess for the help to clean up, and so we must roll up our sleeves and get to it. Every single Presidential Signing Statement must be disavowed. Every single no bid contract must be audited. Every single person being held without charges must be charged or released. Every single regulatory change and the funding of every singly regulatory agency must be revisited. Every single treaty obligation must be reviewed, and every single person who has broken the law of the land under the guise of the war on terror must be charged and plead their case in front of a judge. Perhaps some of them will be acquitted, and that would be a great thing, but to not charge these so called patriots can only be described with one word: un-American.
And every single one of the administration operatives that enabled these policies, they really ought to brush up their resume this evening.
Eight years ago a candidate for the office of president came before the people in the wake of a prior administration that stood in shame over embarrassing personal peccadilloes. That candidate said to us all: "Vote for me and I will restore honor and dignity to the office of the President." This day I don't think I can improve on that sentiment. Ladies and gentlemen, vote for me in November and I will restore honor and dignity to the United States of America.
1 comment:
Great speech! It is eerily similar to a speech I heard Obama give in Hartford before the primaries. He spoke at length about scrubbing the country clean of the Bush administrators. He condemned the disgrace and unpatriotic policies they have brought to the presidency. He defined them as un-American and made clear that his goal is to eradicate the practices they have put into play - including signing statements, the destruction of habius corpus, pay-off deals, and the "war on terror" and a campaign of fear. His strong message was that it will be a job that every American will have to play a role in. That we are capable of being more than sheep, and will have to be active in the changes if they are going to happen.
I can tell you, I was a cynical, anti-Obama voter before that speech. But just as I nodded my head yes at almost everything you wrote, I found myself echoing almost all of his statements.
I'm not trying to convert anyone, but I'm just pointing out whose voice your speech sounds like to me.
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