Bush explained his veto of the stem cell bill: �In this new era, our challenge is to harness the power of science to ease human suffering without sanctioning the practices that violate the dignity of human life.�

What does this silly ass know of �the dignity of human life�?

The president�s �logic� simply ignores the blatantly obvious fact that many, if not most, of these embryos will be discarded and therefore destroyed. Therefore, why not use them to cure otherwise incurable diseases and alleviate human suffering? The reason is very simple and it has nothing whatsoever to do with morality or moral boundaries: Bush needs the votes of a large group of people on the Religious Right that haven�t got the brains to see the palpable contradiction in Bush�s policy on stem cell research.

It is a topsy-turvy world with the stupid in charge. Well, almost, but not quite. A few very smart but very unscrupulous and evil people (i.e. Karl Rove and Dick Cheney) are in charge, and they use as pawns the many stupid Americans who vote for them.

Bush: �This bill would support the taking of innocent human life in the hope of finding medical benefits for others. It crosses a moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect, so I vetoed it� [emphasis added].

�Decent Society?� -- what �decent society� puts a �president� -- by hook or by crook -- like George W. Bush into office? -- or should I say, allows him to steal the office (twice!) without rising in the streets by the millions (as better, more aware people have done in Ukraine and Mexico) to throw the bastard out as the Italians threw Mussolini out on his arrogant, pompous ass?

As for �moral boundaries being crossed,� shall we count how many times Bush has crossed them, leapt gleefully over them? It must be hundreds if not thousands. Should we start counting since he became president? Or maybe we should go back to his time as governor of Texas and what he said about double murderer Karla Faye Tucker when she begged him for clemency? Bush not only denied her clemency but mimicked her, �whining in mock exaggeration . . . 'Please don't kill me.'� A better person might not have stopped the execution, but would certainly not have mocked the poor woman. In mocking Tucker, Bush made it clear he lacks the dignity, moral gravity, decency, seriousness, and wisdom of a true leader.

Ironically, these deficiencies are what the Republicans desire in a leader. A good person would not be capable of governing as Bush governs. A decent person would long ago have wilted under the onerous guilt. A decent person would never have struck Bush�s Faustian bargain. But sociopathic, psychopathic, and, therefore, guiltless, Bush suffers not at all from such unfortunate and painful distractions as morality or decency.

Maybe we should go way back to when Bush paid, or maybe had Daddy Bush pay, for an abortion (*) for his girlfriend to pre-Roe 1970. Or maybe to Bush�s having thugs threaten the poor girlfriend lest she decide to come out about this. Apparently it was to Bush�s mind within proper moral boundaries for him to pay for an abortion, and much later to threaten the unfortunate woman (who had such appalling taste in men); but not within moral boundaries to use embryos that would otherwise be destroyed to develop cures and therapies for horrible diseases like Alzheimer�s or diabetes.

Or maybe we should consider his lying to all of us and having his minions lie about Iraq�s having WMD? Or maybe about ordering Shooter Cheney to order Scooter Libby to blow Valerie Plame�s cover in revenge for her husband's (former Ambassador Joe Wilson) exposing Bush�s lie about Iraq�s putative nuclear (or as tongue-tied Bush pronounces it -- �nukular�) weapons program?

And how many innocents have died or been horribly maimed since Bush ordered strikes on Afghanistan and Iraq? And how many in Bush�s proxy war in Lebanon against Syria and Iran? To my puny mind, since they all hang on lies, each of these atrocities would be a black mark on Bush�s soul -- if indeed Bush actually had a soul. Each screams out like Munch�s painting. But what do I know? I am not capable of understanding the �high� Bush morality.

The president praised African Americans in his speech to the NAACP last week, talking about freedom and liberty and voting rights. �When people talk about America's founders they mention the likes of Washington and Jefferson and Franklin and Adams. Too often they ignore another group of founders -- men and women and children who did not come to America of their free will, but in chains.� My God! If the world were a fair place, where evil doers were justly and immediately punished for wrong-doing by a fair god, the man would have choked on these words and succumbed to suffocation on the dais. How can Bush utter such ironic words with such a cheery smile, with such sanguine humor and confidence? All the while knowing that in both Florida (2000) and Ohio (2004) his minions did all they could to keep blacks �in chains� and prevent them from voting, by purging them by the tens of thousands from the voter rolls, by challenging them at the polls, and by limiting their precincts to far too few machines and voting booths to serve their numbers.

Hearing Bush lecture us on morality and values like freedom and liberty -- listening to this hypocritical balderdash -- we all should be screaming at the top of our lungs and raising our voices to the high heavens in such a cacophony as the world has never yet heard. And yet most of us continue shopping till we drop and idly enjoying American Idol as the evil slowly seeps into us and embalms us with its venom. Let�s face it: most of us Americans are pod people.

And then to top it all off, at the G-8 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, Bush lounged at the summit table as though he were in his pajamas reclining in a kitchen chair, eating a midnight snack. He acted as though he is king of the world, as though niceties and politeness do not matter, as though he is so far above it all, that he can simply behave in his typically slovenly manner and remain haughtily oblivious to decorum. Not that decorum matters so much. If this were an isolated and aberrant moment, it would not be important. The point is that his typically uncouth behavior is emblematic of so much about him that has been so tragically important. The attitude not only taints but is the very essence of his and his government�s policy decisions.

The glorified dirt clod talked with Blair with his mouth full of food as if Blair were his butler or valet or maybe footman (and Blair just about is, isn�t he?), cursing and blaming Hezbollah. �What they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it�s over� (video) As if there weren�t plenty of blame to go around, as if Bush were actually capable of understanding or appreciating this vexing issue and its long, complicated, and bloody history. The arrogant look on Bush�s face at this moment -- this expression and this countenance belong on some medieval frieze of the Seven Deadly Sins above the word Superbia.

Can such a one as this arrogant uncouth critter have any real concern for or understanding of concepts like decency, morality, liberty, freedom, or democracy? No! No! No! These are merely empty words to Bush, mere chips in a game of power in which the winner stamps with a jackboot �on a human face -- for ever.�