The Lady and the Tigers – Pelosi vs. the Political Predators

Rub-a-dub-dub, Three Men In a Tub – The Butcher, The Baker and The Candlestick Maker. Cheney's recent colloquy with Right, Right Wing talker Rush Limbaugh perversely brought to mind the lines from that children's poem – Limbaugh is certainly the candlestick maker lighting the way with his strict adherence to Republican party line and his howling, dogged pursuit of liberals. Butcher and Baker are fusion of GW Bush and Cheney who cook up half-baked wars and pursue them with a butcher's steadfast relish, impervious to the splashing blood.

Other than all three being Bring Em On Republicans, there are other similarities; all three avoided service in Vietnam. Cheney as the grand master of deferments, GW Bush with his confusing, sometimes service in the Texas and Alabama Air National Guards and Limbaugh, who after losing his student deferments, was classified 4F with an undisclosed medical problem, rumored to be a pilonidal cyst at the base of his spine – not exactly life threatening. FYI – Limbaugh's family has a history of influential and skilled lawyers in Missouri.

When it comes to war all three like to make the bullets, but want others to shoot them. They understand that when you shoot, shots are returned. This ethos is emulated by the Neocons Without Military Service infesting the national policy apparatus in the NSC, Pentagon, State Departments and influential think tanks like the Heritage foundation. This, let-others-fight attitude, is promoted by squalid neocon journals like Bill Kristol's WEEKLY STANDARD. This group starts wars, but cannot win them. The bunch does not know what it is doing. Next, stop Iran. All Aboard!

VEEP Cheney used Limbaugh's show to blast Speaker Nancy Pelosi's recent visit to Syria as head of a congressional delegation. Apparently Pelosi's mother-knows-best foray's against GW Bush is driving the White House crazy, so Cheney, the mentor of his favorite felon, Scooter Libby, has leveled his pop gun at Speaker Pelosi. Cheney has less than 18% approval rating nationally, so he is essentially just a partisan noise maker. As far as the Pelosi visit to Syria, it should have been applauded rather than condemned. Governor Richardson's current approved visit to North Korea spells out loud and clear that the Bush administration has difficulty finding qualified Republican diplomatic representatives. It is obvious; Bush's State Department needs help desperately in its diplomatic stables when they send creepy Swift Boater Fox to Brussels by avoiding Senate confirmation with a recess appointment. As far as Pelosi misrepresenting Israel's position to Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad that is not credible; what is credible is that the Israeli's got nervous, because they cannot control Pelosi like Condoleezza, who is an Israeli puppet on a string. And erratic Israeli prime minister Olmert has a record of going off half-cocked, so trust Pelosi – she got it right.

Israeli whining over the Pelosi visit is remarkable as at her news conference in Damascus, she hewed to the Administration's blighted line on Middle East. Further, she had holocaust survivor, Representative Tom Lantos, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on her delegation, who is a first tier Israeli lobbyist in congress watching her like hawk. I am still tickled when I hear his thick Hungarian accent – sounds just like Bela Lugosi's character in Dracula. Lantos is a very serious, effective, politician, except for those of us who watched the old Dracula films, and consider him stitch... He is the Chairman of US House Foreign Relations Committee who has the speech patterns of the world's most famous vampire – only in America.

We know Cheney Inc. wanted to get even with Pelosi for publicly advising GW Bush to take a deep breath on his fit over congressional war appropriations. If you saw the scene of Pelosi confidently making her grand entrance, as head of the delegation to meet Bashar al-Assad in his palace, you know she looked radiant, smiling – almost waltzing. Her vivacity reminded me of Judy Garland on the Yellow Brick Road in the Wizard Of Oz. The very conscious public relations Republicans are forced to compare this scene with a regularly frowning Condoleezza who sometimes walks like a chicken, always dismally standing at the top of an airline stairway, waving. Take your choice. Are you going to believe Cheney or your eyes? Cheney is the guy who swore that Saddam had nucs and repeatedly, even recently in the interview with Limbaugh, he said that Saddam and al Qaeda were linked – not even the sycophants at the Pentagon supported him on that one.

Prior to the 2006 election, the Republicans in chorus attacked Pelosi for being a San Francisco liberal evoking an image of an ugly, bra burning, castrating female, wearing hand-made sandals. Fancy Nancy Pelosi certainly is not that. San Francisco is the home of strange fruits and the Twinkie Defense. Pelosi has the challenging task to represent this carnival. When Pelosi returned to her office on Capitol Hill from her recent trip, there is a rumor she was greeted by a box of Godiva chocolates and a dozen long-stemmed yellow roses. The card, with a gold embossed crest of Syria, had a message written in Arabic and English that said: THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES, BASHAR. Colonel Robert E Bartos USA RET

Photograph: Etching Volaverunt by Francisco de Goya