America's nightmare: If something happened to the White House, would we even care?

This morning, I woke up with a start from one of those really lucid nightmares that we all dread. Some man was running down the street screaming, "Run for your life! A bomb is in the United States!"

Then a man in a cowboy masked turned to me and said, "If something bad happened to the White House, would anyone even care?" What in the world brought on that dream? It must have been the olallieberry pie that I ate last night instead of dinner.

"Did you read in the newspaper about that construction firm in New Orleans that ripped off a bunch of money from the Katrina funds?" asked my friend Sonya. "This whole country is riddled with corruption." Geez Louise. How could anybody sink so low as to steal from Katrina victims?

According to Pratap Chattergee of CorpWatch, "the track record of private contractors and federal agencies in Iraq and now in the Gulf states bodes ill for the likelyhood that the public will enjoy [the right to expect an effective response in a time of emergency]. The Corps contracts and those awarded FEMA replicate 'the same flawed contracting strategy that produced disastrous results in Iraq,' Conresssman Seny Hoyer wrote to the Government Accountability Office."

More corruption: Bush's pals at Diebold have conned American taxpayers into purchasing a whole bunch of malfunctioning voting machines. In a recent Ohio primary, for example, Diebold touch-screen machines failed so badly that election officials in Cuyahoga County had to hand-count 17,000 ballots. And Lord knows who we really elected to the White House in 2000 and 2004. (Hint: It wasn't George Bush.)

Carpetbagging close to home: In my home state of California, we can't even get the levees repaired because the federal funds to do it with are tied to a Congressional pork barrel bill giving fabulous bonuses to Donald Rumsfeld as a reward for his failures in Iraq.

For the sake of my blood pressure, I'm not even going to mention the billions of dollars disappearing down Dick Cheney's Halliburton rat-hole while our troops languish in hellholes near Baghdad without even minimal essentials such as clean water and sanitary food -- let alone bullet-proof vests.

And to quote CitizenDC, "Have you ever wondered how a man who owns a $1,500,000 house in DC, a $1,000,000+ house in Florida and a $48,000 cottage in Texas manages to survive on a $161,000-a-year federal salary? It's odd." He's talking about White House employee Karl Rove. "Would it raise questions if that same man had sold a property to a shell company controlled by his former business partners and that man made between $250,000 and $750,000 profit?" Apparently not. Bush hasn't raised any questions at all.

The Bush bureaucracy's "strip America down to the floorboards" carpetbagging policies have become a national shame. And despite all the cover-ups, Americans know that their wallets are being stolen from under their very noses. And NOBODY likes George Bush. His popularity ratings have sunk so low that if he was a TV show with those kind of sorry bottom-of-the-barrel numbers, it would have been canceled right out the gate.

Still and all, I love the White House itself and what it used to stand for. If something bad EVER happens to the White House, they will be in big trouble from me.

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From Aprille: Well, it isn't "W's" house Jane. It STILL belongs to everyone of US and stands for what this country is all about, or used to be all about. That is not to say it won't need a thorough scrubbing and total fumigation services once the 'Deciders' are back in Texas. The squatters that are in residence now are just like the crooked, evil guy that moved into the house in 'Pacific Heights'.........Michael Keatons' character managed to strike fear and loathing into our hearts even tho we never really BELIEVED anyone could get away with what he did to the owners. Who knew we, as a country, were in for the same treatment but with the damages and the backlash being on a worldwide scale?

Who knew? WE did!

Who listened? Nobody.

Who pays? EVERY ONE of us.