During my morning news roundup, I clicked on this article from the invaluable Google News page. It was headlined: Palestinians gird for democracy - Vote for president could be first free ballot in Arab world. My initial (admittedly ironic) reaction was, "impossible! We don't have any marines there!" Continuing along these lines as I read the opening paragraphs. I was thinking to myself, "so what are the Republicans going to say if the Palestinians show themselves more able than Bush for bringing about Democracy in the Middle East?"

Then I saw the answer. Literally. I read it in the article. The answer is that Bush is going to try to take credit for the progress:

President Bush said that Arafat's departure created "a great chance to establish a Palestinian state, and I intend to use the next four years to spend the capital of the United States on such a state."

I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. Despite the fact that Bush has been all but completely absent from the Israeli-Palestinian peace process for the last four years, he's going to try to wrangle credit for it should Palestine do the unthinkable, and settle down into a legitimate and democratic state (not that I'm all that optimistic on this point!). If there is one thing I know about the right-wing propaganda machine it is this: it will be effective enough that their followers will beleive it like it was gospel. I'm beginning to see Bush less as a leader who inspires religious people and more of a religious figure in his own right. And, in that light, I guess it makes sense why I find Jr.'s visage so much more frightening than Bush I, or Reagan's Ford's, or Nixon's...

So Bush is going to "spend" our "capital" for the purpose of bringing about a Palestinian democracy. Right? He must think that 51% of the rest of the world voted for him, too. Hint to the Bush adminitration: you might have enough capital here at home for a new boat and a glance at our IRS returns. You already spent the U.S. capital of internatinal support and friendship. You traded our birthright for a bowl of Iraq stew. The capital is gone. It isn't like the Federal budget - you cannot borrow capital indefinitely. When you are out, you have to start earning more. You've already spent our surplus of good-will around the world, and borrowed heavily against our military might. It's time to start earning back and paying back.

Maybe you can start by humbly offering American cooperation with others who are interested in seeing a peaceful outcome in Israel and Palestine.