Rachel Loden wrote:
> Stephen, apparently they won't stop with trashing us. A tidbit from the
> Washington Post:
>
> "Libby's wife, Harriet Grant, was not as composed. In the first row of
> spectators, she hunched over and shook. A young member of Libby's defense
> team put his arm around her shoulders. After judge and jury left, Grant went
> over to hug her husband with a furious look on her face. Three reporters
> heard her say what sounded like, 'We're gonna [expletive] 'em.'"
>   

As much as I loathe political poetry, sometimes ya just gotta.  No 
poetry so no corrections either.


For Gerald R. Ford of Blessed Memory

On the day in '74 when Nixon flung the towel
a man I knew said "If we don't indict him
if we don't prosecute him, then we have learned
nothing."

We have learned nothing.  For Ford
       (the stutter of the American Republic
       tripping over its dropped morality)
gave The Trick a free pass,
an office staff, New Jersey condo,
the chance to rehabilitate himself like
a celebrity drunk or hype in...Betty Ford!

Ford, yes decent, but choking the country
on his sports team mentality: "Nixon was only
sticking up for his friends" as though Watergate
and the cover-up were no more than a brawl
on the team bus.

So Ford, yes decent, held open the door
to the public rapist and the assassin
the Death Squads and the Contras.
So Ford engendered Reagan, the Bushmen,
a world of lies and fake patriotism
with all the truth and use of a papier-mache erection

and the trickle-down theory truly works
for one of the Downstairs boys has gone
to the Cross to die for his boss's boss's sins
while the Republic of Bobble Head dolls
hears the phrase War On Terror, nods in rhythm,
and feels better knowing that a man just like them
--drunken, stupid, and vengeful--has reduced diplomacy
to the level of a barroom fight

and that America is really a sports team
looking for its next game.

KTW/3-7-07

------------------
Ken Wolman					rainermaria.typepad.com

"For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I
was afraid of is come unto me.  I was not in safety, neither had I
rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came."