From Joe Snitty:

One BIO commenter objected to the use of domestic violence as an analogy for the political situation. Moxie Grrrl had the best response:

THIS is disgusting? THIS???

Nevermind the fact that Bush has been trampling all over the Constitution, has gotten thousands of OUR citizens killed in battle (not to mention the thousands of indigenous people) under tissue paper-thin pretenses, has completely FAILED TO LEAD OUR COUNTRY…

And you’re upset about THIS?

I agree. If this visual analogy gets you angrier than the wars, lies, spying, torture, and destruction of our constitutional system, well you frankly haven’t been paying attention to what atrocities have been committed by our president in our name.

Domestic violence is a horrible thing, but it is tragically ubiquitous. It has been present under ever administration since the founding of our country. While victims of domestic violence have suffered throughout our entire history, Americans on whole have had the privilege to live under a government that obeys the rule of law (most of the time) and upholds a high standard of moral leadership vis a vis the respects we accord our citizens and our prisoners of war. You can undoubtedly point out instances where this hasn’t been true — Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus, Japanese internment camps, free-fire zones in Vietnam — but the overarching principles of American democracy and culture have maintained that these instances be exceptions and not the rule.

Yet today we look around and can hardly recognize the state of our country. Torture. War without end. War against nations that have not attacked us. Spying on Americans. No allies. Leaking CIA agents names for partisan gain. Renditioning suspects to be tortured. Denial of habeas corpus at the president’s discretion. Civilians tried at military courts. Human rights abuses.

This is not the America of my high school civics textbook. Maybe it never was. But we can at least say that there was a time where we strived to preserve the values we taught out children, where we expected our president’s actions and the American government on whole to serve as a beacon of light for the rest of the world. In Carville and Begala’s new book Take It Back, they point out that the American president used to be known as the Leader of the Free World, but no one can imagine Bush being called that in good faith.

I firmly believe Bush will go down in history as one of the worst presidents in American history. It’s hard to take an objective look at his actions and not come to this conclusion. The cumulative effect of his leadership is that he has rained down blows on America’s icons of democracy, most notably the Constitution. Joe Snitty represented it visually with a bruised Statue of Liberty and I think it’s a powerful manifestation of our current state of affairs. When will the American people - and our elected officials - band together to boot out Bush.