A Voice From Asheville, NC:

Incompetent, insane, or morally corrupt? Perhaps all three and more.

Paul Howey who writes in The Citizen-Times has been active in the Republican Party, folks. We need to acknowledge that more and more loyal GOPers are disgusted by what is going on: the wholesale destruction of not only our country, but the world.

In my opinion, Bush is either incompetent, insane or morally corrupt. The scariest — and perhaps most likely, given the litany of his offenses — is that he’s a combination of all three. Our collective national consciousness has been anesthetized by the staggering number and enormity of the egregious acts committed by this president against our nation’s principles, its people, its resources and against the world at large.

Among these sins are his evisceration of the Bill of Rights through unlawful wiretaps, the opening of our personal mail, the interception of our Internet communications, data mining (including our banking transactions, credit card purchases, and airline travel) and the elimination of that cornerstone of American jurisprudence, habeas corpus.

To these, add his authorization to torture detainees, the creation of CIA “black site” prisons around the world, and his unscrupulous use of “signing statements” in a blatant attempt to create an imperial presidency of historic proportions.

And what of his unapologetic protection of corporate interests while blindly denying the existence of global warming?

With Congress and a majority of Americans now solidly against him, the megalomaniacal Bush remains amazingly unfazed by reality.

On Jan. 10, he overturned the ban on oil and gas drilling in Alaska’s Bristol Bay, a haven for endangered whales. Later that day, he ignored the advice of nearly all military and civilian leaders, Congress and the American people by escalating the war in Iraq and threatening to engage Iran and perhaps Syria in a regional conflagration.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said of Bush, “He understands that the safety of the nation and his legacy are all on the line here.”

Forget his legacy. That’s already been relegated to the Hall of Shame in the Museum of World History.

But if Bush truly understood the safety of the nation to be on the line, he would not imperil us all by lying his way into an unprovoked war.