Act like adults, not politicians

In America, men with as much power and influence as President Bush are innocent until they plead the Fifth.\nA few years ago, almost everyone I talked to believed Bush took us into Iraq so we could take the oil. Even some Republicans I knew said this.\nLast week, Fox News reported that the Coalition Provisional Government, established in Iraq after the toppling of Saddam's regime, cannot account for the Iraqi oil money it spent. So where is the money? \nAmong the several problems reported were "overstated" and "unsupported" costs in non competitive bid contracts with Kellogg Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton Co.\nI'd expect Michael Moore to harp on this sort of thing. You know it's got to be bad when Fox News reports on it.\nAs everyone should know by now, Vice President Dick Cheney stepped down from his job as the head of Halliburton before he ran with Bush in 2000. By coincidence, Halliburton has won a lot of new Iraq contracts in the past couple of years.\nNow, I want to believe the Bush administration is generally innocent -- at the most, a little misguided. I want to believe that if I took the time to dig through some deep, unbiased research, the truth would turn out to be a simple story of nobody being perfect.\nBut it's really hard for Americans to suspend their disbelief here. If Bush really wants us to believe that he didn't go into Iraq for oil or money, the people he works with have to do a better job at running a clean operation.\nImagine a film noir where the hero walks into his apartment to find a bloody knife on the floor next to his wife's dead body. He picks up the knife, wraps his arms around her and cries. Suddenly, the police come in to find him holding a knife and covered in her blood. Talk about looking guilty. \nIt doesn't help when Michael Rubin, a political adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, tells Fox News that this is all an effort to take our attention away from the investigation of corruption in the Oil-For-Food program. "This reminds me of [how] a petty thief, after being arrested, is put in a cell and tells all sorts of tales to get a lighter sentence," he told Fox News.\nThis accusation might work if the people accusing the United States of gross mismanagement of funds were the same people who made off like bandits in the Oil-For-Food scandal. But guess what? They're not!\nSome Democrats have already launched their counter attack. They believe we have no right to make any judgments on the Oil-For-Food scandal if we can't keep straight records of our money over there either.\nMy heart warmed to hear that fraud in Iraq has become another partisan issue. They turn everything into such a dichotomy, the Republicans proudly stand behind Bush's mistakes, and the Democrats start looking like they've sided with Saddam.\nOur politicians and pundits should grow up. They shouldn't focus on which case of fraud is worse than the other, but acknowledge that both of them are wrong, period.\nThe fact that we are at war gives us no prerogative to say that criticizing one party is the American thing to do, while criticizing another party is the un-American thing to do. It is especially true when we started that war in the first place. Talk about making up excuses!\nAs for all the president's men, they need to acknowledge when they've done something wrong, not look for ways to make it look right. If they are such brave leaders, they need to accept responsibility for their actions.