You didn't know it was Loyalty Day? What are you, a terrorist?
For real, there is a Loyalty Day, and today is it. Bush declared May 1
Loyalty Day back in 2003. Some choice items from the proclamation:
To be an American is not a matter of blood or birth. Our citizens are bound by ideals that represent the hope of all mankind: that all men are created equal, endowed with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. On Loyalty Day, we reaffirm our allegiance to our country and resolve to uphold the vision of our Forefathers.
Our founding principles have endured, guiding our Nation toward progress and prosperity and allowing the United States to be a leader among nations of the world. Throughout our history, honorable men and women have demonstrated their loyalty to America by making remarkable sacrifices to preserve and protect these values.
Today, America's men and women in uniform are protecting our Nation, defending the peace of the world, and advancing the cause of liberty. The world has seen again the fine character of our Nation through our military as they fought to protect the innocent and liberate the oppressed in Operation Iraqi Freedom. We are honored by the service of foreign nationals in our Armed Services whose willingness to risk their lives for a country they cannot yet call their own is proof of the loyalty this country inspires. Their service and sacrifice are a testament to their love for America, and our soldiers' honor on and off the battlefield reaffirms our Nation's most deeply held beliefs: that every life counts, and that all humans have an unalienable right to live as free people.
These values must be imparted to each new generation. Our children need to know that our Nation is a force for good in the world, extending hope and freedom to others. By learning about America's history, achievements, ideas, and heroes, our young citizens will come to understand even more why freedom is worth protecting.Here's how, during its short life, Loyalty Day has been celebrated in our great nation:
May 1, 2003: Bush marks Loyalty Day by dressing up as a fighter pilot, 'landing' on an aircraft carrier, and delivering a tragically premature victory speech underneath a Orwell-sized banner reading "Mission Accomplished." Prescient DUers, who have shrewdly noted that Iraq is still a mess and are equally shrewdly skeptical of this crowd's ability to clean it up, identify this moment as the point at which W's presidency "jumps the shark."
May 1, 2004: The nation is in an uproar over the photos of the naked, beaten, and humiliated inmates of Abu Ghraib prison and their smiling American jailers, which were first aired on CBS on April 28. Nobody yet realizes that this will merely become the catalyst for a long process of convincing Americans to accept torture as consistent with our national ideals and founding principles.
May 1, 2005: The British press breaks the news about the
Downing Street Minutes, which document a meeting of Blair and his inner circle that took place in July 2002. The minutes make it clear that Blair and Bush had agreed on a plan to invade Iraq regardless of what happened with the weapons inspections, and that in fact Blair's primary concern at this time was not avoiding war but figuring out how to create a spurious legal justification for it. This document, which provides the best evidence to date in support of the theory that the Iraq war was unnecessary and that the justification used to sell it to the American people was a cynical fabrication, is evidently not of interest to the US media.
May 1, 2006: Stephen Colbert's scathing performance at the White House Correspondents' Dinner spreads across the Internet like wildfire.
May 1, 2007: Four years after the mission was supposedly accomplished, Bush will demonstrate his loyalty to our nation's founding principles and to our brave men and women in uniform by vetoing the spending bill that would provide said men and women with the money they need while also setting a deadline that will for the first time give them some hope that their long nightmare will at some point end.
Happy Loyalty Day,
The Plaid Adder
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