A Message from the Publisher
by L. Neil Smith
[email protected]

Exclusive to TLE

As I write these words, talking heads in the mass media, operating in an almost perfect information vacuum, are still interviewing each other about whatever happened to NASA's Columbia space shuttle earlier this morning. The oldest ship in the fleet appears to have exploded over north-central Texas at some point during the dangerous reentry process.

What little we know seems to point to some sort of mechanical failure -- let it be noted in fairness that NASA's record in this regard is actually pretty good: three fatal accidents in highly experimental spacecraft in forty-odd years -- and sabotage, under the circumstances, is an extremely remote likelihood. But that isn't stopping the drooling idiots on TV who want to make this into a terrorist attack, presumably because the first Israeli astronaut was aboard.

But there's another reason I decided to write this, instead of letting the tragedy pass without comment from me that wouldn't otherwise help the situation. As I was surfing the broadcast channels, I heard a voice on Fox that I recognized, the adolescent squeakings of pseudoconservative Tony Snow. I never saw his face, but I knew who it was immediately.

What Snow was saying (I'm proud of myself that I didn't actually puke) was that the President is a "sensitive" man who can be counted on -- with enough hired speechwriters -- to "minister" to a nation in its sorrow.

Ratshit. George W. Bush is a bleary-minded ex-drunk and druggie who's already murdered thousands since he was elected -- following in his father's bloody footprints as well as those of Waco Willie Clinton -- and is scheming to kill hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions more, all to enhance his dictatorial power and increase his wealth and that of his petrocratic buddies. To do that he has also murdered the Bill of Rights. He is as qualified to minister to this nation as Adolf Eichmann.

As for you, Tony Snow, shut up, you whore. What you're best qualified to be is the Eleanor Clift of the Republican Party, and every syllable you uttered this morning dishonored the brave pilots and passengers of Columbia.

L. Neil Smith
Publisher, The Libertarian Enterprise

Three-time Prometheus Award-winner L. Neil Smith is the author of 23 books, including The American Zone, Forge of the Elders, Pallas, The Probability Broach, Hope (with Aaron Zelman), and his collection of articles and speeches, Lever Action, all of which may be purchased through his website "The Webley Page" at lneilsmith.org. Autographed copies may be had from the author at [email protected].

L. Neil Smith writes regular columns for The Libertarian Enterprise webleyweb.com/tle, Sierra Times, and for Rational Review.

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