WE have to start thinking about new leadership in Adelup, not four years from now but right away, perhaps. But who do we replace them with? Speaker Forbes and Finance Chair Vice Speaker Ed Calvo who enabled Camacho to “get away with it” just like Republicans in Congress didn’t hold or check the Bush White House but which did lead to their ouster?
Governor Camacho’s snipet of the “State of the Island” Address that stood out to me was the “Season of transformation” quip not in the socio-economic sense which most people would ascribe it to, but the religious right audience which uses those words to mark a new beginning. Those are code words purposefully utilized by the Camacho team to connect with the “born-again” crowd just as President Bush frequently intersperses his pronouncements and proclamations with the same Biblical connotations.
On the other hand, spy agencies of America try to decode Al-Qaida messages from Bin Laden (probably dead) and toAyman Al-Zawahiri (probably alive) to see if they are hidden messages but I have always said you don’t need to read too much into their messages. They truly hate America and they need to be defeated. (Not by military invasions but by isolating nations that harbor terrorists.) Moreover they warn of impending attacks such as 9/11 by using the media which they did specifically in August 2001. (It was in the PDN. Check archives.) Even if the tea leaves could have been read from at least 2000 before Bush got in.
Republicans like Felix P. Camacho are more difficult to figure out. They wear nice suits, no turbans, smile a lot and speak in code. The American people, unlike the people of Guam have already figured out George W. Bush, who I still believe will start another war or two before January 2009.
I also believe he, Bush, has no real intention of leaving the White House come that date and has put in place mechanisms to declare himself “supreme leader.” The GOP are “sore winners (and losers).” If they can’t “have it,” they don’t want anyone else to have it. It is a choice between making money and keeping power but if the former peters out due to a global financial meltdown then does anyone (in the right mind, that is) see these folks leave peaceably when their time is up?
Basically, we should be the first “state” to welcome any dictatorial tendencies since we are used to it, immune to it from the Sunshine Days to now the dog years of Camacho. We are better suited to adapt overcome than our counterparts in the mainland. We have to be first at SOMETHING, right?
There was a report that the first ever Wendy’s is set to close in Columbus, Ohio but we already had Wendy’s closings both in Hagatna and Yigo prior to the stateside one. We are not last in everything or does that count?

MATT PHILLIPS
Mangilao, Guam