by James Glaser
March 18, 2004

Well I do. I am going to tell you a story about a politician that my father told me. I don't know if it is true, but from what I have been able to research, it could very well be.

My father grew up in Minnesota at the same time as Hubert Horatio Humphrey. When my dad came home from World War II, he went over to Minneapolis and attended trade school to become a tool and die maker. At the same time Hubert was running for and became Mayor there.

Humphrey was mayor from 1945-49, was in the US Senate from 1949 to 1965 and again from '71 to when he died in 1978. Between 1965 and 1969 he was Vice President under LBJ.

My dad always figured Hubert made close to a million dollars in salary during his political career. Now Senators get over 150 thousand a year, but back then it wasn't such a high paying job. What bothered my dad was that it was reported in the paper that Hubert left an estate of over eighteen million. My dad always wondered about that. He would say, "I didn't know how you could be a shrewd investor, if all your money was in a blind trust." Politicians are not even supposed to know where their funds are invested so they don't pass laws to make themselves money. My dad always wondered about that.

Now I wonder about this past leader of Spain, the one that sent troops to help us out in Iraq knowing that over 85% of his people were against it. I wonder about Tony Blair, and how he would lick George Bush's shoes if he told him to. I also think about all the other leaders that have sent their troops over there. I wonder if these guys are going to have a fat roll of American dollars when they retire.

I wonder why both George Bush and John Kerry are asking the new leader in Spain not to pull out their troops from Iraq. Removing those troops is what the guy ran on and if he decides to blow off all the voters and keep the troops in Iraq, you know he made some big money.

What would it take to buy the leader of a poor third world country? How much do you think we paid Saddam Hussein for all those years that he was doing our bidding? I was just wondering because Saddam had a rich country with all of their oil. Those fields didn't start going down hill until he set them on fire during our first war with him.

How about a country like Kazakhstan with 25 troops in Iraq or Romania and Latvia, with 150 troops each? We admit that we are paying over 200 million dollars to the countries in the "Coalition of the Willing" who have sent troops, but what about the countries that are members, but didn't send any troops? Do we have to pay their leaders off too? There are even ten countries that are in this coalition that are counted, but don't want their names used. I doubt they get anything.

I don't know what the deal is about Bush wanting Kerry to name the leaders in the world that want Kerry to be President, but Kerry will not name them. Bush won't name some of the countries that he says back us in Iraq and I can understand why. Their people might vote their leader out of office if it became public knowledge that they were backing Bush. I understand why Kerry won't name names either. George Bush might attack them as enemies or he might be paying them right now to back us in Iraq,

Just because you buy somebody does not mean that they will like you. With polls saying that in many countries, 75-85% of the people do not like Bush's foreign policy; I could see that many leaders the world over hope Kerry wins.

The CIA has a secret budget, but most estimates put it at billions of dollars, so there are thousands of millions to pay off world leaders. You live in a country where most people live on about a dollar or two a day, a few hundred thousand can get you to do quite a lot, even back the United States in an unpopular war.

Do I think politicians like Hubert Humphrey are bought? You bet! Not with an envelope full of money, but by making them some "honest" money with "lucky" investments. George Bush? Yes I think he is making money off this war. Not directly with stock in companies that make bombs or bullets, but through his dad and his company that sells military equipment.

Some Presidents, when they retire build houses for the poor, some work on their papers and their library, others write books. George Bush's dad is trying to get richer by selling military equipment to who ever needs it and the United States is his biggest customer.

I wonder if for every billion our President spends on the military, if he will get some of that back when his dad dies. Hey, I was just wondering.