Dick Cheney's accusation that Congress is losing its "Backbone" because it is challenging their Iraq "policy" abuses the metaphor. It also falsely implies that it was courage that garnered support for their war in the first place. It was not "backbone" that drove the politically vulnerable to support this war. It was fear. It was fear, intentionally brought on through a cynical form of political extortion of Representatives and the propagandizing of the American people. It is predictable and consistent that Dick Cheney, seeing his own growing vulnerability, would misuse the metaphor "backbone" now, in a manipulative attempt to deflect accountability for his hubris.

The Administration's "With us or against us," "Mushroom cloud," "Yellowcake" rhetoric, delivered with the sincerest, patronizing voices of assurance was not merely dishonest. It was dishonest, manipulative, corrosive, and coercive. It was dishonest because bad intelligence was intentionally recycled and manipulated to justify predetermined policy. Their rhetoric was manipulative because it played on the worst fears of our nation's people to enforce compliance and acquiescence. It was corrosive because it stifled oversight and honest debate, without which, democracy is impossible. And to the point of "Backbone," it was coercive because it politically blackmailed our Representatives in government to toe the line, or be accused of disloyalty to the country.

Congressman Murtha (D-PA), the Democratic hawk unlikely to be marginalized, delivered a reality check to the American people last week, identifying the Iraq occupation as "a flawed policy wrapped in illusion." He concluded with "the U.S. can not accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. IT IS TIME TO BRING THEM HOME. " By telling the truth, he's shaken the nation in its groggy awakening, alerting us that truth and patriotism go hand in hand and that we only endanger ourselves further by continued participation in the Cheney-Bush delusion.

Breaking out of delusion and releasing ourselves from the talons of fear takes real backbone. It is time for a return to a reality based Democracy, and the path there is through Congressional investigation into the abuses of this administration. This is not a "Re-writing of history," as the administration accuses, but a rightful wrenching of its authorship away from those who would seek to justify their own excesses. Congressional oversight is a constitutional obligation, and once again it is through truth seeking that true backbone is exhibited.

No Dick Cheney, "Backbone" is not a metaphor we will allow you pollute. It is not an anti-virtue about defending your lies. Backbone is about the moral courage to stand up for the truth, and to face the future with compassion, creativity and courage.