TW3: Verbal equinox, '06

dr. elsewhere here...
The bitch is back, yet again. Thought I had my net connection woes conquered, but no. It's been an interesting time to study patience; I hope that you will all bear with me while I sort out my situation and try to sort out our more global situationS from this week, at least the one that was.

Oh my. Again, where to begin? I suppose the best bet for a random selection would be the State of the Scandals. Seems the feds are closing in on tips from Wilkes and Wade, and in the process, have apparently implicated Katherine Harris, whose highly pointed profile announcement on Fox raised more than just the stakes in this race. Though I’m alerted by Joe’s suspicion that her decision might be informed, there is also the possibility that she is just delusional in her insistence on bucking the Republican leadership who have been abandoning her Senate campaign. Won’t her implication in the big lobbying scandals make her even more of a pariah? And it just occurs to me, given all those rumors about her and Jeb, it might make some twisted sense that he’s just promising to endorse and support (and “deliver”?) a win, perhaps to keep her quiet about their relationship, maybe even about everyone’s roles in the election frauds? Who knows? But I’m guessing no one in the Republican leadership has a clue how to, er, handle her, hot, er, potato that she is.

This week marked the third anniversary of our invasion of Iraq, and hardly any US media noticed that there were worldwide protests, again. And of course Bush hardly noticed that it's hardly a mission accomplished. Unless part of the mission included half of Americans admitting that they've cried about this war. Coinciding with this third anniversary of our invasion of a sovereign nation, a new book came out chronicling the cooked intel and blanket propaganda.

And how does our administration address these and other exposures of misleading and incompetence in the face of growing concerns of civil war in Iraq? First, they launch Operation Swarmer, now revealed as just another smarmy PR effort, where it does appear that timing, as ever, played a role in this non-assault. Third, they continue marketing their “next Iraq” agenda by publishing the National Security Strategy claiming Iran to be our biggest threat, while having Booster Boy vocalize this point on his latest promotional tour, only to have General Pace admit in a press conference that no, we don’t have any evidence that Iran is responsible for all the latest spike in violence in Iraq. Oops. Change the subject. Hey, by the way, oodles of oil and natural gas discovered in Afghanistan, didja hear? Makes it all worth it, now don’t it?

Let’s see, so many scandals, so little time.

With all the dirty laundry spilling out onto the sidewalk, and you’d think we’d start getting some real reforms moving in Congress. Right. Congressman Boenhart shows how driven he is by his dedication to ethical conduct in the House. And then retired General Myers and former Attorney General Ashcroft both cash in on the lobbying craze, as if the word scandal were nowhere near their vocabularies.

Even more scandalous than the lobbying schemes are the various surveillance crimes, which appear to take on numerous permutations, including warrantless physical searches. The good news is that Arlen Specter continues to have trouble with the new deal on warrantless spying crafted by Cheney and Congressional leaders. We’re left to wonder if Specter will actually follow up on his concerns, or just wax politically squeamish for political purposes until Big Brother tells him to clam up.

And just in case you were not yet convinced we are already in a police state, check out the just-revealed memos from within the NYPD on the efficacy of proactive arrests. Feelin' safe yet?

Oh, well, we can’t forget the Leakin’ Libby scandal, the first to break and start picking up steam? Seems his trial, while forcing Libby to refresh his memory, could actually allow his defense to backfire on Bush, tainting him further.

How much taint to achieve saturation? Are we approaching a “beyond tainted” status yet? Because, despite the failure of Democratic leaders to actually show some spine in supporting Feingold’s censure of Bush, it is supported by only half (HUNH?? ONLY??) of polled Americans (isn’t this pretty damning?). These and other poll results are apparently giving some Republicans are talking about Bush’s many problems now, and as if it’s not a new revelation. The discontent throughout the country with Bush's incompetence now reflects as an historic lead for Democrats in the polls. We can only hope they figure out how to take advantage of it.

One would think these polls show a growing unity in the US, as more and more citizens begin to recognize the dire shape of thing. But the profound differences in opinion and position of the factions – given the distorted and imbalanced voice of the media – has prompted one writer to consider the growing civil war, not in Iraq, where more reporters have been murdered than killed in combat in Iraq, but civil war here in the US.

The greatest promotion of this intense division is, of course, the polticized media. Helen Thomas writes again about the shame of the WH lapdog press corps, while the NYTimes actually defends their prewar reporting. For icing on this cake, we learn that two WH staffers masqueraded as FauxNews journalists, in order to scout locations for a Bush visit. And, oh, let’s do put some roses on the icing on this “let them eat” cake! Do taste this latest Coulter morsel of madness, and celebrate the fact that Ted Ralls plans to sue her sorry, and scandalously skinny, derriere.

Throughout all these nightmares, we may still have some hope left in the actions of some principled individuals in the judiciary. The week started with word that Sandra Day O’Connor had made some rather disapproving comments about threats on the judiciary (as word came out that Justices had received death threats). But, despite this climate, a federal court struck down the EPA’s attempt to loosen restrictions on the Clean Air Act (essentially making the statement that the administration’s agency had broken those laws). In addition, we saw Judge *, presiding over Zacharias Moussaoui’s sentencing trial in DC, soundly scold the Attorney General’s office for coaching witnesses, though she later relaxed her initial ruling. Still, the disclosure also exposed the apparent reason for the coaching, which may well have been motivated by a request from the defense team representing the airlines being sued by 9/11 families; if Moussaoui’s defense can show that the strike would have happened regardless of his decision not to warn authorities, then the airlines may have to share some of the burden of negligence with the government.

All in all, another week of more scandals than one can count, more lives destroyed by our occupation of another country, and more spin than a laundromat. As foreign as this feels when compared to life just six years ago, it’s all too rapidly becoming just another week in the life of Bush’s America.