Administration of Fools


Dan Froomkin on the daddy administration the war preznut the anti-terror admin...--ah, the hell with it: the clown show, and the ever more ridiculous shrillness of the Shrub:

President Bush is careening around the country, feverishly campaigning for Republican congressional candidates and unleashing highly provocative accusations against his Democratic critics.

But nobody really cares...

On top of that, the public doesn't trust him. A fresh round of polls shows that most Americans think Bush has been intentionally misleading about the progress in Iraq, they oppose his war there, and they don't think it's making them safer. His approval rating is back down to a dismal 39 percent.

And establishment Washington has finally and conclusively written him off as being in a state of denial.

Read the whole thing: the lies and bullshit emanating from the cabal could double the size of the Fresh Kills landfill--and, as Froomkin notes at the end of his op-ed, MoDo detects the rotting stench of the undead Dick--Nixon, that is--wafting forth, making for a particularly noxious/toxic ambience...worse than Red Stick after the DEQ closes for the day:


"It's been clear for years that Dick Cheney and Rummy have been using the Bush presidency like an elaborate vanity production to replay Watergate and Vietnam, and to try to reverse things that bothered them during prior stints in the Nixon and Ford administrations. . . .

"The vice president has been diabolically successful in exploiting 9/11 to restore the Imperial Presidency to where it was before Congress and the public became such Nosy Parkers after Watergate. Mr. Cheney and Rummy have been less successful in their attempt to exorcise the post-Vietnam American skittishness about using force; their abysmal misadventure in Iraq has only reinforced it."

And here's Shrub himself, channeling Tricky Dick's zombie corpse:

Said Bush: "We just have a fundamental difference, and it's a key difference for all Americans to look at and listen to. During the debate on the Senate floor, one senior Democrat, their ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, compared the brave Americans who question the terrorists to the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. I believe this exposes a dangerous mind-set on the part of Democrats in the United States Congress. You can't defend America if you can't tell the difference between brave CIA officers who protect their fellow citizens and brutal dictators who kill their citizens. (Applause.)

"I'm not making any of this up. (Laughter.)"

Ah, but of course, Bush was making it up. Here is what Senator Patrick Leahy actually said on September 28, and it's not really that funny.

"Imagine you are a law-abiding, lawful, permanent resident, and in your spare time you do charitable fundraising for international relief agencies to lend a helping hand in disasters. You send money abroad to those in need. You are selective in the charities you support, but you do not discriminate on the grounds of religion. Then one day there is a knock on your door. The Government thinks that the Muslim charity you sent money to may be funneling money to terrorists and thinks you may be involved. And perhaps an overzealous neighbor who saw a group of Muslims come to your House has reported 'suspicious behavior.' You are brought in for questioning.

"Initially, you are not very worried. After all, this is America. You are innocent, and you have faith in American justice. You know your rights, and you say: I would like to talk to a lawyer. But no lawyer comes. Once again, since you know your rights, you refuse to answer any further questions. Then the interrogators get angry. Then comes solitary confinement, then fierce dogs, then freezing cold that induces hypothermia, then waterboarding, then threats of being sent to a country where you know you will be tortured, then Guantanamo. And then nothing, for years, for decades, for the rest of your life.

"That may sound like an experience from some oppressive and authoritarian regime, something that may have happened under the Taliban, something that Saddam Hussein might have ordered or something out of Kafka. There is a reason why that does not and cannot happen in America. It is because we have a protection called habeas corpus, or if you do not like the Latin phrase by which it has been known throughout our history, call it access to the independent Federal courts to review the authority and the legality by which the Government has taken and is holding someone in custody. It is a fundamental protection. It is woven into the fabric of our Nation."

But not any more, of course.

Well, again I hope--for the sake of the country--that the public realizes that the stench is getting so bad that a Katrina Fridge smells like roses in comparison. It's obvious they've long since lost any sense of shame or decency.