BUSH: CHANGING THE TUNE AND PAYBACK

Maximum Leader W and his handlers are pushing images of Saddam Hussein's cruelty as their last vestige of justification for invading Iraq.

Video images of Iraqis being tortured and stories of Saddam's elimination of the Marsh Arabs have spiced up recent presentations by Deputy Secretary of State (and neo-con war-fanatic) Paul Wolfowitz and others.

The dripping hypocrisy of these belated justifications is disgusting. The Bushites know full well they would not be in Iraq if they had tried to use this stuff to convince Congress to attack. They used their false claims of Iraq's IMMINENT THREAT to the US to get Congress's backing, betting that once they got in there, they would find evidence for their unsubstantiated claims. Now that their wild fear-mongering has proved baseless, they have fallen back on one support that no one can quibble with--but which the Congress, including the vast majority of Republicans, would have rejected as insufficient grounds for an invasion.

Despicable, you say?

All in a day's bald-faced dissimulation for this amoral bunch of tyrannical despots.

Speaking of despicable, did you hear W's attempt, at his so-called press conference on Tuesday, to foist the blame off on the Navy for the infamous "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" sign on the USS Lincoln last May?

It was, of course, yet another of the many bald-faced lies W tells on a continual basis. The White House Press Secretary had to come out quickly and correct W's fantastical lie: of course the White House had designed and made the sign--but the Navy put it up! This is kind of intelligence-insulting crap that these cretins are feeding the American people!

And finally: as if control of the world oil supply through a future client government in Iraq were not enough of prize for the power-hungry hegemonists in the Bushite junta, would you be surprised to learn that Bush-connected businessmen were reaping all of the profits from the "reconstruction" of Iraq made necessary by Bush's invasion? After all, why destroy a country if your buddies can't make a buck off it afterwards?

Well, here's the link:

Bush's Buddies Rake in Billions in War Profits

And here's an excerpt:

More than 70 American companies and individuals have won up to $8 billion in contracts for work in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan over the last two years, according to a new study by the Center for Public Integrity. Those companies donated more money to the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush—a little over $500,000—than to any other politician over the last dozen years, the Center found.

We left the looking glass behind long, long ago, folks. We're living in a Kafka story now.

CAN CONSERVATIVES BE CHRISTIANS

It often seems like American conservatives are just not humane enough to be true Christians.

Sometimes a single picture says much more than any number of words. Here is a link to a picture that shows just how unloving and unchristian conservatives can be.

This is how conservatives love their neighbors

We already know that for the 2004 election the right is planning to try to scare the American people with their virulent phobias against gays, against affirmative action, against gun control, and against anything decent and humane.

Remember this picture when the rabid right comes to your hometown trying to make you fear and hate your fellow Americans.

BUSH: VOTE TAMPERING IN 2000!

BlackboxVoting.org has uncovered how the Bushites stole the 2000 election: by stealing votes through Diebold--the Republican-owned company now dominating the touch-screen voting machine market.

If the Diebold voting machines are allowed to be set up all over the country (as is happening right now) we can kiss goodbye to VOTING W out of office; the next election will be stolen just as the last was.

Here is the explanation of how they did it (scroll down the page):

BlackboxVoting.org: Diebold Faked Bush's "Win" in Florida

And here is an excerpt:

Black Box Voting reveals for the first time that it was the Volusia and Brevard County anomalies that caused TV networks to call the election for Bush. An internal document from CBS, combined with timelines and interviews from Agence France-Presse and internal Diebold memos show that:

- A replacement set of votes was uploaded on the Diebold machines (then called Global Election Systems) in Volusia County about one hour after the original votes.

- The original votes were on “copy 0” of the memory card containing the vote database. The replacement votes were tagged to a “copy 3.”

- According to an internal memo written by Diebold Election Systems Sr. V.P. of Research and Development Talbot Iredale, the second set of votes should not have been done and may have been “unauthorized.”

- In the replacement vote set, totals for all races were correct except for the presidential race.

- According to CBS documents, the erroneous 20,000 votes in Volusia was directly responsible for calling the election for Bush.

- Brevard County, Florida also used Global Election Systems (now Diebold) voting machines. Brevard omitted 4,000 votes for Gore from its tally, which contributed to the decision by the networks to call for Bush.

- The two erroneous county totals came directly from the central tabulating system for the county. The GEMS program is Diebold’s central tabulation software.

One journalist was doing his job correctly that night: Ed Bradley, a CBS correspondent best known for his work on “60 Minutes.” Bradley sounded alarm bells over discrepancies in the data, but no one paid attention to him. CBS also ignored independent data from The AP; had CBS and the other networks used AP data instead of Voter News Service (VNS), they would not have called the election for Bush.

The election was first called by Fox analyst John Ellis, who had earlier conferred with his two cousins, George W. Bush and Florida Governor Jeb Bush. Ellis was privy to the numbers from VNS, and presumably knew the margin that would be required in order to call the election.

During the evening, a 55,000-vote spread evaporated into just hundreds of votes.

Al Gore called George W. Bush around 3:15 a.m. and conceded the election. Between 3:30 and 3:45, he boarded a motorcade to make a public concession. Votes were melting away at a rate of some 5,000 every 15 minutes, and Ed Bradley from CBS was telling everyone in sight that someone needed to check the figures. When Gore was two blocks from Memorial Plaza in Nashville, Tennessee, where he planned to issue a formal concession, word of the disappearing votes reached him.

He chose not to concede: Thus we had a recount in Florida.

If this isn’t disturbing enough, consider these three points:

1) We don’t know if this is an isolated incident. It may have occurred in other locations in smaller, less spectacular totals
2) The errors were correctable because paper ballots existed.
3) The fact that “negative votes” could be applied to a candidate’s total demonstrates such a fundamentally flawed software model that it calls into question the competence and integrity of the programmers, the company and the certification process itself.

According to the memo from Talbot Iredale, there were two uploads from two different cards.

• The votes were uploaded on the same port approxiately 1 hour apart.
• Only one memory card was supposed to have been uploaded.
• “Copy 0” uploaded some votes.
• “Copy 3” replaced the votes from “Copy 0” with its own.
• Iredale believes the second one is the one that caused the problem.
• The “problem”: 16,022 negative votes for Al Gore

I uncovered an 87-page report called “CBS News Coverage of Election Night 2000: Investigation, Analysis, Recommendations prepared for CBS News.”

According to the CBS News report: “These 24,000 votes would have nearly eliminated the 30,000-vote final Bush margin the CBS News Decision Desk has estimated. There would have been no call if these errors had not been in the system.”

We urge everyone to read the whole account of the fraud in Florida. Diebold is manufacturing systems that are not only "hackable" but can also be changed from a remote location without anyone except Diebold knowing.

If you think elections mean anything to Republicans, think again. They will use any means necessary to win. And fixing the voting machines is now well within their grasp.

Please spread this information to every American you know. No one--not even Republicans--should want rigged elections.

But we may have passed by all remaining "should"s.

Perhaps the 1996 elections were the last fair elections we will ever see.

RUMSFELD: STRATEGIC LEAKING

Donald Rumsfeld yesterday launched a "leak across the bow"--a classic tactic of bureaucratic Machiavellianism--as a response to Condi Rice's recent elevation to supreme Bushite propagandist.

A memo from Rumsfeld to Paul Wolfowitz was "leaked" to USA Today yesterday. In it, Rumsfeld make comments detrimental to the Bushite propaganda war to portray the situation in Iraq as the opposite of the quagmire it actually is. Here is an article on the memo:

Leaky Rumsfeld

And here are some of the things he had to say:

"We are having mixed results with al-Qaida, although we have put considerable pressure on them - none the less a great many remain at large."

"USG [the US government] has made reasonable progress in capturing or killing the top 55 Iraqis. USG has made somewhat slower progress tracking down the Taliban ... with respect to the Ansar Al-Islam [the al-Qaida-linked Sunni extremist group operating in Iraq], we are just getting started. It is pretty clear that the coalition can win in Afghanistan and Iraq in one way or another, but it will be a long, hard slog."

"Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror."

"The US is putting relatively little effort into a long-range plan, but we are putting a great deal of effort into trying to stop terrorists. The cost-benefit ratio is against us! Our cost is billions against the terrorists' costs of millions."

As you may know, Rumsfeld was blindsided two weeks ago when the White House announced that Condi Rice would be taking over management of the Iraq debacle. Rumsfeld obviously thought that he was doing a bang-up job of boondoggling the press with his breezy dismissals of any and all negative stories about the mess he had made in Iraq. The White House, it seems, is not so happy with him any more.

Hence the "leak-across-the-bow" manoeuver: Rummy put this "leak" out to indicate to those in the faux administration who may now be planning his demise that he is not going to go quietly. This "leak" is just an example of the damage he can do if he really wants to. He has manufactured this "leak" to be deniable, and yet it has the potential to undermine the whole new Bushite propaganda effort. Imagine what he could do if he started "leaking" documents about the truly criminal and tyrannical activities of the Bushites, which he knows first hand from being one of the co-conspirators!

The "leak" is just a warning to his enemies within the bureaucracy not to continue dumping on him, or he'll start "leaking" names and charges that cannot be denied.

This is a high risk strategy that shows an administration either about to self-destruct or one that is about to capitulate to Rumsfeld. The reason is this: when you are one viper in a nest of vipers, you need to have information on the others that cannot be traced back to you. Rummy and the Cheney gang are so thick that such information is unlikely to exist. Also, you need to have high confidence that your enemy does not have information against you that cannot be traced to him; for if he does, he will not hesitate to use it.

So this leak across the bow signals either that an internicene war is about to break out withing the nest of vipers, or that the vipers will settle their differences by giving Rummy what he wants.

If the latter happens, however, the mess in Iraq will continue to defy propaganda control, because Rummy is a loose cannon.

So we're hoping for an internal war that will bring the filthy actions of this utterly amoral junta into the light, and bring down all the criminals in this first treasonous American government.

BUSHITES: MORE LYING WITH POLLS

The fascist Bushite junta has gone far beyond "PR" in trying to paint a rosy picture of the situation in Iraq. They simply lie in public with impunity.

Take, for instance, the recent appearance of Dick Cheney on NBC's Meet the Press, in which he cited a poll taken by Zogby International in order to measure public sentiment toward the US on the part of Iraqis--and lied outright about the results.

Here is an article by Dr. James Zogby that shows how Cheney lied with the statistics:

Zogby: Cheney Lies Through the AEI's Teeth

And here is an excerpt:

Early in President Bush's recent public relations campaign to rebuild support for the US war effort in Iraq, Vice-President Cheney appeared on "Meet the Press." Attempting to make the case that the US was winning in Iraq, Cheney made the following observation:

"There was a poll done, just random in the last week, first one I've seen carefully done; admittedly, it's a difficult area to poll in. Zogby International did it with American Enterprise magazine. But that's got very positive news in it in terms of the numbers it shows with respect to the attitudes to what Americans have done.

One of the questions it asked is: "If you could have any model for the kind of government you'd like to have" - and they were given five choices - "which would it be?" The US wins hands down. If you want to ask them do they want an Islamic government established, by 2:1 margins they say no, including the Shia population.

If you ask how long they want Americans to stay, over 60 per cent of the people polled said they want the US to stay for at least another year.

So admittedly there are problems, especially in that area where Saddam Hussein was from, where people have benefited most from his regime and who've got the most to lose if we're successful in our enterprise, and continuing attacks from terror.

But to suggest somehow that that's representative of the country at large or the Iraqi people are opposed to what we've done in Iraq or are actively and aggressively trying to undermine it, I just think that's not true. In fact, Zogby International, ZI, in Iraq had conducted the poll, and the American Enterprise Institute, AEI, did publish their interpretation of the findings."

But the AEI's "spin" and the Vice-President's use of their "spin" created a faulty impression of the poll's results and, therefore, of the attitudes of the Iraqi people.

For example, while Cheney noted that when asked what kind of government they would like, Iraqis chose "the US … hands down," in fact, the results of the poll are actually quite different.

Twenty-three per cent of Iraqis say that they would like to model their new government after the US; 17.5 per cent would like their model to be Saudi Arabia; 12 per cent say Syria, 7 per cent say Egypt and 37 per cent say "none of the above." That's hardly "winning hands down."

When given the choice as to whether they "would like to see the American and British forces leave Iraq in six months, one year, or two years," 31.5 per cent of Iraqis say these forces should leave in six months; 34 per cent say a year, and only 25 per cent say two or more years.

So while technically Cheney might say that "over 60 per cent (actually it's 59 per cent) … want the US to stay at least another year," an equally correct observation would be that 65.5 per cent want the US and Britain to leave in one year or less.

Other numbers found in the poll go further to dampen the vice-president's and the AEI's rosy interpretations. For example, when asked if "democracy can work well in Iraq," 51 per cent said "no; it is a Western way of doing things and will not work here."

And attitudes toward the US were not positive. When asked whether over the next five years, they felt that the "US would help or hurt Iraq," 50 per cent said that the US would hurt Iraq, while only 35.5 per cent felt the US would help the country. On the other hand, 61 per cent of Iraqis felt that Saudi Arabia would help Iraq in the next five years, as opposed to only 7.5 per cent, who felt Saudi Arabia would hurt their country.

50.5 per cent felt that the United Nations would help Iraq, while 18.5 per cent felt it would hurt. Iran's rating was very close to the US's, with 53.5 per cent of Iraqis saying Iran would hurt them in the next five years, while only 21.5 per cent felt that Iran might help them.

It is disturbing that the AEI and the vice-president could get it so wrong. Their misuse of the polling numbers to make the point that they wanted to make, resembles the way critics have noted that the Administration used "intelligence data" to make their case to justify the war.

The danger, of course, is that painting a rosy picture that doesn't exist is a recipe for a failed policy. Wishing something to be can't make it so.

At some point, reality intervenes. It's a hard lesson to learn, but it is dangerous to ignore its importance.

The Bushite fascists are extremely dangerous because they no longer think it necessary to hide what they are doing. That signals one of two things: either they are arrogantly overplaying their hand, or they have accurately gauged the American public's intelligence quotient at near-zero.

For all our sakes, let us hope that the former alternative is the truth.

BUSH: SHAMELESS

W can't control the death toll in Iraq, so he bans media coverage of the returning bodies.

If you think that's shameless, then you have taken a good read on the character of the cretin in the nation's highest office.

Here is the Washington Post article that describes the banning of reporters from the vicinity of returning bodies:

Bush: No Printing News I Don't Think Fit

And here is an excerpt:

Since the end of the Vietnam War, presidents have worried that their military actions would lose support once the public glimpsed the remains of U.S. soldiers arriving at air bases in flag-draped caskets.

To this problem, the Bush administration has found a simple solution: It has ended the public dissemination of such images by banning news coverage and photography of dead soldiers' homecomings on all military bases.

In March, on the eve of the Iraq war, a directive arrived from the Pentagon at U.S. military bases. "There will be no arrival ceremonies for, or media coverage of, deceased military personnel returning to or departing from Ramstein [Germany] airbase or Dover [Del.] base, to include interim stops," the Defense Department said, referring to the major ports for the returning remains....

During President George H.W. Bush's term, there were ceremonies at Dover and Andrews for Americans killed in Panama, Lebanon and aboard the USS Iowa.

But in early 1991, at the time of the Persian Gulf War, the Pentagon said there would be no more media coverage of coffins returning to Dover, the main arrival point; a year earlier, Bush was angered when television networks showed him giving a news briefing on a split screen with caskets arriving.

But the photos of coffins arriving at Andrews and elsewhere continued to appear through the Clinton administration. In 1996, Dover made an exception to allow filming of Clinton's visit to welcome the 33 caskets with remains from Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown's plane crash. In 1998, Clinton went to Andrews to see the coffins of Americans killed in the terrorist bombing in Nairobi. Dover also allowed public distribution of photos of the homecoming caskets after the terrorist attack on the USS Cole in 2000.

The photos of coffins continued for the first two years of the current Bush administration, from Ramstein and other bases. Then, on the eve of the Iraq invasion, word came from the Pentagon that other bases were to adopt Dover's policy of making the arrival ceremonies off limits.

Instead of letting America see reality, the Bushites just manage the media. This is essence of fascism, which took hold in this nation together with W.

God help us to escape from its deadly grasp. Let us hope it is not too late already.

BUSH: TREATING SOLDIERS LIKE DIRT

W is letting our sick and injured soldiers rot without medical treatment.

Check out this story from UPI, which details the disgusting conditions our soldiers are being kept in:

Bush Doesn't Give a Damn About Soldiers

Here is an excerpt:

FORT STEWART, Ga., Oct. 17 (UPI) -- Hundreds of sick and wounded U.S. soldiers including many who served in the Iraq war are languishing in hot cement barracks here while they wait -- sometimes for months -- to see doctors.

The National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers' living conditions are so substandard, and the medical care so poor, that many of them believe the Army is trying push them out with reduced benefits for their ailments. One document shown to UPI states that no more doctor appointments are available from Oct. 14 through Nov. 11 -- Veterans Day.

"I have loved the Army. I have served the Army faithfully and I have done everything the Army has asked me to do," said Sgt. 1st Class Willie Buckels, a truck master with the 296th Transportation Company. Buckels served in the Army Reserves for 27 years, including Operation Iraqi Freedom and the first Gulf War. "Now my whole idea about the U.S. Army has changed. I am treated like a third-class citizen."

Since getting back from Iraq in May, Buckels, 52, has been trying to get doctors to find out why he has intense pain in the side of his abdomen since doubling over in pain there.

After waiting since May for a diagnosis, Buckels has accepted 20 percent of his benefits for bad knees and is going home to his family in Mississippi. "They have not found out what my side is doing yet, but they are still trying," Buckels said.

One month after President Bush greeted soldiers at Fort Stewart -- home of the famed Third Infantry Division -- as heroes on their return from Iraq, approximately 600 sick or injured members of the Army Reserves and National Guard are warehoused in rows of spare, steamy and dark cement barracks in a sandy field, waiting for doctors to treat their wounds or illnesses.

The only use W has for soldiers is to get killed in his wars and to provide him with photo ops. He is the most disgusting creature this nation has ever put in power. Anyone with eyes to see and enough intelligence to look ought to be able to discern this fact.

But instead we continue to suffer for the ignorance and the stubbornness of conservative ideologues, who will back this creature and his menagerie of thugs no matter how much damage they do, and no matter how criminal their actions.

Anyone who supports these people is a traitor to the ideals of this once great nation.

BUSH: STILL STONEWALLING ON 9/11

As we keep reporting, W is still hiding facts about 9/11 so that America will not see his ineptitude.

Here is an article indicating that the 9/11 commission is going to subpoena the FAA to obtain important information on what was going on in the skies on 9/11, information that the agency has been withholding, and that may show that the administration's account of what happened is, as they say, "at variance with the truth." Here is the link:

Bushites Hiding Facts on 9/11

And here is an excerpt:

The 10-member commission said it had learned through interviews that the agency had not turned over tapes, statements, reports and other documents "highly material to our inquiry."

One commission member said the documents relate in part to lingering questions over how, and how quickly, the FAA notified U.S. air defenses about hijacked planes on Sept. 11, 2001.

The FAA, which earlier told the panel it had provided everything, turned over additional material in the last few days and pledged to cooperate. But the commission said the delay "has significantly impeded the progress of our investigation and undermined our confidence in the completeness of the FAA's production."

The commission, comprised of five Democrats and five Republicans, voted to issue the subpoena Tuesday night after completing a public hearing on intelligence reforms.

"This disturbing development at one agency has led the commission to re-examine its general policy of relying on document requests rather than subpoenas," the panel said in a statement.

The commission is wise to re-examine its policy, expecially since they are dealing with the most mendacious and ruthless group of thugs ever to seize our government. Nothing they say can be believed; nothing they provide to investigators can be trusted; no investigative process which they control can be impartial. (The so-called "investigation" of the White House CIA leak by Ashcroft is nothing but a massive coverup; and since the press, controlled by conservatives, will not do any independent investigating of the Bush junta, the outcome is certain. As W himself said, the leaker will never be found.)

The only thing that can save this nation is the removal of the Bushites from all positions of power. We all need to work very hard to make sure this happens at the earliest possible opportunity.

POWELL: HE LIED, AS WE SAID

A top aide to Colin Powell now says that Powell lied in his UN speech last February--the speech that kicked off the invasion of Iraq.

Those who refuse to think ill of the Bushite hoarde will no doubt brush this revelation off as well, just as they have brushed off every immoral and illegal action the Bush junta has taken. They don't want to be confused by the truth.

But here's the link:

CBS News: Powell Lied, Top Aide Confesses

And here's an excerpt:

The person responsible for analyzing the Iraqi weapons threat for Colin Powell says the Secretary of State misinformed Americans during his speech at the U.N. last winter.

Greg Thielmann tells Correspondent Scott Pelley that at the time of Powell’s speech, Iraq didn’t pose an imminent threat to anyone – not even its own neighbors. “…I think my conclusion [about Powell’s speech] now is that it’s probably one of the low points in his long distinguished service to the nation,” says Thielmann.

Pelley’s report will be broadcast on 60 Minutes II, Wednesday, Oct. 15, at 8 p.m. ET/PT.

Thielmann also tells Pelley that he believes the decision to go to war was made first and then the intelligence was interpreted to fit that conclusion.

“…The main problem was that the senior administration officials have what I call faith-based intelligence,” says Thielmann. “They knew what they wanted the intelligence to show. They were really blind and deaf to any kind of countervailing information the intelligence community would produce. I would assign some blame to the intelligence community and most of the blame to the senior administration officials.”

We urge you to watch the 60 Minutes II report tonight in order to see for yourself the sort of degenerates who have stolen the government of this nation.

Of course, we won't say "we told you so."

BUSH: TRANSPLANTED SOUTHERN VALUES

W stands for the politics of the South, which has always been tainted with a nasty strain of regressivism.

Today's Washington Post has an op-ed piece that points to Howard Dean as the latest in line Northern "scolds," who keep reminding the South that it needs to change its ways. Here's the link:

David Moats: Dean and the Voice of Vermont

And here is an excerpt:

Vermonters are shaking their heads in astonishment at the surge of their former governor to the front rank of Democratic presidential contenders. Even those who think of Howard Dean as a skilled and intelligent leader are unaccustomed to the thought that a politician from Vermont might take center stage in the national arena.

After all, the story of the past 40 years has been about the rise of the Sun Belt and the political power of Texas, California and Florida. From the point of view of New England, the shift of power toward the South that began with the rise of Barry Goldwater has seemed like an unstoppable tide.

Yet Dean's candidacy raises two questions: Why should New England, or Vermont, be seen as more marginal or idiosyncratic than, say, Arkansas? And if someone is to challenge the present Republican marriage of religious fundamentalism and rapacious capitalism, from where should we expect that challenge to come?

There is a passage in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in which Augustine St. Clare, the indolent slaveholder from New Orleans, is talking with his cousin Ophelia, who has come down from Vermont to bring order to his household.

"What a poor mean trash this whole business of human virtue is!" Augustine says. "A mere matter, for the most part of latitude and longitude, and geographical position. . . . The greater part is nothing but an accident. Your father, for example, settles in Vermont, in a town where all are, in fact, free and equal; becomes a regular church member and deacon, and in due time joins an Abolition Society."

Augustine's father went to New Orleans and came to own 500 or 600 slaves.

There is a history here.

New Englanders in the 19th century served as a check on the excesses of their southern cousins, providing the most zealous and determined voices in opposition to slavery. In the eyes of many Americans today, the southern strain of American politics, represented by George W. Bush, is begging to be checked. What does that strain consist of?

It is characterized, first of all, by hostility toward government, expressed through tax cuts designed, as it is said, to "starve the beast," crippling the functions of government and allowing private business to scoop up the pieces.

It is characterized by extreme deference to the wealthy and by unconcern for the withering of civil culture and the public sphere. The public schools are failing? Send your kids to private schools, and here's some public money to help. Public libraries are starved of funds? Try Amazon.com.

It is characterized by the conflation of religion and politics. According to this view, the Ten Commandments are part of our public charter and gay marriage is an oxymoron.

It should come as no surprise that the most insistent voice in opposition to that vision should come from a New Englander with family ties to Wall Street. Howard Dean has labored in politics to make government work; bringing health care coverage to Vermont children has been one of his signal accomplishments. In signing Vermont's civil union law, he honored the wall between church and state. At the same time, he has always been aware of the need to keep Wall Street happy by making sure government's fiscal house is in order....

Augustine St. Clare referred to Ophelia as Cousin Vermont. She was an annoyance and a scold, virtuous and all too certain of her virtue. Does that sound like Howard Dean? To achieve broad appeal he will have to avoid becoming excessively preachy while remembering that on many important things -- keeping one's house in order and respecting one's fellow human beings -- Cousin Vermont happened to be not only virtuous but right.

In the nineteeth centruy, the North had to pummel the South into giving up slavery. When control of the lower classes by slavery became impossible, the South moved to control them by political disenfranchisement and segregation.

In the twentieth century, the North had to use force again to get the South to enforce voting rights and desegregation.

But the South has always resented the loss of these unjust means of oppressing minorities and other "outsiders." Instead of repenting the immoral impulse to dominate, exclude, and even destroy other human beings, the South has merely given lip-service to virtue, while harboring quiet schemes to find new ways of venting its lust for power.

The "conservative revolution" has filled the bill for over two decades now. By blending together one part intolerant "religious" doctrines, one part bigoted and separtist social thinking, and one part foaming-at-the-mouth, bloodthirsty capitalism, the Southern brand of conservativsm epitomized by W has risen to become the twenty-first-century version of Southern inhumanity: a new way to keep the lower orders in their place.

How does it work? Instead of assailing their targets directly through enslaving them or taking away their rights--both of these strategies having been exposed as vicious and immoral by the North--the new Southern strategy is to use economic power as a means of disenfrancishement. If the Bushites get their way, all of the structures built up in America during the twentieth century to ensure equal opportunity for the underprivileged will disappear. Ultracapitalists, the supporters and beneficiaries and co-conspirators of the Bushites, will return to the position of complete dominance over society that they had at the end of the nineteeth century, before the progressive reforms begun by Theodore Roosevelt and solidifed by FDR began to make America a fit place to live for the "working class."

The new Southern strategy longs for a return to the form, if not the content, of slavery, when the oppressed had no voice and no means of retaliating against the oppressors. That's what conservatives really love: a fight in which the odds are so stacked in their favor that they can't imagine losing.

We expect to hear wails of indignation about these thoughts from Southern "patriots." So let us hasten to say that the regressives we have in mind are not limited to the South in geographical origin. "The South" here is a geographical metaphor linking together all people who profess to believe, or act as if they believed, that dominating others is a valid way of life.

That said, we are still sure to hear outcries from the "patriots" of the old South, who are so proud of their "heritage." We will be glad to give heed to the outcries when such people become just as ashamed of their heritage as they are proud of it. It is vainty and self-ignorance to exalt the pleasant aspects of one's past without taking deeply to heart its sins. And "Southerners" (which is to say, all those, wherever they live, who harbor the instinct for dominance), as the metaphorical standard-bearers of institutionalized injustice in America, need to own up not only to their past acceptance of despotism, but also to their apparently unrepentant present desire to validate themselves by dominating their fellow men.

Until conservatives repudiate the instinct for dominance not only in their speech but also in their hearts (at which point they could hardly be conservatives any longer), the only hope for this nation is for the "Northerners" to once again force them into submission. It is a shame to have to resort to force to get people to put aside force, when reason alone should be enough. But the desire for domination is not reasonable, and it does not understand compromise.

So, regrettable as it is, we "Northerners" have no choice but to fight and overpower the "Southerners" yet again. If we cannot do so, if so many of our fellow citizens have been tainted by the acceptance of force in the ideology of conservatism, then America is doomed to degenerate into a petty collection of corporate fiefdoms under the feudal control of tyrants like W, Cheney, and the whole Bushite menagerie.

BUSH: STILL STONEWALLING ON 9/11

W will never tell the truth about 9/11: it would get him impeached.

First, if you ever saw the video taken as he was reading to children in Florida while the attacks occurred, you already know this: he was manifestly out of the loop, nearly incoherent, and acting like a puppet whose strings were barely connected.

Second, he was missing in action for the rest of the day.

Third, Cheney made the important decisions on that day.

Fourth, it wasn't until W managed to recite the speech written for him to give at the National Cathedral, several days later, that the media campaign to make him into a hero began.

Fifth, the administration started a stonewalling campaign immediately, averring initially for almost a year that no investigation was needed; then capitulating to an investigation, but appointing Henry Kissinger to head it (which would have guaranteed a whitewash); then acquiescing to an investigation with a slightly more independent Republican in control; then stonewalling the investigatory commission on the documents it needs to do its work. At present, the Bushites have still not given the commission the help it needs to get to the truth. Here is a link that tells about the current situation:

Star-Ledger: Bushites Still Won't Cooperate

And here is an excerpt:

Stephen Push, whose wife was killed when a terrorist-hijacked airliner struck the Pentagon, said he was "very disappointed the CIA, the White House and the Defense Department are still not producing some key documents."

"What do they have to hide?" he asked.

In July, Kean criticized the administration for lack of full cooperation, saying it was hampering the inquiry. At the time, he singled out the Pentagon and the Justice Department.

On Sept. 23, in a second interim report, Kean said there has been progress and much better cooperation, but he added that some outstanding issues needed to be resolved within two weeks. Kean yesterday indicated that his deadline had not been met.

Indeed, what do they have to hide? Only that they are utterly incompetent at, and in fact utterly uninterested in, performing the tasks incumbent on government for the public welfare. And how could they be any good at, or even interested in, those tasks, since their entire reason for stealing power was to destroy government as a protector of the public welfare, and set it up as the guarantor of profits and protections for the wealthy?

That is what conservatism is REALLY all about. The culture wars and the religious fundamentalism and the political posturing are all just sideshows that distract attention from the real goal: to make the whole world into a cash cow for those who already hold all the cards. Conservative ideology is just a tool to keep the morons flocking to side that will eventually do them in.

Are there enough intelligent people left to see this? And even if there are, can they do anything about it when the morons are in striking distance of becoming the majority?

Let's hope so.

BUSH AND CO.: THE WORST OF THE WORST

Think that the Bushites can't get even more arrogant in the pursuit of demolishing America? Think again. Now that they are down in the polls, they will only get worse, because that's all they know how to do. If the best defense is a good offense, then the best offense, they seem to think, is nuclear devastation.

Let's begin with Dick Cheney, the most dangerous man in America. As part of the White House PR project to try to distract Americans from the debacle in Iraq with highly selective "good news," Cheney crawled out of his rat's den yesterday to repeat his old lies about Saddam's threat to the West; and to continue to whip up fear of the nebulous threat of "terrorism," which he continues to link to Iraq; and to charge the administration's critics with being unpatriotic--all the usual base and groundless demagoguery for which he ought to be notorious.

Here is a link to an article about the speech itself:

Chicago Sun-Times: Cheney's PR Speech

And here is a link to a commentary on the speech:

Bart Whiteman: Dick Cheney Gone Wild

And here is an excerpt:

Vice President Dick Cheney rolled out the heavy artillery to try to squash any and all opposition to the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Powell War in Iraq. It’s always interesting how “Darth” Cheney always appears from his appointed task of running the shadow government somewhere to don his cape and quell discussion and debate over whatever questionable administration policy has seized the moment. He always adds the “adult” voice to the chorus after all the “young un’s” like Condoleeza Rice have flailed away fruitlessly attempting to sway public opinion in the administration’s favor. The implied message to us all is: “Hush up now. Daddy’s home. Mind your manners.”

Cheney warned us all about the big, bad, boogie day of doom that awaits us all if we don’t toe the line. He tried very hard to frighten as many people as he could with his portrayal of the horrors that are in store if we don’t let these administration cowboys continue to round up and dispose of the terrorist herd at will.

Oh, and anyone who disagrees with him is a wimp.

Well, Dick, I noticed you delivered your bold message at the Heritage Foundation, the well-endowed incubator of conservative thought. Who’s the wimp here? If that ain’t preaching to the choir, I don’t know what is.

Cheney also re-wrote the justification for the war yet again and has made it so vague this time that it would pretty hard for anyone to try to paraphrase just what it was. Needless to say, we are fighting it for some fluid reason, and we are there in the middle of it now. Everyone should probably just give up trying to justify or un-justify it. That discussion is going nowhere. We are fighting it because the Cubs haven’t won the World Series since 1908. How’s that?

It’s pretty clear that nothing short of electoral defeat or impeachment will stop the war from the administration’s perspective, and since Congress is in the hands of the Republicans, they’ll just go keep going along for the merry ride. Heck, the Democrats are doing the same thing.

Really, the Bushites are down to nothing with regard to their justification for invading Iraq. All the claims made by Colin Powell at the UN in February have been refuted, the "intelligence" has been shown to be hyped, and everything claimed by Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld, and W himself has failed to proved true. All they have left is the "Saddam was a brutal dictator" defense, which would not have gotten a single conservative member of Congress on board before the war, since there are plenty of brutal dictators whom the US does not attack--indeed some of them get US support.

So instead of doing something about the mess they got us into in Iraq, they roll out a PR offensive of lies and propaganda, while at the same time increasing the noncompetitve payoffs to their cronies in the oil and defense industries. The whole Iraq adventure is a full-employment scam for Bushite cronies.

But how DARE anyone even SUGGEST that the big oil boys Cheney and Bush are in Iraq because of oil? Even liberal critics seem quick to recuse themselves from thinking that the Bushites might be that base.

But OF COURSE they are that base! And much baser as well! OF COURSE they are there because of oil--not to grab it outright (they don't need to do that, since they are already rich as Croesus), but to get a compliant "government" in Iraq that will regulate the flow of oil in such a way that OPEC loses its control over world oil prices. Then, with Cheney sitting in his spider's web in the shadows, the American oil interests can continue to pump every last drop of crude out of the earth on a timetable that THEY decide, and at profit margins that THEY want. That's why the US is in Iraq.

The fact that a few hundred good men and women have to die for Cheney's control of world oil depletion is no problem for the Bushites. And so they lied as much as it took to get the military to do the job for them.

So the American people are starting to get wise, are starting to turn against the Bushites for deceiving them? So what? The Bushites just get even more ruthless in their attack on the average American, because they see that they now need to do as much damage to government as they can as fast as possible, in case they can't manage to steal the next election. (Which they probably can, given their control over the new touch-screen voting machines that have no paper trails and proprietary software that cannot be reviewed even by state or federal government authorities.)

So take a look at this new offensive from the Bushites. Economic times hard? Well, let's beat up even more on the poor.

Mark Engler: Republican Orwellian "PRIDE" Bill Destroys the Poor

And here is an excerpt:

One might expect a welfare reauthorization bill to offer emergency assistance to the poor and aid to those trapped in the low-wage workforce. Instead, the so-called Personal Responsibility and Individual Development for Everyone (PRIDE) bill that has just come out of the Senate Finance Committee, like the more extreme bill passed in the House, shows that lawmakers are willfully oblivious to the challenges facing welfare reform.

No jobs to be found in our economy? Let's increase the work requirements for welfare recipients. No money in the budget for social services? Let's launch a new $1 billion program to cajole women down the aisle. Job training needed? Let's cut the amount of time that recipients can devote to literacy or vocational education.

The provisions in the PRIDE legislation are not only bad as individual proposals, they reflect a punitive vision of welfare reform that can never address the root of persistent poverty in America....

The condescension apparent in the PRIDE provisions is part of a much larger attitude problem that prevails in the current era of "welfare reform." This disposition treats the poor themselves, rather than poverty, as the problem. In his influential 1962 book, The Other America, social critic Michael Harrington used the idea of a "culture of poverty" to describe how the barriers erected against the poor reinforce one another. While low wages prevent you from getting health insurance, the lack of good medical care often makes it difficult to hold down a job. Those most in need of affordable housing are gouged for substandard apartments. If you have young children, or if a dependent relative falls ill, multiple generations can be condemned to poverty.

These same complications exist today, recently described with self-deprecating wit in Barbara Ehrenreich's best-selling Nickel and Dimed, where the author tries to make ends meet on near-minimum wages. However, the invocation of the "culture of poverty" has come to mean something else entirely for most people. In the past decades conservative pundits have perpetuated the stereotype of the lazy yet calculating "welfare queen," who (as writers like Charles Murray suggested) jumps at the opportunity to grow dependent on public assistance.

Following this latter vision, today's welfare reform talks a lot about promoting "personal responsibility" and trimming welfare caseloads, but it doesn't take on the mission of reducing want and deprivation. Thus, the "War on Poverty" has morphed into what activists call the "War on the Poor."

But why stop with squeezing all the oil out of the earth or squeezing all poor people until they die? Conseratives won't be happy until they tap out ALL the world's resources. And the sooner the better. So why should animals be exempted from conservative predatory practices.

Obviously, the White doesn't think they should. Here's an article describing how the Bushites intend to wipe out endangered species all over the earth:

Washington Post: White House to Expand Predatory Access to Endangered Species Everywhere

And here is an excerpt:

The Bush administration is proposing far-reaching changes to conservation policies that would allow hunters, circuses and the pet industry to kill, capture and import animals on the brink of extinction in other countries.

Giving Americans access to endangered animals, officials said, would feed the gigantic U.S. demand for live animals, skins, parts and trophies, and generate profits that would allow poor nations to pay for conservation of the remaining animals and their habitat.

This and other proposals that pursue conservation through trade would, for example, open the door for American trophy hunters to kill the endangered straight-horned markhor in Pakistan; license the pet industry to import the blue fronted Amazon parrot from Argentina; permit the capture of endangered Asian elephants for U.S. circuses and zoos; and partially resume the trade in African ivory. No U.S. endangered species would be affected.

Conservationists think it's a bad idea. "It's a very dangerous precedent to decide that wildlife exploitation is in the best interest of wildlife," said Adam Roberts, a senior research associate at the nonprofit Animal Welfare Institute, an advocacy group for endangered species.

Killing or capturing even a few animals is hardly the best way to protect endangered species, conservationists say. Many charge that the policies cater to individuals and businesses that profit from animal exploitation.

Of course they cater to individuals and businesses that profit from exploitation! That's the whole POINT!

So what have we learned today. That the Bushites are rapacious, mendacious, ruthless crony capitalists whose arrogance and megalomania knows no restraint and no bounds. They will send American solidiers to die in Iraq so that someday Cheney and the oil boys can pocket every last penny that is to be made from the final drops of oil on earth while keeping the price low enough to discourage alternative fuels. They will starve the poor so that they die off and cease being a drag on the "economy." And they will kill off entire species anywhere in the world for a few bucks.

So what else is new?

BUSHITES: PHONY LETTERS TO DRUM UP FAKE SUPPORT

The Bushistas never cease to devise new slimeball tactics to prop up their puppet-in-chief. One of the lowest tricks yet seen has begun to appear in local papers all over the nation: fake letters from soldiers telling what a wonderful time they are having in Iraq, and how we should all support W for sending them there.

Here is a link to one newspaper who noticed the fake letters being submitted:

The Olympian: Similar Fake Letters Received

We always knew that the Bushites were the lowest of the low. But to impersonate real soldiers who are facing real bullets and bombs in order to prop up a fake soldier who never made any sacrifice for his country in his whole life? That's the act of cowards.

Which is what every Bushite is.

No invective is biting enough for what they have done to our military, their families, and the nation. We will none of us be safe until all of them are out of power and in jail.

Let us pray that it comes soon, before they destroy our beloved land.

BUSH: LYING ABOUT THE ECONOMY

W has been lying about the economy since he stole the White House. Today is no different.

Here is the link to today's Misleader.org Bush lie-of-the-day:

Bush Still Pushing Conservative Economic Lies

And here is the piece:

U. S. Comptroller Declares Bush Policies Will Keep Nation Deeply in Debt


U.S. Comptroller General David Walker, the nation's chief fiscal officer, interjected a dose of reality this week into President Bush's rosy claims that his Administration can cut the federal deficit in half within five years without changing policies.1 "The idea that this is manageable or that we are going to grow our way out of the problem is just flat false," Walker said2.

In a speech at the National Press Club, Walker took direct issue with the President's ongoing insistence that his tax-cutting "pro-growth" policies and budget cutbacks are sufficient to "expand the economy and help bring down this deficit."3

To the contrary, Walker said, "We need a wake-up call, "adding that the current huge deficits cannot be reversed without "significant changes in status quo programs, policies, processes and operations."4 He emphasized, "Our nation has a major long-term fiscal challenge that is not going away."

Although Bush pledged Thursday he wouldn't "pass [problems] on to other Presidents and other generations,"5 he refused to change his mind about making his tax cuts permanent. 6 The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the cost to the deficit would be more than $1 trillion over the next ten years.7

Sources:
1. Presidential Speech and Questions, 8/22/03.
2. "Bush's Economic Growth Forecast Called 'False,'" Los Angeles Times, 10/7/03.
3. Presidential Speech, 1/7/03.
4. "Watchdog Declaring Deficit Crisis," CBSNews.com, 9/17/03.
5. Presidential Speech, 10/9/03.
6. "Bush seeks to make tax cuts permanent," Washington Times, 9/5/03.
7. "GAO grim on deficit outlook," Atlanta-Journal Constitution, 9/18/03, p. 1A.

Lying is the stock-in-trade of conservative politics. You can hardly be a conservative without making sophistry and prevarication your specialty.

That's all we have time for today. We'll try to make up for today's brevity over the weekend.

BUSH: IRAQ PR OFFENSIVE AND LIBERAL MEDIA

So W has assigned Condi Rice the task of coordinating the Bushite lies and propaganda about Iraq. The White House is even calling it a PR program.

When they start talking about PR offensives, it's because they are in trouble. It's like admitting that the facts are against them, so they have to create an illusion that they are not.

There was a time in this country when PR, which is advertising applied to politics, was understood to be the last refuge of liars. There was a time when the people got indignant when they detected PR propaganda coming out of the government.

Not any more. The pathetically educated Americans of today don't seem to be able to recognize propaganda at all. The kind of critical thinking that empowers people to recognize when they are being snowed is hardly taught in schools any more.

If that were not the case, Ronald Reagan would never have gotten away with stacking the FCC with the rabid right-wing ideologues who disposed of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, after it had been serving the country well since 1949. The result of that one Republican crime is today's massive consolidation of media by conservatives, who dominate the radio airwaves, and have effective control of all television and most print outlets of information.

And yet the right continues to whine about the "liberal media," about how their positions and opinions cannot be heard over the oppressive din of liberal bias. This is total crap, being peddled by the most narrow-minded and bullying troglodytes in the public arena.

Two letters in today's Baltimore Sun, one from a liberal and one from a conservative, show quite clearly what's wrong with today's media climate. Here is a link to the first letter:

Sun Letter: Bush's record doesn't merit positive press

And, since it's so well written, we cite it here in full:

In "President seeing shades of '92" (Opinion/Commentary, Oct. 2), Linda Chavez accuses "the press" (of which she is part) of engaging in some sort of anti-President Bush smear campaign and being "out to prove that the economy is in the toilet and the U.S. military victory in Iraq is irrelevant."

In what world does Ms. Chavez live?

The state of our economy speaks for itself. We hemorrhage jobs and the deficit explodes and the stock market staggers. This is not an invention of the press; it's reality.

And there is not, as yet, a military victory in Iraq, making commentary on its "relevance" rather premature. We have not won a victory while soldiers continue to die daily and the remnants of the Baath government still wait in the wings for our withdrawal.

Ms. Chavez blames the president's failure to get more positive press coverage on the press (herself excepted, one supposes), not on the fact that he doesn't do anything deserving of positive coverage.

But this president only does two things well - he gives tax cuts to the rich, and he then goes to an endless series of fund-raisers in which the rich give a tiny fraction of those tax cuts back to him in the hope that he'll keep cutting taxes for another four years.

All that can be asked of a president is that he leave the country in better shape than he found it. But by every conceivable measure this president has failed to live up to that obligation. Our economy is a shambles, the budget is a mess, the environment is being raped, we are widely despised abroad, Mr. Bush's war turns dead Americans into profits for Halliburton and we are no safer from terrorism than we were on Sept. 11.

How is this the press' fault? And how, given these facts, can the president reasonably expect laudatory coverage?

Robert Taylor Jr.
Timonium

Mr. Taylor's letter shows up the narcissism of conservatives: they not only want their views published, but they want them believed, whether or not they are true. Criticism, especially disprobative criticism, strikes them as an affront that cannot be tolerated. Indeed, conservatives don't even seem to understand the notion that taking criticism seriously can lead to refining and improving one' own thought. If they did, they wouldn't be conservatives, because they would long ago have seen the contradictory and inhumane foundations of conservative thought.

But conservatives aren't interested in truth. They only want to hear what they already believe, and they want to hear it in a forum where it won't be challenged in any way. Hence the success of Fox News, the media propaganda branch of the Bushite junta.

And the second letter from the Sun shows why conservatives love Fox so much. It is in response to a recent study showing that 80% of Fox News viewers believed Bushista lies about Iraq, whereas only 45%-50% of network and CNN viewers believed those same lies. Here is a conservative's response:

Sun: An alternative to leftist media (This is the same link as above; you have to scroll down to the third letter.)

And here is the whole thing:

How good of The Sun to inform those of us who watch Fox News that our views are erroneous and we are not among the elite group who consume NPR and network news ("Study hits war views held by Fox fans," Oct. 4).

Those of us who watch Fox do so because we desire an alternative to the media's reflexive conservative-baiting and unquestioning acceptance of leftist sociopolitical agendas.

The Sun perpetuates cultural conflict by printing this kind of confrontational propaganda and insinuating that those with a conservative world view are troglodytes.

Eric Sundell
Reisterstown

Mr. Sundell doesn't seem to get the self-parodying nature of his own letter. His second paragraph establishes that Fox viewers are intellectual troglodytes, because they are not interested in learning anything or in hearing multiple viewpoints in order to think out the issues for themselves. They want to have their prejudices presented in a forum where there is no real challenge to them.

Just how base the conservative media are in pandering to the troglodyte mentality was shown recently in the Washington Times by columnist Donald Lambro, whose every thought seems to eerily coincide with whatever propaganda is currently being pushed by the RNC. He recently wrote this column impugning the reputation of Joseph Wilson, the former ambassador whose wife was outed by the White House as a CIA agent:

Lambro: Desperation . . . or retaliation?

There is no need to cite any of this article, because this screed was so full of lies and groundless innuendo that one of the great commentators on today's utterly debased media just had to deflate it entirely by quoting from it extensively:

Bob Somerby's Daily Howler: The Debasement of Commentary

And here is an excerpt:

How stupid are they willing to be—those who now program “conservative” voters? Consider Donald Lambro’s laughable propaganda piece in Monday’s Washington Times. Like other store-bought spinners of the pseudo-right, Lambro is trying to deflect attention away from the leaking of Valerie Plame’s name. So he offered readers some silly distractions. Lambro got busy in his column, at service to the interests who own him:

LAMBRO: Then there are the deeply political motives behind the Democrats’ attacks, especially those of Mr. Bush’s chief accuser: former Middle East diplomat Joseph C. Wilson IV, who supported Al Gore and now backs Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts for president.

Every dumb-ass spinner knows it: When the facts don’t support you, you run straight to motive. No one has ever really disputed the general merit of Joe Wilson’s analysis. (Wilson said that, due to extensive oversight, it was unlikely that Iraq could buy uranium from Niger.) And it’s clear that someone leaked his wife’s name; obviously, no one has disputed that. So Lambro tries to distract his readers, offering them slippery assessments of motive. Quickly, he goes on to say “how blatantly political” Wilson is: “As for Mr. Wilson himself, his hatred for Mr. Bush’s policies borders on the pathological.” By the way, how deep is Wilson’s “hatred for Bush?” During the 2000 White House campaign, Wilson and his now-outed wife donated $2000 to Bush! But Lambro is a store-bought fellow, and he knows that he must serve his masters. So he tells you that Wilson “supported Al Gore”—but he knows not to mention the fact that Wilson supported George W. Bush too. Instead, he offers scripted stupidity which Times readers dumbly choke down:

LAMBRO: More profound questions are raised about Wilson’s CIA-approved mission to Niger to investigate whether Iraq attempted to buy yellowcake uranium. By his own admission, he had no investigative background and said his trip consisted of “eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people.”

His perfunctory report home said “it was highly doubtful that any [uranium sale] had ever taken place.” The mystery behind this dubious investigation is why this Bush-hater was chosen for so sensitive a mission. Reportedly, his wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, an undercover CIA agent, suggested to her superiors that he be given this assignment.

That clowning reference to drinking tea is, of course, a current RNC spin-point. All the store-bought sophists cite it. And enjoy a good laugh at that prize word “reportedly”—a word which scripted bootblacks use when they want to cite a report which everyone knows is unfounded. But then, there’s nothing these thigh-rubbing, store-bought men won’t say in the attempt to deceive their dim readers. Readers, give yourselves a quick little test. Ask yourselves: Could this be true:

LAMBRO: [Wilson’s] long, single-minded crusade against Mr. Bush has one purpose: to undermine the president’s credibility. But Mr. Wilson should consider his own credibility. He told C-SPAN last week he did not think Saddam Hussein ever had weapons of mass destruction. But before the Iraq war began, he told ABC News that Saddam might “use a biological weapon in a battle that we might have.”

Do you really think that could be true? Since everyone knows that Saddam once used WMDs, do you think that Wilson went on C-SPAN last week and said “he did not think Saddam Hussein ever had” them? Here, we note Lambro’s lack of an actual quotation from Wilson—and of course, we note Lambro’s lack of character. But who could be stupid enough to believe this? Apparently, readers of the Washington Times believe it, and much more, as we’ll note tomorrow.

The right in this country has become complete shameless about lying in public. This is perfectly in line with their basic beliefs, which are Hobbesian at bottom: do whatever you have to in order to get what you want. So they lie about anyone who disagrees with them; they lie about their own beliefs so they won't be caught out for the selfish creatures they are; they lie about science, and evidence, and facts; and they lie about history. Whatever it takes to get and hold on to power and privilege.

And by the way, those of you who want to know the real truth about conservative dominance of the media, as well as those of you who are too young to remember when the Fairness Doctrine kept public discourse in a rational balance should read this article by Edward Monks:

Monks: The end of fairness: Right-wing commentators have a virtual monopoly when it comes to talk radio programming

We are living in the age of the Big Lie, and it's all the work of conservatives.

OUR TAKE ON ARNOLD; AND TRUE CONSERVATIVISM IN MARYLAND

Several readers have wondered why we haven't weighed in on the California recall.

The answer is simple: the California circus is just another distraction that the Bushites have used to try to keep media attention off their own misdeeds. And we have preferred to keep hammering on the Bushite machine rather than be distracted like so much of the media.

But perhaps it would not do too much damage to make a brief comment on what the mess in California really represents: the decline and near-debasement of American eduacation.

Education? What's that got to do with it?

Just this: more and more Americans are coming out of our schools too stupid to be able to see through the smokescreen of simplistic slogans and incoherent notions being served up by conservative politians to secure their hold on power. For the past thirty year, more and more Americans have been buying the conservative crapola peddled by the likes of Reagan, the Bushes, and now Arnold.

"You don't like taxes? Well, you won't have to pay them if you vote for me! You do like services? Well, you will have them if you vote for me! You don't want to pay to help the unemployed? Well, you won't have to if you vote for me! You do want a job? Well, you'll have one if you vote for me!"

Really, how can all this go together? You would think that even a high-school dropout could see that conservatives pander to that most self-centered of desires--the lazy dream of getting something for nothing--to whip up their support. And yet more and more people keep buying it. I'd say that qualifies as an indictment of education.

But maybe that's why more and more Americans keep playing the lottery too.

That's all the space we will devote to the California exercise in democratic idiocy.

We want to move on now to one of those little articles we like to present from time to time that shows real conservative values in action. Recently, Kendel Ehrlich, the wife of the governor of Maryland, Bob Ehrlich--a real rethuglican neanderthal who was a water-bearer and lickspittle amanuensis of Newt Gingrich--was at a conference on domestic violence. Being a Bible-thumping, santimonious faux Christian, she couldn't resist letting her true attitudes show when asked a question about Britney Spears. Her response? Get this:

"Really, if I had an opportunity to shoot Britney Spears, I think I would," Ehrlich laughingly told the audience, accusing the 21-year-old Grammy Award-nominated singer of exaggerating the importance of sex for young girls.

Here is the link:

Yahoo: Violent Republican Fantasies in Maryland

Really, you'd think the RNC wouldn't let Republicans out in public without handlers to stop them from spouting the kind of intolerance, bigotry, moralism, hypocrisy, and even violence that characterizes their inner lives. Look how they have to keep W under wraps: nobody let's him out of their sight for more than a few minutes, and even then only when he's thoroughly coached. Let him extemporize for even a second, and out pops some disgusting comment that reveals another dark corner of his twisted psyche. Why just yesterday he seems to have mouthed off about how they'll never find the Wilsongate leakers because "it's a large administration"--showing his contempt and disdain for the seriousness of the leak and the damage it has done to the Wilsons, to CIA operatives, and to national security. There is a special circle of hell set apart for those who are as maliciously hypocritical as W.

So Kendel Ehrlich has a vicious and violent inner life. So what?

Remember folks, these are the same people who want guns in every hand, rights restricted to what their fire-and-brimstone Jehovah approves, and limits on justice for everyone but themselves.

It would be best to keep such people out of positions of power, don't you think?

BUSH: WHERE THERE'S PATHOLOGICAL SECRECY, THERE'S FIRE

Dictator Bush is well known for pathological secrecy. Why? Because he's got so much hide that it's easier just to hide everything.

The foregoing statement is probably wrong, because it is still entirely unclear whether W is even capable of discerning what he ought to hide. Being able to make such judgments requires a level of ratiocination that W has never evinced.

But his handlers certainly are intelligent enough to discern the evil they do from the stories they can tell in public. And so pathological secrecy reigns throughout the administration, because all the funcionaries (smarter than Bush to a person) are hiding everything the administration does.

So it's no surprise that the White House will not comply with the Justice Department's deadline of 5:00 today to turn over all documents relating to the outing of Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife as an active CIA agent. They are hiding the truth about this matter, because it is one of the thousands of facts that would destroy them if made public.

How does the White House intend to get away with stiffing Justice? Here is a CBS News story that reveals their strategy:

CBS News: Bush Will Probably Claim Executive Privilege On Wilsongate

And here is an excerpt:

Once the documents are collected, White House lawyers will decide which are relevant, and then weigh whether to hand over all the papers or retain some under a claim of executive privilege. A spokeswoman would not say whether the White House intended to make such a claim.

Executive privilege is a legal doctrine under which the president and his aides claim the right to keep certain information secret, because disclosing it would hamper the ability of the executive branch to do its job.

So the White House will follow in the footsteps of their illustrious Republican ancestor Richard Nixon, and claim executive privilege for any documents that reveal the truth about their revenge-and-intimidation leak, while dumping hundreds of irrelevant documents on Justice.

This, of course, is just what John Ashcroft was angling for when he gave the White House a day's grace last week, in which they could destroy any information they chose, and when he scheduled the deadline for today, the date of the California recall circus election, when the media will be completely loony about the insanity in the west.

In the end, this "investigation" will be a whitewash, and unless there is one principled and courageous person in the White House (hardly likely, since anyone like that would have been eliminated by the Bushites long ago--malevolent people don't keep virtuous people around them because they are "unreliable"--we will never get the truth.

Speaking of truth: you have probably already heard that Condi Rice has been named the head of a new group that will see to "stabilizing" Iraq. Obviously, the need for this new group is that things are completely out of hand in Iraq, and neither Paul Bremer, grand American poobah over there, nor Donald Rumsfeld, maniacal third-rate mind with delusions of grandeur, can stay on message. So Condi will preside over a massive campaign of lies, intending to keep ALL GOVERNMENT SOURCES spouting the Bushites' line about what is happening in Iraq, no matter what the truth is.

Well, what IS happening in Iraq? Newsday has the guts to tell us:

Newsday: Baghdad in Turmoil and Revolt

And here's an excerpt:

Large portions of Baghdad were in turmoil Tuesday after attackers fired an explosive into the Foreign Ministry compound, former intelligence officers demanding back pay or jobs hurled paving stones at American forces and U.S. soldiers confronted a big demonstration of Shiite Muslims....

The U.S. military press office said it was aware of "a situation" at the Foreign Ministry but had no details. Two U.S. armored personnel carriers and five Humvees had sped to the scene.

This is the kind of crapola that Condi will be in charge of dishing out to the public. And she will be keeping a tight lid on all government agencies so that they don't reveal the truth to anyone.

It's not hard to understand the viciousness of the Bushites in regard to lying to the public. Anyone who has worked at a company run by hard-core conservatives knows how they operate: they break laws, cheat on taxes, tyrannize their workers, basically do anything they want--and then they try to get away with it by enforcing absolute silence on everyone in the company. That's why we need whistleblower laws--to protect the principled people who come forth to tell the truth about their vile bosses.

But, as we already said, it is highly unlikely that there are any principled people left in the White House--if there ever were any. So we won't be getting the truth about anything from the Bushites.

The lying Bushite scum have made their own personal interests the entire focus of everything they do. In this they are behaving no differently they they would in the private sector. That is precisely why conservatives cannot be trusted with any public office: they not only do not understand the concept of the public good, but they also regard positions of power as desirable for the perks they can squeeze out of them.

The following article discusses the consequences of the Bushites capturing supreme power only to turn it to their private interests instead of the public welfare. Fred Hiatt of the Washington Post points out that the cause of democracy all over the world has been crippled by Bushite greed and power-mongering. Here is the link:

Hiatt: Democracy on Hold

When President Bush declared war on terrorism after Sept. 11, 2001, it was obvious that other priorities -- including the promotion of democracy and human rights -- would lose ground.

What was less obvious was whether those goals would fall as far back as they often had during the Cold War, when the United States seemed ready to embrace any dictator who promised to hate communism. Compromises again would have to be made, but maybe the Bush administration would understand that in the long run, fighting terror and promoting democracy had to go hand in hand.

Or maybe not.

Bush answered the question pretty definitively 10 days ago when he welcomed "my friend Vladimir Putin" to Camp David with these words: "I respect President Putin's vision for Russia: a country at peace within its borders, with its neighbors, a country in which democracy and freedom and rule of law thrive."

This description of Putin's Russia was so outlandishly fictional, so at odds with the KGB-inspired screw-tightening that has been the hallmark of Putin's regime, that the only possible conclusion was that Bush just doesn't care.

You got that right, Fred. Bush just doesn't care. Not about anything but his own desires. Not about American's out of jobs; not about the poor; not about seniors unable to make it in the country; not about workers who can't make it; not about anything but destroying everything enlightened and progressive this nation has created in the past century.

Those of us who knew of W's baseness and mendacity before the 2000 campaign, and who recognized on full display during that campaign, and who have died a thousand deaths watching it tear America to pieces since that campaign, are not surprised by him. We are surprised and dismayed that large numbers of Americans seem to be so impervious to evident facts and to his actual behavior--let alone his arrogant and mean-spirited attitude--as to continue supporting him. This bodes ill for the future.

But perhaps, just perhaps, the true malicious essence of the Bushites is insinuating itself into the American consciousness even despite their media control. Perhaps real evil cannot be hidden by spin and hype and threats and secrecy. Perhaps the average person is beginning to get the message.

Here is one ray of hope: an article explaining why Republicans are now doubting whether W can win next year's election. Here's the link:

Miami Herald: Bush Sinking Like the Slime He Is?

And here's an excerpt:

In a sharp reversal, Republicans who just months ago daydreamed about a 2004 election landslide now worry that President Bush is losing control of events at home and abroad and faces a real chance of leading the party to defeat....

Indeed, Bush might need the next year to improve his fortunes. Americans are growing more skeptical of him as they worry about the state of their country.

The majority, 56 percent, now believes the country is going seriously down the wrong track, while 37 percent believe it is headed in the right direction, according to a new CBS-New York Times poll.

Most troubling for Bush is that Americans now rank the economy and jobs a far greater problem than terrorism. As long as Americans were more concerned about terrorism, they felt better about Bush, whose forceful leadership after Sept. 11 rallied people to his side. But only 37 percent approve of his performance on the economy, while 56 percent disapprove, according to the poll.

Bush faces problems on foreign affairs as well. Only 44 percent approve of his performance on foreign policy, while 45 percent disapprove. On Iraq, 47 percent approve while 48 percent disapprove.

We can only hope...

BUSH: EVIL IS AS EVIL DOES

Just how deceptive and mean-spirited is George W. Bush? Today's links go a long way toward answering that question.

First, here is today's post from Misleader.org, a website dedicated to keeping a day-by-day account of W's perfidy:

Bush's Decision to Invade Iraq Happened Days after September 11th, Despite His Assertions to the Contrary

President Bush's decision to attack Saddam Hussein was made within days after the September 11th suicide hijackings, even though Bush claimed on the eve of his invasion "the American people can know that every measure has been taken to avoid war."1

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz has acknowledged that in the first weekend after September 11th "the disagreement was whether [invading Iraq] should be in the immediate response or whether you should concentrate simply on Afghanistan first."2

Privately, the President began making it known in March 2002 that the decision to invade Iraq was a foregone conclusion. In an unscheduled appearance with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Republican and Democratic Senators, Bush cursed Saddam and vowed, "We're taking him out." Weeks later, Vice President Dick Cheney said to a Senate Republican policy lunch that the question of attacking Iraq was not if, but when.3

The strategy of seeking United Nations approval for the invasion was hatched during an August dinner with Secretary of State Colin Powell at which "the agenda was not whether Iraq, but how."4 Publicly, though, the President continued to mislead the American public, saying the U. N. resolution "does not mean that military action is imminent or unavoidable."5

Sources:
1. Presidential Speech, 3/17/03.
2. Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz Interview with Vanity Fair's Sam Tannenhaus, 5/9/03.
3. "'We're Taking Him Out'",Time.com, 5/5/02.
4. "How It Came To War; When Did Bush Decide That He Had To Fight Saddam?", New Yorker, 3/31/02.
5. Presidential Speech, 10/7/02.

So W and his handlers sold the whole nation a load of manure about the whys and wherefores of invading Iraq, which they had decided on long before they had a "case"--which they had to manufacture out of worthless evidence.

Hate to say "we told you so," but we told you so. This also explains why a British documentary came out last week that shows both Colin Powell and Condi Rice before 9/11 saying that Iraq was well contained. (Check out this ITV web site for John Pilger, which carries the following very interesting paragraph: In Washington, a series of remarkable interviews includes senior Bush officials and former intelligence officers. In the week that the Hutton inquiry into the death of the British scientist Dr David Kelly releases its report, a former senior CIA official tells Pilger that the whole issue of weapons of mass destruction was "95 per cent charade.") But the well-trained lapdog American media never saw fit to run those clips; they would have proved all too patently how mendacious the Bushites were being in their lead-up to a war that they desperately wanted.

Why did they want it so desperately? Because they needed to make W into a phoney war hero for the next election, seeing as how he ducked Vietnam and went AWOL from the Air National Guard when he had his chance to be a real war hero.

A second demonstration of the administration's bad faith came this weekend from Robin Cook, a minister in the Tony Blair government who resigned over the Iraq debacle. Cook said that his diary showed Blair's admission last March, before the war, that Iraq could not be a real threat to the west. Here's a link to the NY Times version of the story:

Times: Blair Prevaricated on Iraq Threat

And here's an excerpt:

Prime Minister Tony Blair conceded privately that Iraq did not have the quickly deployable weapons of mass destruction that the British government cited as justification for war, former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook asserted today.

Mr. Cook, who resigned his post as leader of the House of Commons because of Britain's decision to join in the American-led war, said Mr. Blair also made it clear to him in a conversation two weeks before combat began that he did not believe Saddam Hussein's weapons posed a "real and present danger" to Britain.

A controversial intelligence dossier published last September argued that Iraq had unconventional weapons that could be used within 45 minutes of an order being given. Mr. Cook said that he had no reason to doubt that Mr. Blair believed the claim at the time it was made, but that in a conversation on March 5 Mr. Blair told him the weapons were only battlefield munitions and could not be assembled by Mr. Hussein for quick use because of "all the effort he has put into concealment."

Mr. Cook's account was made public in extracts published in The Sunday Times of London from "Point of Departure," a book based on his diary entries from the period.

Mr. Cook asks, "If Number 10 accepted that Saddam had no real W.M.D. which he could credibly use against city targets and if they themselves believed that he could not reassemble his chemical weapons in a credible timescale for use on the battlefield, just how much of a threat did they really think Saddam represented?"

So the only "partner" the Bushites could claim in their Iraq adventure turns out to have been lying along with them. Which ought to lead thinking people to wonder, "What do the Bushites have on Tony Blair that he would risk his career to lie for them?"

Third, the Bushites were lying--as everybody but Fox News viewers now knows--about WMD in Iraq. Here is a link to a famous Iraq expert's analysis of last week's report by David Kay on the search for WMD in Iraq:

Expert Details Lies in David Kay Report

And here is an excerpt:

Those who staked their career on the existence in Iraq of at least chemical and biological weapons programmes have latched on to three claims in the progress report.

First, there is the allegation that a biologist had a "collection of reference strains" at his home, including "a vial of live C botulinum Okra B from which a biological agent can be produced". Mr Straw claimed the morning after the report's release that this agent was "15,000 times more toxic than the nerve agent VX". That is wrong: botulinum type A is one of the most poisonous substances known, and was developed in weaponised form by Iraq before 1991. However, type B - the form found at the biologist's home - is less lethal.

Even then, it would require an extensive process of fermentation, the growing of the bug, the extraction of the toxin and the weaponisation of the toxin before it could cause harm. That process would take weeks, if not longer, but the ISG reported no sign of any of these activities.

Botulinum type B could also be used for making an antidote to common botulinum poisoning. That is one of the reasons why many military laboratories around the world keep reference strains of C botulinum Okra B. The UK keeps such substances, for example, and calls them "seed banks".

Second, a large part of the ISG report is taken up with assertions that Iraq had been acquiring designs and under- taking research programmes for missiles with a range that exceeded the UN limit of 150km. The evidence here is more detailed than in the rest of the report. However, it does not demonstrate that Iraq was violating the terms of any Security Council resolution. The prohibition on Iraq acquiring technology relating to chemical, biological or nuclear weapons was absolute: no agents, no sub-systems and no research or support facilities.

By contrast, Iraq was simply prohibited from actually having longer-range missiles, together with "major parts, and repair and production facilities". The ISG does not claim proof that Iraq had any such missiles or facilities, just the knowledge to produce them in future. Indeed, it would have been entirely lawful for Iraq to develop such systems if the restrictions implemented in 1991 were lifted, while it would never have been legitimate for it to re-develop WMD.

Third, one sentence within the report has been much quoted: Iraq had "a clandestine network of laboratories and safe houses within the Iraqi intelligence service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW research". Note what that sentence does not say: these facilities were suitable for chemical and biological weapons research (as almost any modern lab would be), not that they had engaged in such research. The reference to UN monitoring is also spurious: under the terms of UN resolutions, all of Iraq's chemical and biological facilities are subject to monitoring. So all this tells us is that Iraq had modern laboratories.

So the Bushites were lying about Iraq's capabilities all along. Remember Colin Powell's assertions at the UN in February that they knew what Iraq had and where it was? Remember Donald Rumsfeld's repeated claims that he knew where Iraq was hiding their mountains of weapons?

Of course, the Bushites are now saying the Saddam deceived the world about his WMD--the implication being that they are not to blame for invading a nation without stockpiles of weapons and for killing thousands of that nation's citizens. But this is only all the more reason not to allow tin-pot dictators like W to have "doctrines" of pre-emptive war. Under a principle like that, morons like him could attack anyone on a whim--just as he did with Iraq.

Fourth and last: It turns out that David Kay, author of last week's report on WMD and shill for the Bushites, has massive conflicts of interest involving the work he is now doing--just as all Bushite appointees have. Check out this link, which details how Kay is hooked up to interests that have a huge stake in his "finding" WMD in Iraq:

David Kay Linked to Bushite Interests

And here is an excerpt:

For at least 10 years David Kay, head of the Iraq Survey Group, has staked his professional and business reputation on the case that Iraq was a serious threat....

Until October last year, Mr Kay was the vice-president of a major San Diego-based defence contractor, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), co-ordinating its homeland security and counter-terrorism initiatives. It was while he held this role that he claimed that Iraq could launch terrorist attacks on the US mainland.

SAIC was in the headlines earlier this year when it was revealed that the US government had given it a contract three years ago to produce mobile biological vans for training purposes. Until February SAIC's corporate vice-president was Christopher Ryan Henry, now a senior policy official at the Pentagon.

SAIC's spokesman acknowledged earlier this year that the company is deeply involved in the current war in Iraq, including its role in leading a $650m contract for services and support for the US army. Among other activities, the company runs the US-funded radio station in Umm Qasr, "Voice of the New Iraq", and helps to provide senior advisers to the US occupation authorities in Baghdad. It is not known if Mr Kay retains financial interests in SAIC.

So, as is and has been clear to intelligent people all along, the whole Bushite junta has been managing everything from the beginning: they have massive control of the media; they appoint only people who have close ties to their own interests; they threaten and even endanger the lives of anyone who so much as dares to question them; and they regard themselves as far, far above the law.

Come on folks. This all passed the point of "enough's enough" about one month after the Bushites stole the White House. America became a lunatic asylum way back then, and it's been totally insane since the Republicans managed to capture Congress last fall.

Let's start doing something about this. Work, organize, beseige your representatives and senators, sign up new anti-conservative voters. We need to do everything we can to clear Republicans out of government NOW, or their regressive and selfish misuse of power will quickly drag American onto the trash heap of history.

BUSH: LEADING AMERICA INTO HELL

The Bushites are now in a full defensive crouch, lying through their teeth about so many issues that even the lapdog conservative press can't ignore their mendacity entirely.

Let's take our bearings today from the following highly informative article by David Corn:

Corn: Bush Lying About Leak and WMD

Here is a telling excerpt:

[At a White House briefing on October 1,] reporters wondered if Bush approved of the Republican campaign to depict Wilson as a partisan zealot lacking credibility. McClellan sidestepped: "The President is focused on getting to the bottom of this." The next day, he was once more asked whether it was appropriate for Republicans to be attacking Wilson. "I answered that question yesterday," he said. One problem: he hadn't. He also maintained that Bush "has been the one speaking out front on this." Not quite. For over two months, Bush had said nothing about the leak. And on this day, Bush met with reporters for African news organizations and joked about the anti-Wilson leak. When asked what he thought about the detention in Kenya of three journalists who had refused to reveal sources, he said, "I'm against leaks." This prompted laughter, and Bush went on: "I would suggest all governments get to the bottom of every leak of classified information." Addressing the reporter who had asked the question, Bush echoed the phrase that McClellan had frequently used in his press briefings and quipped, "By the way, if you know anything, Martin, would you please bring it forward and help solve the problem?"

Perhaps Bush needed a good chuckle after reading--or being briefed on--the testimony that chief weapons hunter David Kay was presenting that day to Congress. In an interim report, Kay had noted that his Iraq Survey Group had found evidence of "WMD-related program activities," but no stocks of unconventional weapons. Kay also had an interesting observation about the prewar intelligence on Iraq's WMDs: "Our understanding of the status of Iraq's WMD program was always bounded by large uncertainties and had to be heavily caveated."

Wait a minute. That was not what Bush and his compadres had said prior to the war. Flash back to Bush's get-out-of-town speech on March 17, two days before he launched the war. He maintained, "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal" weapons of mass destruction. Yet Kay was saying there had been "large uncertainties" in the intelligence. How does that square with Bush's no-doubt claim? It doesn't.

So the White House is clearly lying "big-time." But so are the other Bushites in this supremely mendacious administration. Here is an article by Walter Pincus of the Washington Post showing that Iraq potentate Paul Bremer and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz lied to Congress about the actual state of public opinion in Iraq, which is very much hostile to the U.S.:

Pincus: Bushites Fail to Tell Truth to Congress

An excerpt from that article shows how Bremer and Wolfowitz lie by omission:

Top Bush administration officials in the past weeks have been citing a pair of public opinion polls to demonstrate that Iraqis have a positive view of the U.S. occupation. But an examination of those polls indicates Iraqis have a less enthusiastic view than the administration has portrayed.

For example, in testimony before Congress, L. Paul Bremer III, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz both cited a recent Gallup Poll that found that almost two-thirds of those polled in Baghdad said it was worth the hardships suffered since the U.S.-led invasion ousted Saddam Hussein. Bremer also told Congress that 67 percent thought that in five years they would be better off, and only 11 percent thought they would be worse off.

That same poll, however, found that, countrywide, only 33 percent thought they were better off than they were before the invasion and 47 percent said they were worse off. And 94 percent said that Baghdad was a more dangerous place for them to live, a finding the administration officials did not discuss.

The poll also found that 29 percent of Baghdad residents had a favorable view of the United States, while 44 percent had a negative view. By comparison, 55 percent had a favorable view of France.

On top of all that lying, the Bushites are now beginning to show evidence that they were also lying about not being interested in Iraq's oil. Reuter's reports that the U.S. is now backing away from an oversight board that was formed four months ago to make sure that Iraq oil revenues stayed in Iraq and did not get siphoned off by other nations. Now the Bushites are trying to hobnail that group because it stands in the way of U.S. megacorporations (i.e., Bushite welfare organizations) skimming off the cream. Check out this link:

Reuter's" Bushite's Hampering Iraq Oil Board

While all the Bushites are lying at warp speed, the conservative mendacity machine is "shocked, shocked" that their beloved tyrant should be exposed to any real scrutiny in the press. They are pulling out all their tired old "liberal press" rants to try to paint this first serious press investigation from going any farther. Check out the following article by Katha Pollitt on the conservative outrage about the possibility of their junta's evil deeds coming out in the open:

Pollitt: Does It Hurt Our Widdle Baby Conservatives?

And an excerpt:

Well, they wanted state power, and thanks to the Supreme Court Five, they got it. But unfortunately, running the country turns out to be harder than it looked when Bill Clinton was killing off Hillary's lovers between Cabinet meetings. He made it seem so easy! Now, unemployment is way up, the government's awash in red ink, Iraq is a mess. So, everything has to be someone else's fault--mean liberals who really, really want to win in 2004, Osama-loving pranksters who forward e-mail jokes about the President's IQ, Bill and Hillary, still magically pulling the strings three years after leaving the White House, having thoughtfully arranged for 9/11 before they departed.

They can dish it out, but they sure can't take it.

And the conservative propaganda machine that tries to prevent serious investigation of Bushite atrocities has recently been shown to be highly effective. Here is an weblog from the American Prospect showing that Fox News does a bang-up job a misinforming their viewers that Bushite lies are not reall lies:

American Prospect: Fox Shills for Bush

And here is the whole log, since it may be difficult to access:

GOOD JOURNALISM VS. BAD. Supporters of Fox News like to argue that, by virtue of being more balanced and playing it down the middle, the network gets it right where other news outlets, mired in liberal bias and opinioneering, get it wrong. But a new study out from the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland suggests (among other things) that Fox News viewers are literally less well-informed about some basic facts than viewers of other, putatively slanted news sources. The study does reflect badly on the media as a whole, of course. In the aggregate, the researchers found, an unfortunately large number of Americans have been misinformed about the degree of foreign support for the Iraq war; whether or not we've found WMDs in Iraq; and whether or not Saddam Hussein was involved with the 9-11 attacks. But in looking more closely at the results, the study reports:

The extent of Americans' misperceptions vary significantly depending on their source of news. Those who receive most of their news from Fox News are more likely than average to have misperceptions. Those who receive most of their news from NPR or PBS are less likely to have misperceptions. These variations cannot simply be explained as a result of differences in the demographic characteristics of each audience, because these variations can also be found when comparing the demographic subgroups of each audience.

How much worse is Fox than its competitors? According to a chart on page 13 of the study, 80 percent of the respondents who watched it had one or more misperceptions. This was slightly worse than CBS (71 percent), significantly worse than ABC and rival CNN (55 percent) and way worse than the print media (47 percent). NPR and PBS do especially well in the study. The researchers report:

Fox News watchers were most likely to hold misperceptions -- and were three times more likely than the next nearest network to hold all three misperceptions. In the audience for NPR/PBS, however, there was an overwhelming majority who did not have any of the three misperceptions, and hardly any had all three.

That's quite a rebuke to Fox's self-image as the most straight-shooting news source in America -- and to conservatives who believe NPR is hopelessly biased to the left. So when it comes to reporting on the war, folks, here's the box score. Ideologically driven, overtly partisan cable news network funded by a conservative media tycoon: 0. Neutral, nonprofit, nonpartisan radio and television networks funded in part by taxpayers: 1.

Please -- do touch that dial.

--Nick Confessore

Finally, another in the endless train of stories that show the real attitudes of conservatives. The Washington Post today reports the story of Rep. Cass Ballenger (R-N.C.), who claims that his marriage of many years is breaking up because of the stress of living right across the street from a Muslim organization in DC. Really! Here is the story:

Post: Ballenger's Balmy Brain Bust

In addition to racism and xenophobia, the Ballenger's also share the general Republican attitude toward power: if you got it, you deserve the perks. Here is an excerpt from the article:

Ballenger told the newspaper that another source of stress on the marriage was the 1995 decision by "holier-than-thou Republicans" in the House to ban gifts from lobbyists. The meals and theater tickets from lobbyists once meant "a social life for [congressional] wives," Ballenger said. His wife agreed, saying, "Just a dinner now and then" would do no harm.

This is real conservatism, folks. Nothing registers with such people. Not the notion that public service is not supposed to be a picnic. Not the notion that the average guy and his wife have to actually pay for their entertainment, or do without.

But those, alas, are conservative values.

When will America come to understand that we would be far, far better off without such values, and without the people who live by them?