Demolution

We finally have a woman in an undeniably high position of power, and we can see the immediate effect as Rumsfeld goes running, and Bush starts re-arranging the deck chairs.

Definite cause for celebration, but just long enough to clap, breathe a deep sigh of relief, then jump right back in because the battle's just beginning. The accountability that everyone's been talking about goes both ways. Now that they're elected, they have to do the right thing, and it's up to us to keep their feet on the ground, their heads out of the clouds, and K-street dollars out of their pockets. Power corrupts indiscriminately, as history and futury (I'm applying for a verbal patent on that one) have shown and will continue to show us.

Some conservative pundit last night criticized Newt Gingrich's proclamation of a "Republican Revolution" in his victory night speech in '94 as too strong a word for Americans distaste for disorderly events, revolution being one such type of event that evoked disorder in the minds of pristine replublicans who prefer their politics to be droll, unsurprising, pre-arranged, fixed, and rigged (same way they like their sex). So, let's not call this a democratic revolution, let's just call it a demolution.

Here's what's really buggin the hell outta me right now: I happened to be browsing about 1:30am on Saturday when I noticed a brand new story pop up on Yahoo news about the 1999 Iraq war games, and how they showed with great credibility that any attempt to take Saddam from power militarily would require at least 400,000 troops and would still most likely bring about chaos and disorder. The report was declassified in 2004 by the pentagon, and was grabbed via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request Geroge Washington University's National Security Archive.

Hmmm, did anyone in the government have access to this info?

The real problem is that we may not ever know the answer to that question, because the sentence, placing the noose around Saddam's neck fell at the same time. Everyone thought that was timed to defer attention away from the demolution, and defray the damage done to the administration by the war, but this October Surprise was much more devious and remains mostly in the shadows.

Bush finally admits that he lies: As Bush finally gives Rumsfeld the Push, he admits to misleading reporters last week (and for months before that) during the runup to the elections by consistently defending Rumsfeld and stating that he would stay in his position while Bush stayed the course.

path to nowwhere

As I sit here watching Ted Koppel's 3 hour debut on Discovery, and think about the 3 hours I wasted earlier on his former employer's network watching the dull fiasco with all it's alpha glossing, and shaky camera angles, I wonder what good men do to gain the self respect that must be necessary to wake up each day and drudge through a world where so many know so little. I tried to find the factual rebuttals to the path show, but came up mostly empty save for a few postings here and there. ThinkProgress cornered the market on the search engines for "path to 911" and anything around those basic search words. But all I found there was an argument with bogusly long block quotes between someone named barfly and eyesawpath. I gotta admit I was dissappointed that I couldn't find real-time factual analysis detailing the truth divergence as it happened. Are my expectations too high? Or is it just because I'm a yahoo devotee and my search results don't give me more than I ask for. At least they did point out that the comparison between F911 and P2911 differ in that F911 wasn't produced by a major broadcast network and shown during primetime, while claiming to be based on a factual report, but instead was one persons view of what happened. I was incensed to see Thomas Kean's name flash during the credits on P2911 as Co-Executive Producer! Shouldn't he have at least disclosed that during his panel interview on This Week, instead of accepting the qualified identity of "Consultant"? What a (surprised?!) potential conflict of interest that is. And what kind of co-exec prod doesn't get to see the dailies, edits, and everything in between. He stands to benefit from this and that just ain't right, after chairing the commission. Another blatant disregard for principled behavior from an entrenched republican't.

Definitely worth watching, and actually germain to the conversation: Monarchy on PBS. Especially prior viewing HenryV and RichardIII back to back, as I did on Saturday night. Guess there's plenty of precedent for deceipt, death, senseless warmaking, and general treachery.

Katrina rocked on This Week. What an excellent panel, I respect them all.

One last thing, please read my letter to the editor on No plan for Afghanistan regarding the Taliban (what, no, really?) resurgence.