How Thick This Thread By Which We Hang?

"Finally, let us hope Bush doesn’t reward the inexcusably gross incompetence of Condeleeza Rice with the ship of State."

--anti-rove, some ten hours ago

The ink on my last posting had barely dried...er--the IP packets containing the payload data of my last posting had barely initiated electronic transmission--when it was announced that the good Doctor Condeleeza Rice will take over for Powell. Hell, it’s not like Bush hasn’t let me down before. Cough, cough. And I suppose it could be worse. It could ALWAYS be worse, yet that is little comfort.

Rice is a terrible and predictable choice. It shows once again that wrongheaded advice and a disturbing predilection to see the world the way one wants to see it and not the way it truly is, wrapped in undying loyalty to W, will be rewarded in this second term. Who's your daddy, Condi? As national security adviser, she would time and again find herself outmatched, outmuscled, and outmaneuvered by cannier and more powerful figures within the administration, and there’s no reason to suspect that this charade will not continue just because they’ll now call her Madam Secretary.

Haven’t we seen this movie before? There once was a doctor who became the national security adviser, and then secretary of state; oh yeah, that was Kissinger. Funny thing about ol’ Henry. All those bad things (read: war crimes) his critics charged him with back in the seventies...well, they're true. And they’re heinous. The man can barely leave the country for fear of foreign extradition. Check out "Kissinger Declassified" in the December edition of Vanity Fair, in which Christopher Hitchens proves he’s still good for something:

"As Chile and Argentina finally seek justice for those who were tortured, raped, and "disappeared" under the right-wing dictatorships of the 70s, the declassification process in Washington is revealing the horrifying complicity of then U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger."

This man was Bush’s first choice for 9/11 Commissioner—good one, W! I'm STILL rolling on the floor over that one!

Fact. There are horrible, despicable things about our government that we just don’t want to believe. And with barely a wink the Right takes advantage of this unassailable reality, framing the debate as We the Patriotic vs. the Blame America Firsters. Sometimes it’s enough to make you want to bury your head in the sand. But that’s their territory. We just need to reframe the debate.

Oh, and don’t get me started about the other explosive (literally) article in the latest Vanity Fair, the one about the return of Gulf War syndrome. In Bosnia and Kosovo it was called Balkans syndrome. Did you know that most of our armor-piercing shells and cannon rounds are made of depleted uranium? Do you suppose that might have anything to do with it? Shockingly, the Pentagon "resists" that explanation, sounding very much like a circa-1960s incarnation of RJ Reynolds. Oh the destructive callousness one must wield just to save one's ass (or a few bucks)! These poor soldiers deserve more. Those fortunate ones who make it back home safely should not then have to suffer and die down the road for a problem we refuse to even acknowledge now.

More lighthearted fare soon. :)

N/P Jackie O Motherfucker - Change