There is a marvelous passage within a 7/30 New Yorker magazine article regarding the rampant increase in (citizen) journalism that was ascribed to the advent of democracy in the French artist Courbet's epoch.
The Title of the piece is "Painting by Numbers, Gustave Courbet and the making of a master, by Peter Schjeldahl." (link, page 2)
The passage so intriguingly resonates with hundreds of recent op-eds and articles explaining, haranguing or lauding the growth of internet blogging. The passage follows, below:
A blog poster named Rooh made an interesting observation in his Salon Letters' commentary.
He asked...if Comey was the Acting AG, what were Gonzalez and Card going to do (to make his signature legal if obtained)...backdate it?
A clear exposition about the legal status between Comey and Ashcroft might be quite interesting and meaningful.
It is well documented that the State Department prepared a post Iraq invasion plan that pointed out the likelihood of Sunni on Shia civil strife/slaughter. And now George Tenet painfully divulges that the CIA had a written inteligence section outlining and warning of the likely sectarian carnage. These documents were either shelved and ignored or appended to the tail end of the rigged, or politically "fixed", intelligence that made the positive case for war; the positive case that the administration demanded.
The Military general staff was forbidden on pain of being fired from preparing a full G-4 or post-invasion plan which would with 100% certainty have warned of this civil slaughter danger. Political expediency demanded that our Marines, our Army and our Navy front line warriors be sent into battle unprepared.
Thinking about money, ethics, Bush and the GOP, maybe we're all missing an obvious point. Instead of instituting impeachment proceedings against our two top ranking incompetents why not offer them plutonium parachutes (uuhm, not the Russian kind).
It is no longer the American way for CEOs to quit for for reasons of moral, financial or leadership ineptitude.
In keeping with this, offer Bush and Ceney a billion dollars each to step down (and be prepared to go to two bil to close the deal: plus a hundred mil each for Alberto and each Cheney on the payroll.)
This is oligarchic morality.
Hold your nose. It's cheap at ten times the price!!
In this Bush Rove Cheney now Gonzalez Commissariat, political appointees oversee science (FDA & global warming). . Political appointees botch, bungle and butcher Iraq reconstruction/destruction and Katrina relief. . Political appointees set up propaganda office in DOD to deliberately and maliciously mislead the nation into war while refusing to plan for known obstacles ultimately leading to thousand of troop' deaths and injuries.
The hue and cry over Purgegate is that the Justice Department has traditionally been significantly and honorably immune to rank political interference. Despoiling democracy and honor while emulating a Soviet/Communist Commissariat model government is the legacy of our governing thugs.
If politicizing the Justice Department finally brings out the backbones of our legislators, Republican and Democrat alike, shout hosannas. Citizens of the entire planet sincerely want the America that strives for honor, equality and equal treatment under the law to reappear.
"Mayan priests (in Guatamala) will purify a sacred archaeological site to eliminate "bad spirits" after President Bush visits next week, an official with close ties to the group said Thursday. "
May they upload the ritual to YouTube so that all aspirants to purifying a Bush tainted world may have access to these time honored liturgical resources.
"My guess is that ..the forces that we liberated by invading Iraq were so powerful and so uncontrollable that virtually nothing the United States might have done,...would have effectively prevented this (present) disintegration." (JOHN BURNS)
History of Planning: The Generals were forbade from writing a comprehensive post war plan under threat of being fired. The State Department's 15 Volume post-war plan and analysis was effectively trashed.
Since day one of the Iraq fiasco my mind frequently offers up what I call the "Einstein Exception." All time is relative.
Whether the mission in Iraq was to install a friendly government by force thusly cementing a US presence in hydrocarbon central or to vanquish a threatening regime it makes no difference. What makes a difference is that the amount of time available to plan a successful liberation was in no way constrained.
Who has gotten rid of Saddam? No one has gotten rid of Saddam.
As conventional wisdom begins to masticate a Tri-Part Iraq someone had better think through a couple of the moving parts and their all too likely consequences.
