After the Fall

The
sharks are circling. They smell blood in the hurricane-roiled political
waters of the pool of public opinion. Scooter
has been thrown under the bus, and Kapitain Karl is hanging by a thread.
The mainstream media is awash in stories counting the leaks
in the storm tossed Bush ship of state.

However, as usual, nobody is talking
about the real issue, which goes to the core of the course on which
the country
has been set by the current administration.

The bottom line is that the evidence that led the United
States into the war in Iraq was trumped up. Some of it was disproven
but not discarded, some was intentionally misinterpreted, some contrary
reports were ignored or discounted and some was manufactured whole.  And
evidence of this exists.

There were witnesses. The Republicans in Congress, who
promised an investigation into the "intelligence failures" leading up
to the war, are dragging their feet, because they know, or suspect, where
the trail leads. Cheney, Rove, Rice, Tenet and Wolfowitz, clearly. We
are even afraid that before this is over we will have to revise our prediction
of a New
Republicant ticket of John McCain and Colin Powell in 2006.
We now believe the ex-Sec of State is doomed to be sucked into the vortex
of blame for this tragic and historic misdirection of American foreign
policy.
When
he realized the enormity of what was going down, he bailed, but it was
too late, we fear. Another good man taken down by a nasty scandal not
of his making. There will be many good men falling on their swords before
this is over.

Because we are talking high crimes here and not misdemeanors.  The
pugnacious self-righteousness of special prosecutors has been historically
established and the present iteration is no exception. If there is a
single memo, notebook, email, or recording, kept by some paranoid official
trying to cover his (or her) ass, which proves that any of the aforementioned
officials knew or had reason to believe that a single piece of the evidence
presented to the US Congress, the United Nations and the American people
was untrue, unreliable, unrealistic in light of other known facts or in
any way less than what they presented it to be, they are screwed. Considering
what that evidence was used for, it may constitute treason. And we believe
that there are many, many such instances that will come out
now that the investigation is being broadened.

Make no mistake, it is broadening. This is why the Grand
Jury was extended.  The African Uranium report, and the efforts
to discredit its debunkers, were one instance in an extensive and coordinated
strategy to hoodwink the public, the Congress and the UN. As we all know,
one lie leads to another, in commission, and any experienced investigator
knows that it works that way in reverse as well.

The only reason Dubya didn’t make the list of fabricators
and prevaricators is our gut instinct that the rest of the guys don’t
don’t let him in on the heavier stuff, both for purposes of plausible
and convincing denial, and because they don’t trust him to keep his
mouth shut. George gets wacky once in a while, and is liable to say
just about anything.

But even if Dubya can convincingly plead ignorance and
isn’t impeached, imagining him in charge without the grownups around
borders on the macabre.

Will he panic and try to dismiss the investigators,
a la Nixon, as a seemingly minor infraction (the break-in or teh leak) starts unraveling
a web of deceit and malfeasance? Will a secondary figure trying to save
his career (or his life) reveal a smoking gun, a la John Dean? If this
case did not involve the gravest betrayal of public trust, the deaths
of thousands of precious young people and innocent civilians, and a mortal threat to the country
we all love (as opposed to the country we currently live in), it would
be an entertaining unraveling.  As it is, we can only pray that
the country can somehow avoid the abyss that yawns ahead.  Stay
tuned……