Bush/Cheney and the 9-11 Warren Report, er Commission

It seemed for a while that the 9-11 commission, while a little watered down, might at least share some things in common with what is usually considered an "investigation." The commission stood strong on getting Condi (Alfred E. Newman's Sister- What her worry?) to say something (even if they were lies) to the public. But the commission's overall cave-in (by not having her speak under oath and letting her set the amount of time she would publicly testify) emboldened (Bush word) Shrub and Voldemort (Cheney). They are going to testify tomorrow. But there will be no video. No audio. No transcripts. No notes. Oh yeah, they won't be under oath, and they refused to speak at all unless they got to come as a team.

So, the long and the short of it?
Bush is so stupid, he can't speak alone, not under oath, with absolutely no way for anyone to prove what he said. How is this possible? How can this guy be called "President?" How do his Secret Service guys keep from laughing?

And real quick on the Kerry Military record controversy. I'm not a big fan of the guy, I'm really not. But how is it the man can be criticized by the Shrub White House when Bush was, at the exact same time, sitting in Texas sniffing coke and not showing up for his own "richguy" version of service to his country. I only served in Americorps and what I did was more important than Bush's "protection" of Texas airspace from the Viet Cong. Yet the military supports Bush. Life's full of mysteries, I gotta tell you.

Controlling the Debate

I just want to point a brilliant Orwellian maneuver by Rove and the White House in reference to the "coffin picture" issue. They're evil bastards, but they're really good at what they do.

You notice, in the current debate over whether or not showing pictures of coffins during a war is "disrespectful," a huge question is being completely ignored.
We don't ever see actual dead people. Us or them.
Don't you think if they were showing what was really happening over there; the death, the carnage, the intestines all smeared around, don't you think people would be more than a tad less aloof about the war and about keeping out troops in Iraq?
By making the debate about whether or not we can see coffins on TV we completely go around the issue. People on both sides yell back and forth at one another and we have the appearance of a debate. It's not. It's a distraction just as much as the stupid OJ Simpson... er, Michael Jackson case.
The idea that showing an anonymous coffin on TV is disrespectful to a family is ludicrous at best- it's a coffin. The debate should be about the actual people we (in my opinion) SHOULD be seeing everyday on the news. We should see our soldiers and the Iraqi dead alike.
700+ of our soldiers dead and not a single image of what that really means. These are really dead people. They're not video game figures or extras in a movie. It really pisses me off that people who say they "support the troops" are the same people who think we should censor all of the ickiness of war and focus on the bravado and bullshit that goes along with every imperial enterprise since Rome. War is blood and nastiness and terrible atrocities by its very nature; pretending this isn't the case isn't just disingenuous. It's morally repugnant. The people that do it have a special place in Hell waiting for them. (Or I would think so if I believed in Hell.)
So every time you hear people ranting back and forth at one another about the coffins, don't fall for the mirage. Your watching a magician waving his hands around while the assistant sneaks out of the box. The dead are far too important for us to fall for the smoke and mirrors.
Wait for the battle of Fallujah. There's going to be a bunch of coffins on both sides. It's going to be terrible. And we won't see it. We should. Our taxes are paying for the blood.