Naturally, pointing out with precise references and thorough documentation that some White House contortionists are conflating authorized spying of foreigners with illegal domestic snooping is sure to elicit cries from the extreme right. When accuracy intrudes into their fantasy, the chorus of shrill voices from Wingerville rises to a deafening crescendo, like an auditorium full of drunken howler monkeys juiced on steroids.<>
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Let's pretend for a moment, with all the ideality of an exceptionally creative five-year old, that the NSA domestic spying program has not been misused or mismanaged. Imagine: Hundreds of government officials in darkened rooms quietly manning electronic gizmos and softly glowing plasma screens, watching, reading, recording... YOU. Sure, maybe from time to time they breathe heavy and their pulse quickens when they overhear you discuss the most intimate details of your personal love life with a trusted friend, or e-mail your significant other a racy pic. Perhaps they run across some hotties in particular who are always good for an eavesdropping thrill, deserving of a little 'extra' surveillance if you know what I mean. But by and large, let's say your juiciest, most embarrassing communiqués are not widely passed around the backrooms of Spy HQ for kicks, or used to create secret files to act as future blackmail material.
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And as long as we're spinning a yarn, lets go whole hog and say that the intel thus acquired is quickly and clearly brought to the attention of every double super-secret official that 'needs to know' ... with the singular exception being the double super-secret FISA Court the WH is lawfully required to notify and seek permission from. I know that's an awful lot of "if's" and "assume's". But this isn't reality; it's over the wingnut rainbow, so bear with me. That's where we need to be to ask the bush-base the obvious question:
Who thinks even with all that going for the powers that be, that we could confidently infer the White House gang would, from that point on, competently multitask and execute a coordinated interagency response so as to Protect Us From Danger?
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Bush & Co. were warned an attack was coming in a Presidential Daily Briefing with the (Apparently confusing and cryptic) title of "Bin Laden determined to strike in the US" a month in advance of 9-11. Condi clarified that with something along the lines that the PDB didn't really mean bin Laden is determined to strike in the US, only that bin Laden is determined to strike in the US. You can see there's a world of difference hinging on what the meaning of the word is is.
The White House and the Republican House and Senate were warned, extensively, that not strengthening the levees in New Orleans was a gamble, the solution they came to was to slash funding for the whole project. They were warned over and over that allowing the wetland buffers to disappear would make the impact of any storm worse, they happily ignored that and enacted policies that accelerated the process.
They were warned days ahead of time that Katrina was gonna be the 'big one' by pretty much anyone who knew anything. Including the senior NOAA storm meteorologists, who were sitting in the Miami Office watching Katrina on the screen issuing urgent bulletins full of terms like 'unprecedented strength', "catastrophic', and 'record storm surge', while telling the national media it was going to be worse than any storm in living memory.
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As the flood waters first ravaged the coast and then filled up New Orleans, the White House did nothing, they were all on vacation. Well, maybe they did something; Bush did do a little brush clearing and some guitar strumm'n. A vacationing Condi thought it would be a good time catch a Broadway Show and go shopping for new shoes. Michael Brown, head of FEMA, was bragging that he looked like a fashion God.
And of course, once again, after the fact, Bush and the whole crew showed up days late and a few tens of billions of dollars short. And of course, once again, he and his bumbling cronies du jour proceeded to appear in a series of hastily scheduled interviews and photo-ops in operation Cover Bush's Ass. Meanwhile, people stranded in apocalyptic disaster zones fought over rancid candy bars and soggy loaves of moldy bread; AKA "looting". The tragicomic highlights included Bush claiming 'No one could have anticipated' the disaster on national television and later assuring us that "Brownie was doing a heckuva a job", a few weeks before Brownie resigned under a black cloud of disgrace for utterly screwing up the job. Just this week we found out that several departments specifically warned the White House and predicted the city would be flooded before the storm hit:
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BushCo was warned the Medicare Drug Plan would be a fiscal nightmare, the warning went unheeded. The WH was warned by senior, seasoned, combat military officers that the plan to invade Iraq was deeply flawed, they ignored them, too. Now the US Army is nearing the breaking point. Although in the interests of balance I should mention the Pentagon says the Pentagon can't be trusted on that.
Record deficit predictions? Ignored. Terrorist attacks increasing over seas against US allies? Pooh-poohed with contempt. Iraq would be far more costly than the rosy estimates from the White House minions? Laughed at and dismissed.
And in case there's any doubt at all about how these clowns approach serious threats and looming disasters, what was the response from the GOP and their media mannequins when it turned out both Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri were alive, merrily making new tapes, mocking the US, bragging about attacks elsewhere, and promising us we're next on the list? A renewed focus on bin Laden? Stepped up terror alerts and exercises? Cracking some heads at the DHS to get their asses in gear fixing the documented shortcomings from the bipartisan committee that gave them a failing grade on a half-dozen critical tasks? Did they express the slightest concern that the years elapsed since 9-11 have exceeded the time it took the US to march from the destruction of Pearl Harbor to victory in Tokyo?
Nope. Their reaction was: Let's go get Howard Dean and Michael Moore! Attack the Democrats!
I understand cutting our leaders some slack and standing behind them in the months following 9-11. But seriously, at what point do we admit the only single, overriding, consistent White House characteristic for five years straight has been to ignore or discredit warning signs until it's too late, and then totally fucking up what's left beyond all recognition, while lying about it and hoping the trouble just goes away?
I'm curious, in a lab rat kind of way, about the behavior and internal mental processing of people who think it's just dandy to flush the Bill of Rights down the toilet, ignore the law, and turn over our precious liberties to any administration's arbitrary judgment. Most especially this White House given their record of failure piled on top of failure. Hoping they can protect us from anything, let alone nukes or nerve gas, is wishful thinking in the extreme, considering they couldn't protect the residents of the gulf coast from standing water. Forget about protection, I'd be happy if they just voluntarily told the goddamn truth once, without having to wait for it to leak out of someone's slimy ass months later, or be subpoenaed out of their zombie-like death grip after two years of legal maneuvering. In fact, strike even that modest hope; it would be a nice change of pace if Bush Inc. said nothing at all instead of blatantly lying from the get go.
Hope springs eternal, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for that one.
Vyan
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