IRAQ: Five years later. The quote of the day

Five years after the start of the war in Iraq here is the quote of the day:
After a reporter cited polls showing that two-thirds of Americans oppose the Iraq war, Cheney responded: "So?" -Washington Post

The View from Washington

During my extended stay in Washington I decided to head over to the National Gallery of Art on Thursday to see the Edward Hopper exhibit. As I crossed Pennsylvania Ave. I noticed there was virtually no cars on the street even though it was midday. So I took this shot of the Capitol. I soon found out why there were no cars.

It seems Bush, Cheney or both were off to somewhere and that's why the streets were empty of cars. Because I was taking this picture I could not give the proper salute that I really wanted to give.

The audacity of amnesia

Vice President Dick Cheney was asked last night if it was he who sent George Bush's legal waterboy Alberto Gonzales to the bedside of gravely ill Attorney General John Ashcroft. Cheney responded with a I don't recall.
Meanwhile Cheney's interference on a water issue in Oregon and California was never looked at because investigators never asked the question of an Interior Department official. It seems questions and answers are in short supply in Washington these days as is the water out west.

Bush colonoscopy and torture

CAMP DAVID, Md. -- Doctors removed five small growths from President Bush's colon Saturday after he temporarily transferred the powers of his office to Vice President Dick Cheney under the rarely invoked 25th Amendment.-Associated Press

Well, I guess the good news is that doctors found something other than his head up there. And I guess it's good Cheney resisted attacking Iran during his Presidency today.
Meanwhile in intelligence news:

President Bush set broad legal boundaries for the CIA's harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects yesterday, allowing the intelligence agency to resume a program that was suspended last year after criticism that it violated U.S. and international law- Washington Post

It seems that those currently conducting or condoning these interrogation techniques have forgotten the results of the British who used many of the same techniques on Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland in the early 1970's that we are using in detention centers on Iraqi and Afghanistan detainees. As one Irish IRA member said when the British started to use torture it helped increase the number of recruits for the IRA tremendously.

Is there anybody....

Vice President Cheney's office has refused to comply with an executive order governing the handling of classified information for the past four years and recently tried to abolish the office that sought to enforce those rules, according to documents released by a congressional committee yesterday.-Washington Post

Is there anybody in Washington who will go into Cheney's office and have a little talk with him before he does anymore damage to our democracy. I have not heard of this kind of deranged behavior by someone in the Executive branch since John McLaughlin supposedly chained himself to his desk during the Nixon administration.

The White House of sand and fog.

We can only hope that the those who work in the White House and for the Bush administration begin to realize that there are consequences to lying as Scooter Libby has found out. Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was spot on in calling what Libby did a "corrupt endeavor". It is ironic that the guilty verdicts for Scooter Fibby came down on March 6 2007. Four years earlier on March 6 2003 President Bush held his last press conference before the U.S. went to war in Iraq. At the press conference Bush said:

"We care about the suffering of the Iraqi people. I mentioned in my opening comments that there's a lot of food ready to go in. There's something like 55,000 oil-for-food distribution points in Iraq. We know where they are. We fully intend to make sure that they're -- got ample food. We know where their hospitals are; we want to make sure they've got ample medical supplies. The life of the Iraqi citizen is going to dramatically improve. "

-President Bush March 6, 2003

The Scooter Libby trail was not about Joe Wilson's wife, it was about an administration that was

obsessed about making the case for going to war in Iraq and destroying anyone who attempted to cast any doubt on their credibility or question their "facts". It was a PR program of sand and fog to push this country into war. In the end President Bush, Vice President Cheney and the Neocons got their war in Iraq. The life of Iraqi citizens did not dramatically improve and yesterday 10 U.S. soldiers died in Iraq. Yes, there are consequences to lying.

SOME BCP AWARDS FOR 2006

Well as 2006 comes to an end I thought it might be a good time to hand out some year end awards.

BEST EXAMPLE OF A POLITICAN SHOOTING HIMSELF IN THE FOOT:

NEW MEXICO GOVERNOR BILL RICHARDSON

BEST EXAMPLE OF A POLITICIAN SHOOTING SOMEONE ELSE IN THE FACE:

DICK CHENEY

BEST LETTER TO THE EDITOR:

TO THE WASHINGTON POST

WORST REPORTING BY A NEWSPAPER:

NEWSDAY

SMELLIEST DEAL MADE BY AN INSTITUTION THAT RECEIVES PUBLIC FUNDS:

SMITHSONIAN

These are just a few of the items that aroused my attention in 2006. There were MANY more but, tonight it is time to celebrate the New Year arriving and to paraphrase Dorothy Parker see what fresh hell the new year brings. Happy New Year Everyone!