The Times Between the Lines

I sit down to a cup of coffee and today's NY Times. What's new?

Well, it seems the new democratic government of Iraq has been torturing people. Of course, with George "we don't torture" Bush as president, we aren't really ones to throw stones—even at adulterers. But, once the US admitted that its intelligence (read "propaganda") was inaccurate (read "fraudulent"), the justification (read "desperate attempt to deflect disgust and anger, if not criminal charges") for the catastrophe of murder and suffering unleashed on the Iraqi people was that we had rid the world of a vicious, torturing dictator (read "disobedient former client"). Imagine that. Now we find that liberated Iraq tortures, too. What a shocker. (read "not").

And then at the bottom of the page -- another shocker -- the man Bush nominated to head the Department of Homeland Security (read Department of Fear Mongering, Cronyism, and Incompetence), Bernie Kerik, is charged with something more serious than having an illegal nanny: taking hundreds of thousands in kickbacks and bribes as head of NY Dept of Corrections. Imagine, if Bush had had his way, this man would have been Brownie's boss for Katrina! Bernie and Brownie. What a team that would have been. Hard to imagine anything worse than Brownie and Mike "The Grim Reaper" Chertoff, but if nothing else, the Bush Regime regularly surpasses the imagination.

And what is Bernie doing now? He's a "consultant" to the government of Jordan. What? The Jordanians, traumatized by the recent spread of Iraqi violence to their country, must be greatly comforted to know another Bush freedom fighter is on the scene.