Downrounding Outrage

Report Says Nonprofits Sold Influence to Abramoff - washingtonpost.com

Every time one scandal seems ready to completely destroy the Republicans, another one pops up to take away the media's attention. With Foley simply killing Republicans, we get more Abramoff scandal news.

In terms of outrage, Abramoff doesn't compare to Foley. "So," some may say, "they wrote some articles for Abramoff's clients. Who cares? Isn't that just PR 101?" And all of the sudden, Republicans are off the hook in terms of thinking about Foley on the top of pages--literally and figuratively.

It's an interesting strategy, and the only one Republicans seem to have available right now. Instead of doing something good and touting that, they are only in a position to do something a little less bad and try to get us to focus on that.

It just might work, I'm afraid.

Cheney'd

Cheney Back Delivering the Grim Campaign Speech - washingtonpost.com

With American military deaths and injuries in Iraq far exceeding the toll on 9/11, when are Americans going to realize we have indeed been "hit again" by the terrorists?

Maybe the reason we haven't been hit here is that they don't need such elaborate plans to kill us anymore. They just go to Iraq, get hooked up with some explosives or a gun and wait for Americans to drive by. It may not be the blockbuster of 9/11 as far as publicity goes, but it sure seems to get the job done. Terrorism has just been industrialized, commoditized. Like McDonald's: 100,000 terrorist attacks served.

Just a Comma

'Just a Comma' Becomes Part of Iraq Debate

There's one simple reason that it seems like Bush doesn't care: he doesn't care!

Bush loves blood. He feels he should cause his serfs shed it, as divine right provided to monarchs. Monarchs don't care about the average citizen. Only their own power. Why this isn't clear by now is hard to understand.

Is Clinton Off-Limits Now?

After Foley, New Fears For the GOP

Now that Republicans have an even bigger scandal with Foley, is Clinton permanently off the hook? The time to stop talking about how Bill Clinton screwed up the whole world with Monica has long since past, but Republicans still mention him whenever they need to deflect criticism from themselves.

"Haven't gotten bin Laden? Must be Clinton's fault!"

"Corruption in government? Let's just remember Clinton!"

"Americans dying in Iraq? Don't forget Clinton's penis!"

Now, every time Clinton's penis is interjected, we may very well be reminded of the "over-friendly" Foley and the Republicans' failure to do anything about it. Does that mean they all have to shift to finding another culprit?

This week has been the first time I've seen the Republicans truly on the defensive about everything. Iraq sucks, Condi wasn't paying attention to Tenet/Woodward's new book, the Clinton smack-down on Fox News, and now Foley?

The Ultimate Brush-Off

Rice doesn’t recall CIA terror warning

Rice's admission that she doesn't recall the Tenet warning about 9/11 strikes me as the ultimate brush-off. She was apparently so disengaged that she didn't even listen to what they were saying.

Now, we all have times when we're not listening, despite the fact that we're nodding and looking the speaker in the eye on occasion. However, when certain key words come up--something like "disastrous catastrophe with thousands of Americans killed"--we start paying attention again.

Perhaps if Tenet had said "disastrous political ramifications", Rice would have listened. Maybe she was doing some shoe shopping online.

Isn't this just more evidence that the major players were completely asleep at the wheel?