Εκτός αν κάνει σημασιολογική ανάλυση και ταιριάζει τον κομπογιαννιτισμό, το κουτόχορτο και την εθνική ανάταση.

Λείπει κι ο omadeon να βοηθήσει…

Das Bozner Berufungsschwurgericht hat am Freitag das Urteil gegen die zwei Rechtsextremen Skinheads bestätigt. Die zwei Angeklagten Antonio Pasquali (24) aus Catania und Riccardo Masia (25) aus Cagliari wurden wegen Mordes zu je zwölf Jahren Haft und zur einer Zahlung von je 150.000 € verurteilt, beide waren beim Gericht abwechsend. Masia und Pasquali hatten nach Zeugenaussage am Abend des 29. November 2002 im Bozner Lokal “Sauguat” den 26 Jährigen Fabio Tomaselli wild verprügelt. Tomaselli ist in der selben Nacht verstorben. Die Verteidigung versuchte den Tod Tomaselli als einen Unfall darzustellen, da Tomaselli scheinbar an einer Herzkrankheit gelitten hätte und beschuldigten die Rettungskräfte, dass die Fehler bei der Reanimation gemacht hätten. Der Richter Manfred Klammer liess sich nicht überzeugen, dass es ein Unfall gewesen wäre und fällte das urteil zugunste der Ankläger.

Quellen:

• Dolomiten Nr. 81, Samstag, 5./6. April 2008, S.21
• Corriere dell’Alto Adige N. 82, Sabato 5 aprile 2008, pagina 7
• http://www.stol.it/nachrichten/artikel.asp?ArtID=112808&p=4&KatID=da&SID=903426581195197992

Kundgebung gegen rechtsextreme Gewalt

Samstag, 23. Februar 2008, 15 Uhr, Bahnhof, Meran.

Mehr Infos: Antifa Meran

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8SI15C80&show_article=1

“WASHINGTON (AP) – The homeland security chief on Saturday tore into his own employees for staging a phony news conference at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “I think it was one of the dumbest and most inappropriate things I’ve seen since I’ve been in government,” Michael Chertoff said.“I have made unambiguously clear, in Anglo-Saxon prose, that it is not to ever happen again and there will be appropriate disciplinary action taken against those people who exhibited what I regard as extraordinarily poor judgment,” he added.”

Anglo-Saxon prose, eh? Fuck you Chertoff, you shitbag fuckwit goddamn Bush administration mouthpiece and douchebag. How’s that for unambiguously clear, Anglo-Saxon prose?

It doesn’t strike me as the dumbest and most inappropriate thing I’ve ever seen in government. After all, there’s:

• - the actual FEMA and Homeland Security response to Hurricane Katrina
• - the invasion of Iraq (and yes, it was an invasion)
• - George W. Bush in general
• - damn near anything Dick Cheney does on a daily basis, whether or not it’s classified.
• - all those canned news spots issued by a private PR firm under a contract by the federal government on the Medicare drug benefit plan – the one with the fake reporter.

It just goes to show the real point Orwell made in 1984: totalianism in the future is the result of basically stupid, ignorant, know-nothing people that we allow to ooze into positions of responsibility.

By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer Sat Sep 22, 1:59 PM ET

WASHINGTON – President Bush again called Democrats “irresponsible” on Saturday for pushing an expansion he opposes to a children’s health insurance program.

“Democrats in Congress have decided to pass a bill they know will be vetoed,” Bush said of the measure that draws significant bipartisan support, repeating in his weekly radio address an accusation he made earlier in the week. “Members of Congress are risking health coverage for poor children purely to make a political point.”

In the Democrat’s response, also broadcast Saturday, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell turned the tables on the president, saying that if Bush doesn’t sign the bill, 15 states will have no funding left for the program by the end of the month . . . . more

George W. Bush is the ultimate enemy of the Republic. He’s completely fucking ingorant of:

•  

  • economics

  • political theory and thought

  • the reality of governing

  • the Constitution

  • ethics

  • history

  • military power

  • geography (and I don’t mean just finding places on a map)

  • logic

  • rationality

  • philosophy

  • compassion

  • public administration

  • and every damn thing that has made this country great despite its mistakes, missteps and disastrous policy decisions.

George W. Bush has shown time and time again that he only idolizes bumper-sticker and ultra-conservative Christian visions of America. While I don’t think he has the mental capacity to actually commit the sorts of actions Hitler did against humanity, I do know he’s stupid enough to be steered into policies and actions that victimize Americans who don’t go along with the visions and policy formulations of a nasty, venal and neo-fascist segment of the Republican party.

Bush brags about reading history and learning lessons. The bastard reads history the way kids in my elementary school classes read Weekly Reader Book Club books to get stars next to their names on some chart posted on the classroom wall. I seriously doubt that many of those kids comprehended much more than the concept that page 2 followed page 1 and that the hard , thick page at the end of the book was the back cover.

And to base a policy decision on a basic human need on the idea that the service should be privatized? Wellllllll, I think that Bush should then repay every American every damn cent associated  with the removal of every polyp, mole and other biological anomaly from his body.

Or give every American child the chance to use the joystick when he goes in for a colonoscopy.

And if the Daughters of the American Revolution, the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars are so damn hell-bent on advocating the glory and defense of America, maybe they could start by advocating the common good of our and of our most vital resource – our children.

But, hey, you take what you can get.

So, without further ado,  the annotated news guide to Alberto “Heirich Himmler” Gonzales (and a not-very-smart Himmler wannabe at that) . . . .

By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer 7 minutes ago

WASHINGTON – Alberto Gonzales, the nation’s first Hispanic attorney general (and a much bigger-haired version of Heinrich Himmler, Harry Daugherty and John Mitchell), announced his resignation Monday, driven from office after a wrenching standoff with congressional critics over his honesty and competence (there was no standoff over his honesty and competence – everyone knew that he was a dissembling, unethical, gutless mouthpiece with an anus big enough to have Karl Rove’s and Dick Cheney’s hands inserted to operate his eyes, head and mouth).

Republicans and Democrats alike had demanded his departure over the botched handling of FBI terror investigations and the firings of U.S. attorneys, but President Bush had defiantly stood by his Texas friend (and clinically-defined toady) for months until accepting his resignation last Friday.

“After months of unfair (unfair, in that he was allowed to survive and occupy U.S. government office space and vehicles) treatment that has created a harmful distraction at the Justice Department, Judge (Dredd? Roy Bean? Reinhold?) Gonzales decided to resign his position and I accept his decision,” Bush said from Texas, where he is vacationing (let’s be realistic: where he’s hiding from the corrosive approbium so deservedly earned for being the numbnut in charge of one of the worst administrations since that of Warren G. Harding).

Solicitor General Paul Clement will be acting attorney general until a replacement is found and confirmed by the Senate, Bush said.

Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff (heck of a job Mikie, planting the suggestion that a former hack U.S. attorney and homeland security kind of guy would be great as our nation’s chief prosecutor – didn’t Reinhard Heydrich come within a hair of pulling off a similar stunt?)  was among those mentioned as possible successors, though a senior administration official said the matter had not been raised with Chertoff (you may now re-enact the scene where the Delta House boys attending the disciplinary hearing in ‘Animal House’ loudly cough “bulls**t” into their hands). Bush leaves Washington next Monday for Australia (hoping obsessively that Paul Hogan will accept the appointment so he can train TSA guards and inspectors for airport security by drawing his weapon and proclaiming, “Now THAT’s a knife”), and Gonzales’ replacement might not be named by then, the official said.

“It has been one of my greatest privileges to lead the Department of Justice,” Gonzales said, announcing his resignation effective Sept. 17 in a terse (and semi-literate) statement. He took no questions and gave no reason for stepping down (surprising, since his ability to chew gum and walk at the same time are questionable; why should he be able to not do two things at once as well?).

Bush said the attorney general’s “good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons.” (The reasons were actually for sound hygienic and public relations reasons – they had to do something to improve his name) Though some Republicans echoed the president’s veiled slap at Democrats, Gonzales had few defenders left in Washington (Whom might those defenders be? I never saw his family or dog appear with him in public).

Many Republicans actually welcomed his departure, some quietly and others publicly so.

Congressional aides and lawmakers agreed that any nomination of a new attorney general was almost certain to be acrimonious (Even Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle might have found the one natural event in which sheer hatred could be observed and measured simultaneously). The easiest prospects, some said, might be a current or former colleague of senators charged with the confirmation (as opposed to facing charges related to the entire U.S. attorney politicization scandal). Sen. Arlen Specter, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, told reporters Monday that he would not accept the job, if offered.

But, he said, another current or former senator “might be just the ticket.” (Don’t celebrate yet – Dick Cheney is president pro tempore of the Senate)

“If you have a former senator or a present senator or somebody who is well known to the Senate or the committee…that’s always a big help if you know the person,” Specter told reporters in a telephone call as he traveled from Warsaw to Paris.

Asked, too, about whether Chertoff might be a good candidate, Specter replied:

“I think he’s a first-rate prospect.” (For summary execution? Or just to head up a cleanup detail in New Orleans?)

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards applauded Gonzales’ resignation, saying it was “better late than never.”

The announcement came as a surprise to many in the administration. Gonzales was tight-lipped about his thinking before going on vacation more than a week ago and aides were planning events for the next several months. (Idiots and criminals also can be tight-lipped when faced with legal problems or choices beyond “fruit cup or pudding cup?”)

After spending time with his family in Texas, however, and facing the prospect of returning to Washington for months of continued fights with Congress, he called the president on Friday. (So family members didn’t come out in defense of him?)

The White House has asked anyone staying past Labor Day to stay the remainder of the president’s term. (Navy stewards and communications specialists at the White House and Camp David weren’t asked – they just got stop-loss orders . . . .)

Gonzales, formerly Bush’s White House counsel, served more than two years at the Justice Department. In announcing his decision, Gonzales reflected on his up-from-the-bootstraps life story; he’s the son of migrant farm workers from Mexico who didn’t finish elementary school (and they’re all probably ashamed that he ended up like Shrub).

“Even my worst days as attorney general have been better than my father’s best days,” Gonzales said (Doubtful – his father probably had ethics, self-worth and respect from his community).

Bush steadfastly — and at times angrily — refused to give in to critics, even from his own GOP, who argued that Gonzales should go.

Earlier this month at a news conference, the president grew irritated when asked about accountability (rightfully so – no one should ask him to comment on something that isn’t there) in his administration and turned the tables on the Democratic Congress.

“Implicit in your questions is that Al Gonzales did something wrong (Actually, it’s been fairly explicit in most questions from the press and Congress). I haven’t seen Congress say he’s done anything wrong,” Bush said testily at the time. Actually, many in Congress had accused Gonzales of wrongdoing.

After the 52-year-old Gonzales called Bush Friday, the president had him come to lunch at his ranch on Sunday as a parting gesture, a senior administration official (read: consigliere) said.

Gonzales, whom Bush once considered for appointment to the Supreme Court (along with Harriet Miers, which speaks volumes of Shrub’s worldliness in such matters), is the fourth top-ranking administration official to leave since November 2006, following Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, who had a high-ranking Pentagon job before going to the World Bank as its president (and laughingstock), and top political and policy adviser Karl Rove (insert spooky organ music and dry-ice fog here).

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. (wonder if there’s a Ben and Jerry’s flavor in this for him?), reacted to the announcement by saying the Justice Department under Gonzales had “suffered a severe crisis of leadership that allowed our justice system to be corrupted by political influence.” (True, but he needs to be a little more specific as to which administration – Ed Meese and John Mitchell were pretty strong contenders too . . .) 

As attorney general and earlier as White House counsel, Gonzales pushed for expanded presidential powers, including the eavesdropping authority (and lebensraum). He drafted controversial rules for military war tribunals and sought to limit the legal rights of detainees at Guantanamo Bay — prompting lawsuits by civil libertarians who said the government was violating the Constitution in its pursuit of terrorists.

“Alberto Gonzales was never the right man for this job. He lacked independence, he lacked judgment, and he lacked the spine to say no to Karl Rove,” (All reasons why Shrub shouldn’t have been elected either, but that’s neither here nor there . . .) said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

In a warning to the White House, Reid suggested that investigations into the Justice Department will not end until Congress gets “to the bottom of this mess.” (Now, how do you put the ’8′ on its side again?)

One matter still under investigation is the 2006 dismissal of several federal prosecutors, who serve at the president’s pleasure (Somehow, it’s pretty well established that someone else’s pleasure took priority over Shrub’s). Lawmakers said the action appeared to be politically motivated, and some of the fired U.S. attorneys said they felt pressured to investigate Democrats before elections.

Gonzales maintained that the dismissals were based the prosecutors’ lackluster performance records (Re. ‘the pot calling the kettle black . . . .’).

In April, Gonzales answered “I don’t know” and “I can’t recall” scores of times while questioned by Congress about the firings. Even some Republicans said his testimony was evasive (in the most charitable terms possible).

Not Bush. The president praised Gonzales’ performance and said the attorney general was “honest” and “honorable.” (Tip: when hyperventilating from extreme laughter, breathe several times into a brown paper bag. This has the added benefit of containing stomach contents when one realizes just how repugnant that Bush’s words of praise were.) 

In 2004, Gonzales pressed to reauthorize a secret domestic spying program over the Justice Department’s protests. Gonzales was White House counsel at the time and during a dramatic hospital confrontation he and then-White House chief of staff Andrew Card sought approval from then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was in intensive care recovering from surgery. Ashcroft refused (despite Gonazles’s threats to blow an air bubble into Ashcroft’s IV line and Card’s repeated blipping of the switch on the life-support monitors).

Similarly, Gonzales found himself on the defensive (this is media bias – Gonzales was ALWAYS on the defensive) as recently as March because of the FBI‘s improper and, in some cases, illegal prying into Americans’ personal information during terror and spy probes.

___

AP White House Correspondent Terence Hunt and Associated Press reporters Jennifer Loven and Lara Jakes Jordan contributed to this story.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/gonzales_resigns

Statement by the President On Executive Clemency for Lewis Libby

The United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit today rejected Lewis Libby’s request to remain free on bail while pursuing his appeals for the serious convictions of perjury and obstruction of justice. As a result, Mr. Libby will be required to turn himself over to the Bureau of Prisons to begin serving his prison sentence.

I have said throughout this process that it would not be appropriate to comment or intervene in this case until Mr. Libby’s appeals have been exhausted. But with the denial of bail being upheld and incarceration imminent, I believe it is now important to react to that decision.

From the very beginning of the investigation into the leaking of Valerie Plame’s name, I made it clear to the White House staff and anyone serving in my administration that I expected full cooperation with the Justice Department. Dozens of White House staff and administration officials dutifully cooperated.

After the investigation was under way, the Justice Department appointed United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald as a Special Counsel in charge of the case. Mr. Fitzgerald is a highly qualified, professional prosecutor who carried out his responsibilities as charged.

This case has generated significant commentary and debate. Critics of the investigation have argued that a special counsel should not have been appointed, nor should the investigation have been pursued after the Justice Department learned who leaked Ms. Plame’s name to columnist Robert Novak. Furthermore, the critics point out that neither Mr. Libby nor anyone else has been charged with violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act or the Espionage Act, which were the original subjects of the investigation. Finally, critics say the punishment does not fit the crime: Mr. Libby was a first-time offender with years of exceptional public service and was handed a harsh sentence based in part on allegations never presented to the jury.

Others point out that a jury of citizens weighed all the evidence and listened to all the testimony and found Mr. Libby guilty of perjury and obstructing justice. They argue, correctly, that our entire system of justice relies on people telling the truth. And if a person does not tell the truth, particularly if he serves in government and holds the public trust, he must be held accountable. They say that had Mr. Libby only told the truth, he would have never been indicted in the first place.

Both critics and defenders of this investigation have made important points. I have made my own evaluation. In preparing for the decision I am announcing today, I have carefully weighed these arguments and the circumstances surrounding this case.

Mr. Libby was sentenced to thirty months of prison, two years of probation, and a $250,000 fine. In making the sentencing decision, the district court rejected the advice of the probation office, which recommended a lesser sentence and the consideration of factors that could have led to a sentence of home confinement or probation.

I respect the jury’s verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.

My decision to commute his prison sentence leaves in place a harsh punishment for Mr. Libby. The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged. His wife and young children have also suffered immensely. He will remain on probation. The significant fines imposed by the judge will remain in effect. The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant, and private citizen will be long-lasting.

The Constitution gives the President the power of clemency to be used when he deems it to be warranted. It is my judgment that a commutation of the prison term in Mr. Libby’s case is an appropriate exercise of this power.

from the White House  

Why Winston Wouldn’t Stand For W
George W. Bush always wanted to be like a wartime British prime ministers. He is. But it’s not the one he had in mind.

By Lynne Olson
Sunday, July 1, 2007; B01

President Bush‘s favorite role model is, famously, Jesus, but Winston Churchill is close behind. The president admires the wartime British prime minister so much that he keeps what he calls “a stern-looking bust” of Churchill in the Oval Office. “He watches my every move,” Bush jokes. These days, Churchill would probably not care for much of what he sees . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/29/AR2007062902304_pf.html

http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/va/20070625/118279999700.html

I know deep down what happened before I read it because it’s typical institutional behavior, but it still disgusts and revolts me to hear it.

The General’s Report

How Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal, became one of its casualties.

by Seymour M. Hersh

“Here . . . comes . . . that famous General Taguba—of the Taguba report!” Rumsfeld declared, in a mocking voice. The meeting was attended by Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld’s deputy; Stephen Cambone, the Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence; General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (J.C.S.); and General Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, along with Craddock and other officials. Taguba, describing the moment nearly three years later, said, sadly, “I thought they wanted to know. I assumed they wanted to know. I was ignorant of the setting.”

more . . . .

“White House officials said Mr. Bush welcomed the observations of the lawmakers. “The president encouraged the members to give unvarnished opinions and views,” said Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman.”

Yeah, right before Rove ordered them all hung by piano-wire nooses attached to meathooks in the Reich Chancellery courtyard . . . . .

It’s nice to see the Republican party is developing some backbone, albeit the rather flexible, form-fitting, opportunistic spine found in eels. And the core to their newly-found candor with President von Hindenbu . . . er, Bush? “We’re gonna get voted out of office if you don’t do something!”

Screw ‘em. Just don’t screw our troops by leaving them in the middle of a modern re-enactment of ‘Quit India” or, even worse, ‘Chinese’ Gordon’s Khartoum nightmare.

 (From artofmarkbryan.com via kchristieh’s blog)

And, after seeing this little piece of tomfoolery (see link below) from the radio and television press dinner Wednesday night, if I ever see NBC’s David Gregory in person I will spit in his face.

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=2622366n

Heck, even share it with your elected Congressional representatives along with a reminder that those fuckwits have enabled things to get to this point.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2007/03/23/rove/print.html

Mar. 23, 2007 | Confronted with subpoenas from Congress demanding the sworn testimony of Karl Rove on the matter of the eight fired U.S. attorneys, those guileless guys in the Bush White House sound puzzled. Both press secretary Tony Snow and communications director Dan Bartlett say they cannot understand why the House and Senate Judiciary Committees won’t accept the offer to interview Rove in private, behind closed doors, without putting him under oath or transcribing the proceedings.If the Congress is honestly interested in the truth about those firings, as Snow exclaimed yesterday under questioning from reporters, why wouldn’t the committees agree to that “extraordinarily generous” proposal from the White House? Why not just let ol’ Karl sit down in a back room with a few senators and members of Congress and explain everything, without stenographers and reporters and videotapes and nosy rubbernecking citizens?

 Editorial

Politics, Pure and Cynical

Published: March 14, 2007

We wish we’d been surprised to learn that the White House was deeply involved in the politically motivated firing of eight United States attorneys, but the news had the unmistakable whiff of inevitability. This disaster is just part of the Bush administration’s sordid history of waving the bloody bullhorn of 9/11 for the basest of motives: the perpetuation of power for power’s sake.

Time and again, President Bush and his team have assured Americans that they needed new powers to prevent another attack by an implacable enemy. Time and again, Americans have discovered that these powers were not being used to make them safer, but in the service of Vice President Dick Cheney’s vision of a presidency so powerful that Congress and the courts are irrelevant, or Karl Rove’s fantasy of a permanent Republican majority.

In firing the prosecutors and replacing them without Senate approval, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales took advantage of a little-noticed provision that the administration and its Republican enablers in Congress had slipped into the 2006 expansion of the Patriot Act. The ostensible purpose was to allow the swift interim replacement of a United States attorney who was, for instance, killed by terrorism.

But these firings had nothing to do with national security — or officials’ claims that the attorneys were fired for poor performance. This looks like a political purge, pure and simple, and President Bush and his White House are in the thick of it.

Earlier, the White House insisted that it had approved the list of fired United States attorneys after it was compiled. Now it admits that White House officials helped prepare it. Harriet Miers, the White House counsel whom Mr. Bush tried to elevate to the Supreme Court, originally wanted to replace all 93 attorneys with Republican appointees.

The White House still says Mr. Bush was not involved in the firings, but newly released documents show that he personally fielded a senator’s political complaint about David Iglesias, who was fired as United States attorney in New Mexico. The papers suggest that the United States attorney in Arkansas was fired just to put a Rove protégé in his place, and a plan was mapped out by administration officials to “run out the clock” if lawmakers objected.

Among the documents is e-mail sent to Ms. Miers by Kyle Sampson, Mr. Gonzales’s chief of staff, ranking United States attorneys on factors like “exhibited loyalty.” Small wonder, then that United States Attorney Carol Lam of San Diego was fired. She had put one Republican congressman, Duke Cunningham, in jail and had opened an inquiry that put others at risk, along with party donors.

More disturbing details have come out about Mr. Iglesias’s firing. We knew he was ousted six weeks after Senator Pete Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, made a wildly inappropriate phone call in which he asked if Mr. Iglesias intended to indict Democrats before last November’s election in a high-profile corruption scandal. We now know that Mr. Domenici took his complaints to Mr. Bush.

After Mr. Iglesias was fired, the deputy White House counsel, William Kelley, wrote in an e-mail note that Mr. Domenici’s chief of staff was “happy as a clam.” Another e-mail note, from Mr. Sampson, said Mr. Domenici was “not even waiting for Iglesias’s body to cool” before getting his list of preferred replacements to the White House.

Given what’s in those documents, it was astonishing to hear Mr. Gonzales continue to insist yesterday that he had no personal knowledge of discussions involving the individual attorneys. Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, was right on the mark when he said that if Mr. Gonzales didn’t know what Mr. Sampson was doing, “he doesn’t have the foggiest idea of what’s going on” at his department. Fortunately, last year’s election left Democrats like Mr. Schumer in the majority, with subpoena power. Otherwise, this and so many other scandals might never have come to light.

Mr. Gonzales, who has shown why he was such an awful choice for this job in the first place, should be called under oath to resolve the contradictions and inconsistencies in his story. Mr. Gonzales is willing to peddle almost any nonsense to the public (witness his astonishingly maladroit use of the Nixonian “mistakes were made” dodge yesterday). But lying to Congress under oath is another matter.

The Justice Department has been saying that it is committed to putting Senate-confirmed United States attorneys in every jurisdiction. But the newly released documents make it clear that the department was making an end run around the Senate — for baldly political reasons. Congress should broaden the investigation to determine whether any other prosecutors were forced out for not caving in to political pressure — or kept on because they did.

There was, for example, the decision by United States Attorney Chris Christie of New Jersey to open an investigation of Senator Bob Menendez just before his hotly contested re-election last November. Republicans, who would have held the Senate if Mr. Menendez had lost, used the news for attack ads. Then there was the career United States attorney in Guam who was removed by Mr. Bush in 2002 after he started investigating the superlobbyist Jack Abramoff. The prosecutor was replaced. The investigation was dropped.

In mid-December 2006, Mr. Gonzales’s aide, Mr. Sampson, wrote to a White House counterpart that using the Patriot Act to fire the Arkansas prosecutor and replace him with Mr. Rove’s man was risky — Congress could revoke the authority. But, he wrote, “if we don’t ever exercise it, then what’s the point of having it?”

If that sounds cynical, it is. It is also an accurate summary of the governing philosophy of this administration: What’s the point of having power if you don’t use it to get more power?

And while going through that routine, my only contact with the outside world has been NPR on the drive home, some Internet news sites and then some of the regional political blogs I monitor.

Even so, I believe with all my heart that the problem with our current leadership – and I mean the National Command Authority especially – is that they have lost sight of the most basic element of loyalty in this society. When our federal elected officials, military officers, judges and other officials take their oaths of office, they swear to uphold the Constitution.

Not the flag, not Christianity, not the President.

The Constitution.

All this talk of defending the flag, the Judeo-Christian way of life, family values and God-fearing society is horsecrap.

The one thing in this society that even makes the existence of those things – or the pretense of those things – possible is the existence of the Constitution of the United States.

I think that the last six years especially show that our federal executive and legislative branches have paid the lowest form of lip service to the Constitution.

So-called patriots can talk their game about defending the sanctity of the American flag. The flag means nothing if the Constitution behind it is subverted and abused.

Personally, I don’t think the occupants of the White House and the Naval Observatory would recognize the Constitution if someone rolled up a copy of it and smacked them across the nose for fouling the carpeting.

Long live the Constitution and the United States, and lifelong dishonor to those scumbags who would trod upon it under the pretense of patriotism.

Scooter Libby has implicated George W. Bush in authorizing a leak of classified information.

Not a release of declassified information. Classified information. Leaked by an administration staffer after collusion by the President and the Vice President.

Wasn’t it enough for any rational person when Bush admitted publicly that he violated federal law by ordering domestic wiretaps and electronic surveillance without even going through established and somewhat fast and loose foreign intelligence surveillance courts?

Lest any conservatives out there say that I’m just picking on Bush because he’s a Republican, stow that crap right now.

At least Nixon, as fundamentally scummy as Bush is, had some talent for foreign policy.

And please, don’t come back with the line that Bush is a wartime leader. The only thing worse than imperialism is imperialism by amateurs.