Gobbledy-gook

Gobbledy-gook - wordy and generally unintelligible jargon. Webster's.

I confess I was doubtful that such a word would actually be in the dictionary. My wife insisted it would. As usual she was right. I am very happy because what better word could one find to describe the Bush/Cheney/McClellan discourse on torture?

Bush says something like, we are fighting terrorists and we will do whatever is required to fight terrorists and whatever we do to to fight terrorists is within the law law and we do not torture. I guess he is unaware of the pictures from Abu Ghraib, the first-hand testimony of now quite a large number of witnesses, the existence of torture centers in Poland and Romania, and the existence of memos signed by Rumsfeld and himself that basically attempt to justify torture (torture by any other name is still torture). And of course there is the professional judgment of his Attorney General that torture is basically okay because the Geneva convention is "quaint." Then, of course, there is his threat to veto a massive defense budget if it includes a statement against torture (the only bill he has ever even threatened to veto). He will do this to support his vice-president, Dick the Slimy, who has actively been lobbying to exempt the CIA from any anti-torturing position such as the one sponsored by McCain and signed by 90 Senators. So, as we do not torture, we need the flexibility to do it if necessary except that we do not do it, in spite of clear evidence to the contrary. McClellan's attempt to deal with this cannot be said to have clarified the matter (indeed, McClellan has an uncany ability to convert any question whatsoever into marvelous gobbledy-gook. I guess it must be a gift). If this question about torture is not total gobbledy-gook I am a monkey's uncle. Actually I probably am a monkey's uncle in spite of what Kansas thinks about it.

Speaking of such things I hope you all noticed that all eight Republican members of the Pennsylvania school board who voted for intelligent design in science classes were defeated and replaced by Democrats who are not in favor of such nonsense. Perhaps there is justice after all, at least in Pennsylvania. I don't hold out much hope for Kansas.

Democrats did well yesterday. We captured the governerships of New Jersey and Virginia and all four of the Gropenfuehrer's pet initiatives went down to ignominous defeat. Bloomberg was re-elected Mayor of New York but mainly because Democrats voted for him (he was actually a Democrat and probably still is "in his heart" as they say). Republican spin wants you to believe this had nothing to do with Bush's dismal ratings but was just local politics. They never give up trying to put lipstick on their pigs.

It was apparently announced the other day that (l) the UN has agreed to extend the U.S. occupation of Iraq by another year and (2) the U.S. intends to keep 92,000 troops in Iraq at least until 2008. Does that make sense? Of course not, nothing this administration does make sense unless you realize that they have no intention of ever withdrawing from Iraq unless some day in the remote future Iraq runs out of oil. Even I, as stupid and out of the loop as I am, know this is true. Although it has been suggested several times they should announce plain and simply there is no U.S. intention to remain permanently in Iraq, have you ever heard them say so? Of course not. And you won't as long as Bush/Cheney and the neocons are in charge. The solution is really quite simple -- get rid of this cancer that infects our body politic and do it soon before it is too late.

The scandals of this administration are now breeding like rabbits. There may be hope. They will be roviating Reid and Fitzgerald pretty heavily but I think roviation may have peaked and will no longer be effective, especially if Rove is himself finally brought to justice.