Hillaryous

Hillary Clinton is threatening to take her campaign all the way to the convention. Nancy Pelosi has announced she is not going to permit that to happen. So much for all those sexist males picking on Hillary. Of course it wouldn’t have to go to the convention in the first place if the superdelegates would just get off the fence and give in to the inevitable. Obama is going to be the candidate. Period. The rest is simply Hillaryous. Leave it to the Democrats to screw up even the most simple process.

The MSM is in seventh heaven, what with the new Scott McClellan book giving them more grist than the ordinary mill can grind, even though it basically tells us nothing we didn’t already know. What I find the most interesting about this non-stop book review is that way everyone is managing to avoid asking even the most rudimentary questions about the claims McClellan is making, like, for example, are they actually true. The discussion involves mostly questions about McClellan’s motives, the timing of the publication, whether he was actually privy to some of the information, what happened to change McClellan’s attitude, and so on. No one is asking if it is true that they lied to bring about the war, whether Bush is indeed, incurious and rigid once a decision has been made, whether he did, in fact, authorize the Plame leak, and so on. Nor do they challenge the contention that Bush believed Presidential greatness could only be achieved through a war, or that he has the ability to come to believe whatever he needs to believe at the moment. Is it because everyone just already believes this is all true? Or is it, as more likely, they don’t dare challenge the facts as that would lead to further questions they don’t want to have to deal with? I suspect the latter.

But what I find fascinating are the various responses to the book. The best one that I have heard from several people in the administration, including Karl Rove himself, is “it’s not the Scott McClellan we knew.” Just what in the hell does that mean? Does it mean the McClellan we knew would never lie? As there is no reason to believe he is lying I guess that wouldn’t be what is meant. Does it mean, the Scott McClellan we knew would never rat on his friends? Maybe. Does it mean he never rocked the boat before? Does it mean, we never realized he was anything more than a patsy who could always be expected just to do as he was told? Perhaps it means simply that he was always loyal to Bush before, so how could he do such a thing? Who knows what it means? What else can they say when they really have no defense. Another tack is to maintain that he is just disgruntled. They want us to believe he is disgruntled because he was eased out of his job as Press Secretary. Perhaps he is, but he’s obviously more disgruntled because Rove and Libby lied to him and he was forced into saying something that destroyed whatever credibility he had. Then, of course, they say, why didn’t he speak up at the time if he didn’t approve of what was happening? Perhaps he should have (although such things are far easier said than done), but the fact that he didn’t doesn’t mean his objections aren’t just as valid and true now as they were before. There are also those who just think he did it for the money. That probably has something to do with it. He was disgruntled (probably also ashamed) and wanted money, why not write a book about it? He better hope for a lot of money because he’s burned his bridges behind him now and will always be seen by some as a traitor to the cause (however horrible a cause it was). The one thing none of his critics in the administration say is that he developed a conscience after all those years of lying on behalf of a murderous tyrant that has been responsible for the deaths of thousands upon thousands and misery untold. When Bush admitted to being involved in the Plame “outing” perhaps that was the final straw. “What Happened” doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know, or at least suspect, but it does stamp it with a seal of authenticity.
Finally, some, like Bush himself, have said merely they are “puzzled” by it. What are they puzzled about, that someone finally told the truth about something? As we have had to live in a veritable sea of lies for the past eight years they probably cannot even conceive of someone telling the truth.


The Hummingbird

There are lots of hummingbirds here at Sandhill, along with many other birds. We used to have birdfeeders outside but our three cats killed so many birds we stopped feeding them a long time ago. We do not feed the hummingbirds but we do plant flowers that attract them. The other day one of our cats, Ceci, the oldest, a kind of calico, who is also a bit fat and slow moving, somehow managed to catch a hummingbird and bring it in the house. The first I knew of this is when I heard Ceci meowing in the living room. When I went to investigate I found her proudly standing over the tiny little bird as if showing me what a mighty hunter she still was. The gorgeous little creature was still warm but seemed to me to be quite dead. I admired her plumage and the needle-like black bill when I picked her up, wrapped her in a paper towel, and sadly placed her in the garbage can. Happily, an hour later, my wife opened the can, and out flew the hummingbird, good as new! As hummingbirds fly at what seems to me the speed of light, and as Ceci is as slow as molasses in winter, I have no idea how she managed to catch it in the first place. I guess it just proves, “you’re never too old.” More importantly, it shows there can still be happy endings in these nightmare years.

LKBIQ:
“Once a newspaper touches a story, the facts are lost forever, even to the protagonists.”
Norman Mailer