DW,
With my tin foil hat super glued to my head, how difficult would it be to contrive a situation like this; not necessarily every couple of years but maybe every 15 to 20?
It would seem to be somewhat easier to control than, say, flying planes into buildings and pretending the guy next door did it.
And before anyone suggests that it might be too big a secret to keep, remind yourself of the names Libby, Gonzo, North, Ehrlichman, Mitchell...

Good evening, Father Tyme.

Anything is possible, these days.

On the other hand, I generally subscribed to the old dictum, Never attribute to malice what stupidity can more easily explain.

I must stipulate that, when it comes to neoconnies, and apparently contrary to a fairly rigid rule of quantum mechanics, both malice and stupidity can exist at the same place at the same time.

The Dark Wraith thinks someone should get some photos of the White House before the unprecedented quantum state vanishes in a shower of sub-atomic mentality particles.

The Dark Wraith recommends that readers write their congressional representatives.

I guess I'll have to write my congressperson; I can't very well CALL them, sans telefono, now can I?

This little tidbit comes from Slate's War Room so no linky. The article was comments from personnel stationed south of Baghdad, called the "Triangle of Death". This one sums it up:

Sgt. Josh Claeson on how it all feels: "Our basic mission here is to drive around and get blown up."

Hmm, that doesn't sound anything like the soundbites I've been seeing these past few weeks. I can't wait for Petreus' report, especially the way he puts hearts over his I's, steada dots!

DW,
This is off topic but it seems that not only has the bullshit increased exponentially since the '06 election, but also the egregious actions of this administration.
More has happened to take away our rights in the last year than Bush’s first four.
They seem to be hurrying the implementation of as much change as possible to probably forestall the events of ’08. No election?
It really seems that this is an extremely well orchestrated effort probably by Rove to get the NeoCon agenda in place. I’m beginning to believe that the first four years were simply a smoke screen to distract us from their intentions; and it worked.
If you listen to Bush’s almost ridiculous comments from an outside point of view, he doesn’t actually say many times that things in Iraq are going well. He says things like, "Our new strategy is delivering good results." He never specified WHAT the strategy is he’s talking about. It’s possible that strategy is to pretend concern for Iraq while not really lying about his actual intentions. His strategy is to pull something else off that we don’t know about.
Am I making this understandable?
“Brownie’s doing a heck of a job” “Gonzo has my full support”. He’s not telling the American people that Brown did the job the PEOPLE expected, but Brown did the job BUSH expected; sink New Orleans. We stupidly presumed he was referring to the fact that Brown screwed up when in reality, mission accomplished.
Gonzo isn’t just doing what the people are to expect, he’s doing exactly what Bush, Cheney and Rove want; and doing it well. And we think Gonzo’s an ass.
I may not have couched this correctly but if you look back at Bush’s statements and substitute the thought that there was a secret plan all along, it looks as though Bush was telling the truth, but for HIS agenda and the people thought he was being stupid.

Anybody?

There seems to be a lot of soy under that top layer of steak in the diner. And not too many cherries under the whipped creme on the pies anymore.

Greetings, Father Tyme.

I have had those same thoughts for some time now. Especially when watching Garbonzo "testify" in front of the Congresscritters.

With all that has happened during the malAdministration of GWB, we are well and truly intercoursed!

Good evening, Fellers.

I don't know about anyone else, Padre, but I grok where you're coming from, Daddy-o. I would say, though, that Bush has all kinds of 'people' who attempt to script his every comment, according to how his attorneys wish to corral the argument. It's when he tries to put it in his own words that the fun begins.

DW, Am I correct in thinking that you're referring to the "BreckBoy" in the cartoon you referenced? Regardless, He really, really has to kill that meme dead. The more people that recycle that image of Edwards, the more legitimacy it's accorded. It's almost like 'mini-swift boating'.

With little hamsters water-skiing behind the swift boats...wearing teeny-tiny goggles...and itsy--bitsy speedos. And waving at the crowd. Oh yeah!

Re the cartoon, as JurassicPork noted, Elizabeth is considered the least feminine of the two, more focused and directed, but that isn't the point. It's interesting how people forget that big settlement he won, I doubt if the opposing counsel thought he was anything but a pit bull. It's also interesting how for the '04 election he was portrayed as a good looking playboy and someone the women would go for, framing is more important than substance, but then isn't that what your observation on the North Pole was about? Sort of.

I've been a lazy girl spending my time on Google Reader, I read the articles and miss the great comments. My bad. Father Tyme, you are correct. Some of us think that everything is going according to plan. The plan to destroy what's left of the US.

While in no way disagreeing, I have a question, DW. If the Fed did nothing and allowed the consequences of their foolish choices to actually be visited upon the fatcats, would that create a situation worse for the poor & middle classes than the one we're faced with?

Good afternoon, OddJob.

At this point, as I noted toward the end of the article, the poor and middle class are going to get hurt in any event. It's only a matter of the speed with which the damage is going to be done.

More importantly, though, while public policy requires that action be taken, there's a vast difference between a bailout like the one that's going on right now and an institutional overhaul, which would start–not get slapped on as a half-hearted, maybe-kinda afterthought–regulatory reconstruction, civil and criminal penalties, laws regarding who may and who may not participate, and wholesale rejection of the myth of effective "self-policing."

While I'm at it, a whole lot of good is done for market focus on proper behavior when a truckload of individuals who caused this mess get put on public display in trials that end with rough prison sentences. And that means cleaning out the pigsty-excess mentality at heretofore non-transparent, largely unaccountable places like GNMA and Freddie Mac.

It also means turning Glass-Steagall back on with the same technologically sophisticated vengeance of 21st Century jackboots being put on private citizens; and it means making antitrust laws as they should apply to financial institutions something other than the antiquated, unused (and somewhat unusable) jokes into which they've turned over the past three decades. (That last matter requires, among many other things, that the myths surrounding the so-called "fiasco" of the breakup of Ma Bell be once and for all trounced into the dirt so we can get down to a realistic talk about well-planned divestitures and the necessity of permanent, follow-on oversight to ensure that reconsolidation not only doesn't occur, but is also economically undesirable by market participants.)

We have a slap-together quick-fix going on, OddJob. It's not going to solve the underlying problems, and we're going to have this happen again: sooner, the next time; uglier than this round, the next time; and quite possibly catastrophic, the next time.

I've addressed this matter in other political dimensions: we have all these Democratic candidates for President, and we have a Democrat majority in both houses of Congress, yet we hear not one word about a comprehensive, unflinching, iron-fisted crackdown and look-back at what this venal Administration has done to this country, to the rule of law, to our constitutional protections, and to countless victims around the world of unspeakably violent treatment at our hands. We pretend we can just move on, learn a few lessons, and act like nothing fundamental needed to be faced head-on and repaired.

And in so failing our moral responsibilities to deal with the ugly rot from which arose an outrage, we ensure it will be repeated; and in our time, each successive failing will come at greater risk to the very survival of the Republic.

The Dark Wraith has thus ranted.

We have a slap-together quick-fix going on, OddJob. It's not going to solve the underlying problems, and we're going to have this happen again: sooner, the next time; uglier than this round, the next time; and quite possibly catastrophic, the next time.

Ah, I get it. The Fed. is doing the same "heck of a job" FEMA has done post Katrina!