DragonFlight

A couple of things made me chuckle recently. I sometimes do that rather than gritting my teeth. It’s bad enough the politics of the day are so infuriating, but why compound that with necessitating a visit to the dentist? After reading a couple of articles recently, one concerning Trent Lott, and the other, General Taguba, it dawned on me that they had something in common. Both seemed slow on the uptake, though I suspected this was just another tedious example of political expedience.

Trent Lott taking exception to right wing talk-radio bias Washingtonpost.com in answer to its attacks on the immigration “so-called amnesty” reform bill (a policy he supports), and Major General Antonio M. Taguba finally announcing that senior defense officials were involved in directing some of the abusive interrogation policies at Abu Ghraib in The New Yorker rank high on my list of “DOOOOH, do you really think so?” revelations. I was certainly in no way enlightened by these declarations. To the contrary, I was thinking, “what took you so @*&@#! long to figure it out?”

Of course, I imagine Trent Lott and other GOP “leaders” have enjoyed the extreme bias and vitriolic opinions expressed by the Limbaughs, Hannities and Savages of the AM radio airwaves when they have agreed with their own extreme bias and vitriolic opinions. The Democrats have long been on the receiving end of scathing attacks as a result. It is, however, interesting and somewhat gratifying to see the attack dogs turn on their masters for a change, and witness the right wing eating their own. Perhaps this is the result of a party that can no longer support their man in the oval office, realizing (FINALLY) how incompetent and dishonest he has been, yet not being able to in any way bring themselves (God forbid) to support those evil liberals they have been demonizing for so long as a matter of habit.

According to former Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, on Countdown on June 20, 2007, General Taguba’s Abu Ghraib ephiphany took him three years to figure out “after” she had given him the same information. Karpinski was rewarded for her revelation and honesty by being demoted to colonel in 2005. Perhaps Taguba wanted to hold on to both of his stars. It will be interesting to see if or how the Rove "smear machine" will turn itself on him.

I always found it incredulous that ANYONE actually bought into the official story line telling us all those deviant interrogation and intimidation (basically, torture) tactics at Abu Ghraib were the creation of a small group of grunts from West Virginia. To be more precise, it was, and still is my opinion that any person believing that was true had to have an IQ of less than room temperature, or chose to condone a lie because it came from those they felt obligated to support. Even when the lie becomes obvious, due to the absurdity, very few want to believe their government does lie to them. I personally find it offensive that anyone would disrespect truth and decency to such an extent that they would allow themselves to turn the other way while representatives of their government blatantly lied to cover up actions which were appalling by any standard. And, this doesn’t even begin to address the issue of allowing a handful of the lowest ranking soldiers to be the fall guys for the likes of Gestapo-like intelligence officers, and a chain of command that must have gone all the way up to Rumsfeld and beyond.

These are just a couple of things I chuckled about on the surface, but which created a great sadness within my heart. I was brought up to believe my nation was better in some respects than it appears to have been recently. They say that it is during times of great stress, that the true measure of a person can be taken. I guess the same can be said of nations.

Posted by Stephen at 02:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

I find it interesting that the Senate could not come up with the votes to show no confidence in the so-called “Attorney General” Roberto Gonzales. I say so-called because it indeed seems that he still believes he is Bush’s lawyer, and that Bush is under the same illusion. Of course, reality is what they make it. Perhaps this is because many others, primarily in their party, don’t actually care to tell them otherwise. The business of government has become “cover your party’s butt” at all cost, regardless of the negative impact to the nation. Simply throw out the same tired old clichés like patriotism, terrorism, national security, support the troops and 9/11 often enough, and allow whatever misbehavior and self-serving denial takes place to continue. After all, what’s more important, the welfare of the people and the nation, or getting reelected because no one knows how terribly incompetent and/or corrupt you are?

I recall the Senate, both sides, blasting this upstart AG who repeatedly and incessantly had the gall to answer questions with what will forever be known as the “I don’t know, don’t recall, or remember Gonzales defense.” Silly me, I’d always been under the impression that the Attorney General of the United States of America would be one of the brightest legal minds, or mind, the nation had to offer. I stand corrected. It appears that this individual doesn’t have much of a mind, if memory is any indication, at all. When I grew up, his inability to recall so little, would have been called incompetence at best and chronic and habitual lying at worse. Is it irony or funny business that everyone working for him could remember all that he could not?

Mediocrity appears now to be readily accepted, even when the only other possibility, corruption, is denied. When mediocrity becomes continually acceptable at the highest leadership levels it follows that it is okay everywhere else. Or, it’s at least a good excuse for covering up whatever else might actually being occuring.

Scooter Libby, for example, often heralded as an extremely bright intellect, could not recall meetings, dates and conversations, but did remember some that never took place. I’d find his defense by some political pundits, namely he simply couldn’t recall so many dates and meetings, acceptable if it weren’t in fact true that Libby is a “very” sharp guy, which was the reason why he was where he was.

Lurita Doan, the Chief of the General Services Administration in charge of all US government purchases, couldn’t recall ANYTHING about a meeting she attended just weeks earlier, except that she was a little bit late, and refreshments were served. It turns out she couldn’t even interpret some pretty obvious political power point slides that had been used at the meeting. I repeat; this is the “chief” of the GSA, and testifying before Congress.

Once again it would appear that incompetence was okay in the minds of some. Do you think the fact that the meeting was in violation of the Hatch Act, which expressly forbids political meetings at a government facility, might have catalyzed her memory loss? Was it the reason some were willing to accept obvious mediocrity? Was that perhaps preferable to acknowledging criminal intent?

I do recall that at the committee meeting in Congress where she was questioned the Democrats seemed to be fervently questioning her on the facts of the meeting. Such facts were gleaned from the evidence of the actual power point presentation from the meeting, as well, and as with the Gonzales questioning, the recalled memories and sworn testimonies of several of her colleagues who did seem to remember what took place at the meeting. The Republicans questioning her, interestingly, were more concerned about defending this petite and attractive GOP devotee and supporter, and Bush appointee, while ignoring the facts and evidence that were before them and which were the reason for the investigation in the first place. They even attacked the GSA inspector general, also testifying before them, who was investigating the incident based on evidence of wrongdoing.

I’m not even going to attempt to list what I consider the incessant instances of “acceptable” mediocrity and incompetence, and worse, at the level of the highest political office in the United States. – guess who? A blog that long would only be readable if you were perhaps serving a forty-five day sentence in solitary somewhere. Now, where did I get that idea?

I do find it interesting that mediocrity and incompetence are acceptable by all too many in government leadership, but I suspect it is only condoned because the truth would cause political damage -- the truth that corruption knowingly exists at the highest echelons of government, and it becomes one's political duty to cover it up whenever and wherever it becomes obvious.

It appears the Republicans were quite concerned about this possible kind of behavior during the Clinton years, but are much less inclined to be concerned about it during their own tenure. I find that interesting, don’t you? And I’m not saying this is only a Republican trait, but in my opinion it has certainly been more blatant, less subtle and more common in the last six plus years than I have ever witnessed in my lifetime for either party. And, it’s accompanied by a kind of “so what” attitude. It used to be that you suspected lying and cover-ups, now you are pretty certain about it, and the real question is why isn’t it being prosecuted.

Posted by Stephen at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)