The dead of winter. Every morning Harvey, my cat, puts me through the same ritual. He gets up, has a bite for breakfast (wherein he demands a new Fancy Feast can each day, whether he has eaten the old one or not), and then attempts to slip past me while I am making my sally out to get the papers. That never works because I am always ready for his not-so-subtle attempt. However, just after I begin to read the papers, with a cup of hot coffee on my chair arm and ABC's morning program on the tele, he begins his blatant sales presentation. Meow this and meow that. Sitting on the top of the chair, above my head, and swishing his tail into my face and eyes. He thinks he is a groundhog. But a new groundhog every day. He just has to go out there for five to ten minutes to reassure himself that it is still horrid and unlivable winter. I hate it. If I let him go, he instantly disappears somewhere. Behind a snowbank, under the pines or around a corner. He does it on purpose. I just know it. So then, after yelling his name, I have to go get dressed and search the great outdoors. No bath, shower, or shave. Just rough clothes on, boots without socks, coat without hat or gloves....and I am out there in it. You see, I can't just sit there and let him wander. It is too cold and too miserable. He knows all this, of course, being a cat and all. This morning I have slipped up here to get away from him. Besides, after checking out the front pages and the editorials I threw the papers down in disgust. Crap. It is a day of news crap.
There was a long article on how we just are not covering Iraq anymore, and with good reason. You must understand that the press has to spend it's dwindling funds covering stuff where something is happening. Iraq is passe'. Comparatively, not many American kids are being killed there. So we have closed all three network bureaus in Baghdad. We were out of there long ago anyway. Bush and team terrorized the media and booted them out a few years ago, along with bringing in the phony 'surge.' Now the rage is Afghanistan. That is where the new 'surge' is going to take place. So they are staffing up. The media only staffs up now to support the administration. They report what the Pentagon wants reported. Or they get dead or blown to hell and gone. Remember Jim Webb? He lipped off to George Bush, with respect to his son's service in Iraq, when he was only a few days in office two years ago (basically, he told the Commander in Chief that he had no business inquiring after his son). Mistake. When your son is controlled by that same guy, his life on the line because of where or what he might be exposed to, it is wise not to piss that guy off. And we have heard what from Jim Webb since he was elected? Nothing. Not a damn thing. He trotted out a bill to get Iraqi veterans preferred treatment for education purposes (at the expense of all veterans who came before) and that was it. What do you suppose the 'behind closed doors conversation' was like between Webb and the president's men later on? Webb still has a sock stuffed in his mouth, and will have until the end of January. Just an example of the naked power those people have to do just about anything they want. Cheney signed off on torture. Who cares? Not the media. And not the public because the public does not hear about it. Cheney says that the president is above the law in 'time of war' and the same thing happens. Nothing. Bush does his Howdy Doody imitation, day after day, giving final life to Letterman's special segments, and little else. He is above it. He has made his billions. They all have. Now they just want to go quietly and keep the billions.
William Kristol, one my favorite sleaze pundits (not of the caliber of that slug Bill Bennett, but up there), writes this day of how neat it is that he will be out of the country for the presidential inauguration. It appears he is speaking up in Canada. Hopefully, he is engaged to speak about something he is really good at, like how old men can be successful with young women if they have enough power and money. Anyway, he writes of Rick Warren and how great that is. I mean that Warren is going to get to do the invocation. How the raging wild-eyed liberals will be chained back by his selection to fill that role. Out of that will come less abortion. Out of that will come real patriotism. Out of that will come recognition that these new Old Testament Christians have come into their own.
I am one of the few people who know how William Kristol is getting up there to his speaking engagement in Canada. He is driving up in a Gran Torino.
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