The George W. Bush "Gates"

THE BUSH SCANDALS: A FULL RUNDOWN

Several days ago, J. LeBoeuf, an independent investigator began the task of organizing all the various Bush administration scandals into a single, accessible reference guide on his web page. Adhering to a time-honored journalistic tradition, he chose to conceptualize these scandals as "Gates," which - metaphorically and thankfully - have begun popping up all along the Secret Shadow Government's formerly impenetrable protective force-field.

These widening cracks in the White House defenses are the result of many coinciding factors, including former insiders coming forward, current insiders leaking like a sieve, and the catastrophic decay and collapse that comes when you erect Big Lies upon a foundation of smaller, deadlier lies.

You may or may not have noticed, but we have been struggling of late. Here at the turbulent center of these Interesting Times, trying to accurately convey the flabbergasting magnitude of the malevolent intent that informs every twist and turn of the American narrative isn't easy, especially for someone so lacking in… well, pretty much everything needed to be an effective commentator on the religious and political scene. So, in order to cover up my glaring deficiencies, we've decided to steal a page from the mainstream media's "Guide to Lazy Reportage" and organize this administration's current, ongoing scandals into a series of "Gates."

From Watergate to Zippergate, it's amazing how this four-letter suffix has historcically crystallized controversies in the voting public's mind. It's long past time somebody performed this taxonomy for Dubya and Co. And so, without further ado, away we go! (The text on this page was created by J. LeBoeuf who is a independent investigator and has our thanks for identifying the below items.

RUSSERT-GATE

(or: A Small Mind at the End of its Tether takes a Long Walk on the Short Bus)

Preznit Dubya's pathetic performance on last week's Meet the Press was important for a number of reasons, not least of which being it exposed exactly how arrogant, uninformed, entitled, brain-locked, ill tempered, inarticulate, blotchy and hung over he really is. Hardly the upright Christian Cowboy his vast, well-paid army of PR shills in the "mainstream" media would have the rest of us believe. Thankfully, Preznit Dubya believes his own press. Or at least, he did up until a week ago. Otherwise, he probably never would have agreed to do the interview. And if he'd never agreed to do the interview, he never would have exposed his administration's multiple vulnerabilities. Though the problems with Dubya's preznitcy began long before his goon squad helped install him into power via bloodless coup, it seems as though his humiliating, hour-long ordeal on last week's Meet the Press has been ground zero for a revitalized attack. All the major sensitive points were probed to a lesser or greater degree, and now, the man who was once considered to have something near to a "divine right" lock on the 2004 elections seems about as vulnerable as… oh, I don't know. How about a coalition soldier in downtown Baghdad? Yeah. That'll do.

For those of you who missed it, here's the skinny on the show. Despite taking a week to prepare, and despite the interview being conducted by a reliable administration shill - on the Preznit's own turf and terms - and despite the 24 hour delay between taping and airing, Dubya still managed to appear petulant and annoyed at having to defend himself… probably because he wasn't prepared to do so. Tongue-tied and obviously hung over, he clung to his talking points with the desperation of a drowning man. The next day, the usually simpatico right-wing op/ed echo chamber wasn't roaring with quite the same hagiographic, mythos-making bombast they usually do when extolling the Boy King's virtues. Even lunatic Wall Street Journal typist Peggy Noonan expressed doubts, causing yer old pal Jerky to momentarily wonder whether there might be an organized plot to cast incumbent Dubya in the role of "underdog/outsider" in contrast to John Kerry's much ballyhooed "establishment" "insider" "elitism." Then I realized, no, the interview really did go that badly for Dubya. Not to mention all the lies he managed to squeeze into those 44 minutes of face-time.

Meanwhile, over at the online neo-fascist utopia of FreeRepublic.com, you'd think they tuned into a frequency from an alternate universe or something. People over there were saying to themselves: "What the hell is everybody talkin' about?! My President was MAGNIFICENT on that librul medja snakepit Meet the Press!!! He's a MUCH better communicator than Bill or Hitlery KKKlimptoon!!!" Then again, they'd be saying that even if the interview had never taken place, so what's the difference? If the Orcs from the Lord of the Rings movies had a message board, it would be exactly like FreeRepublic.com. Exactly.

AWOL-GATE

(or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the White House Press Corps)

Perhaps if Preznit Dubya hadn't sent Guardsmen to their dooms in the desert to depose a former "regional asset" whose worst crimes were committed with his Poppy's tacit approval, this AWOL thing wouldn't be such a big issue right now. Perhaps his thoughtless, "bring 'em on" attitude and his willingness to use the military as a campaign prop have made his mediocre service record fair game. Whatever the reasons, we should remember that concerned veterans groups have been calling for an investigation into Dubya's National Guard service since well before the 2000 elections. One group even offered thousands of dollars in reward money for anyone willing to step up with proof that they served with Dubya, "honorable discharge" notwithstanding. None have so far claimed the prize, and a recent "document dump" by the White House has only served to deepen the mystery. How did Dubya get into the Guard with such lousy test scores? Did his Poppy pull strings for him? How many other "fortunate sons" managed to finagle such a "Get out of 'Nam Free" card? Can such back-channel attempts to dodge the draft have been legal? History demands an answer to these questions, and the fifty-seven thousand Americans who were sent to die in Vietnam - most of them drafted - deserve an answer to these questions.

Of all the Gates getting ready to crash wide open on Preznit Dubya, AWOLGATE is probably the least consequential. Therefore, it naturally stands to reason that this is the scandal on which the mainstream media have decided to concentrate. As for the author, he couldn't care less about the details of Preznit Dubya's National Guard service, or lack thereof. Those who continue to raise a fuss about the details - calling for the release of ever more documentation, or trying to ferret out anybody willing to say they spent a weekend helping Dubya keep Texas safe from the Vietcong air force - are missing the point, which is that even if everything Dubya and his defenders say about his National Guard service is true, it does nothing to mitigate the basic facts of the matter. These facts are:

1. That the only way Dubya could get into the Texas Air National Guard with a score of 25 on his pilot's aptitude test was if his wealthy Congressman dad pulled political strings for him.

2. That by doing so, Dubya jumped ahead of other, more deserving candidates, thus sentencing at least one of them to serve in Vietnam in his stead… a special "Get out of 'Nam Free" card he was able to pull, simply because of his family's social/economic/political standing.

3. That back then, serving in the National Guard involved a relatively cushy set of responsibilities.

4. That even the most recent, extensive "document drop" has revealed his time with the Guard to have been marked by frequent and lengthy gaps in service for which no explanation has been - or will be - forthcoming... and that's not even taking into account the four-year-old allegations that Dubya's Guard documents were scrubbed of embarrassing data, such as his alleged cocaine arrest, which would also explain why he suddenly refused to submit to medical examinations after the Guard implemented narcotics testing.

5. That creepy Veepy Dick "Spiro" Cheney, a "football hero" in high school, also avoided serving in Vietnam, telling a reporter in 1989 that he "had other priorities" than military service back then. [I know this one isn't related to AWOLgate, but it makes me so angry, I had to include it here. Also, thanks to Buzzflash for compiling a list of the people from Dick and Dubya's home towns who died in Vietnam so they didn't have to. - The author]

6. The retired colonel who claimed to have seen Dubya at the Alabama meetings couldn't even get his dates straight and identified dates that Bush could not have been there.

Perhaps if Dubya hadn't sent American soldiers (including Guardsmen) into the desert to depose a former client whose worst crimes were committed with our tacit approval during a time when he was considered a "regional asset," this AWOL thing wouldn't be such a big issue right now. Perhaps his thoughtless, "bring 'em on" attitude and his willingness to use the military as a campaign prop have made his mediocre service record fair game. The author doesn't know for sure. One thing is certain, however: that Poppy Bush did the right thing by keeping his idiot son as far away from Vietnam as humanly possible. He knew full well his Georgie-boy would have been a danger to himself and others. In the long run, he probably saved many lives.

Scandal Impact Rating: 9 - You couldn't turn on the TV without hearing about it. You couldn't open a newspaper without reading about it. It caused White House press-dude Simple Scotty McClelland to sweat off about ten lbs of baby-fat because of it.

Scandal Gravity Rating: 3 - More a character issue than anything else, the recent controversy has served to burn off some of the Preznit's military support, which was already on the wane thanks to the Iraq debacle.

INVESTI-GATE

(or: Hush, Hush, Sweet Whistleblower!)

"Investi-Gate" is actually three different scandals, each involving investigations that could yank many VIPs from the frying pan of public "service" (derisive snort) and toss them into the all-cleansing flame of public accountability. Unfortunately, there are many reasons to question the effectiveness of all three inquiries. First up…

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1. LIHOP-GATE

(or: The Three-Thousand Victims of Dr. PNAC)

There can be little doubt that with the terrorist attacks of September 11, a certain segment of the American political establishment got exactly what they had publicly confessed to desiring: "a New Pearl Harbor."

Having been handed all the justification they could ever hope for - and boy, did they ever hope for it - a sinister cabal of neo-conservative think-tankers was able to set about transforming their most delusional statecraft fantasies into monstrous reality.

We have spent the last three years living the results of this surreptitious revolution. Foundational American ideals have been abandoned. Human and constitutional rights that people fought, bled and died for have been erased without so much as a whimpered eulogy.

On the foreign policy side, there has been a move towards unrepentant unilateralism. "You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists." Steadfast allies have been subjected to extreme vilification simply for expressing doubts about the wisdom of taking an Iraqi detour in the so-called War On Terror. They've been abandoned in favor of mercenary cohorts willing to shut up, line up, and sign up for the Coalition of the Can't-Rape-the-Willing. Never mind if some of the countries in question are guilty of human rights abuses that rival those of Saddam's Iraq. Never mind that barely any of them provided anything more than a bank account where the Pentagon could dump their payoff. Because they gave the Iraqi invasion the big "thumbs up," nations like Eritrea, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan and are now America's new best friends.

To say that 9/11 "changed America" is a gross understatement. And yet here we are, nearly three years later, and Americans know no more about the events that precipitated all this change than they did when the sun set on the nightmarish day in question.

There's a reason why Americans don't know more about 9/11 today than they did thirty months ago. It's because the Bush administration doesn't want them to.

From the very beginning, this White House has done everything in its power to frustrate investigative efforts. Dick Cheney went so far as to personally warn Senator Tom Daschle against launching any investigations into the cascade of critical - some would say impossible - systemic "failures" that took place on that day, and in the months and years leading up to it.

When simply refusing to appoint an independent investigation became politically impossible (this was before the Republican re-taking of the Senate), they took a different tack: allowing an investigation, but setting ridiculous budgetary and time constraints. They then set about stonewalling the already hamstrung investigation at every turn. Partisan brass at the purged and newly politicized Justice, Defense and Immigration departments - not to mention the FBI - conspired to make the investigators' jobs impossible. For years now, Republican and Democratic investigators alike have marveled at the brazen, unprecedented nature of the hostility and obstructionism they've encountered. After barely securing an extension to their May deadline, investigators recently had to threaten the White House with subpoenas if they continued to refuse to cooperate.

But even as the investigation struggles on, there are some who feel they have yet to start asking the right questions. Serious questions that need to be answered. Questions like those being asked by the Family Steering Committee for the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. Questions like: "Is it normal procedure for the Director of the White House Situation Room to travel with you? If so, please cite any prior examples of when this occurred. If not normal procedure, please explain the circumstances that led to the Director of the White House Situation Room being asked to accompany you to Florida during the week of September 11th."

The paucity of official information has led many civilians, out of desperation, to launch their own investigations. Some efforts have been lackluster. Some, embarrassing. But a surprisingly high number have been superlative, the cooperative 911 Timeline project being a case in point. And what do these citizen sleuths get in return for their invaluable civic contribution? At one time or another, they've all been mocked as conspiracy freaks and characterized as traitors by bought-and-paid-for shills in the mainstream American media.

Isn't it time we collectively woke up and realized who the real traitors are?

Scandal Impact Rating: 3 - When the official story falls apart, people try to figure things out for themselves using available information and the intellectual tools at their disposal. When you take a long hard look at what we know for sure about 911, it's hard not to come to some pretty frightening conclusions. Ask around and you'll likely be surprised at how many people are seriously entertaining the darkest of theories about government complicity/duplicity surrounding the attacks.

Scandal Gravity Rating: 10 - If any of the Worst Case Scenarios being seriously contemplated by some researchers were to be confirmed, the potential ramifications would obviously be foundation-shattering. The whole thing could end in a gas chamber.

2. WHITEWASH-GATE

(or: Fear Mongering for Fun and Profit!)

Of the truth American soldiers have encountered "on the ground" in Iraq, columnist Robert Scheer has so far summed it up best: "Now that top weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei - who both told the world before the invasion that Saddam Hussein was a defanged viper - have been vindicated by Bush's handpicked arms inspectors, it is embarrassing to witness the president prattling on in defense of the indefensible. Perhaps it would be less painful for all of us if the CIA could plant some WMD, of which the U.S. possesses a glorious excess, in Iraq as a kindly, face-saving afterthought for the baffled leader of the free world."

It's a cute joke, a cutting crack. But the way intelligence was distorted by elements at the highest levels of government is no laughing matter. Indeed, the degree to which this willful distortion was even possible makes us think of General Jack D. Ripper from Dr. Strangelove. At one point in this satirical Cold War film, a furious president Muffley is informed that General Ripper, a delusional, paranoid Bircher, has single-handedly and irreversibly launched World War III. When asked how such a thing was possible, an advisor explains: "It's beginning to look like General Ripper may have exceeded his authority."

The same can be said today in Washington, only here in reality, American force has not been hijacked by a madman, but by a mad movement. A cult-like, revolutionary ideological movement led by self-declared wise men who have little respect for democracy and bar no holds in slandering those who dissent from their messianic groupthink.

It's a fact of history that the Bush administration engaged in outrageous fear mongering in the lead up to its attack on Iraq. It was a somewhat successful society-wide attempt to use negative reinforcement to garner support for their policy. Not that they were going to let a little thing like public opinion - or even world opinion - stand in the way of their mercenary ambitions for the region. But they gave persuasion a shot. Repeatedly, officials were trotted out to threaten the American people with all manner of horrors.

Taking a break from dragging entrepreneurs off to federal prison for selling glass pipes, Jesus H. Ashcroft warned us to be on the lookout for any dirty forei- I mean dirty bombers in our midst.

Big Tom Ridge, Homeland Security Chunk-head-in-Chief, played us like a game of Simon Says. "Yellow, Orange, Yellow, Yellow, Orange, Orange, High Orange, Yellow, Bleep-Bleep-Bloop-BRRRR!" Did you know there aren't even any guidelines to determine which color to use in that ridiculous "alert system" of theirs? Ridge, Dubya and a handful of other officials do a conference call every once in a while and just "decide" what color it should be. It serves no purpose beyond a political one, to pump bursts of anxiety into the body politic whenever a distraction is needed.

Preznit Dubya may be tongue-tied, but he's good about sticking to his talking points. His speeches and interviews are stuffed tight with the language of crude, fundamentalist dualism. "We're good, they're evil. Case closed." It's a comforting conceit, but it's also ridiculous.

Of course, Ashcroft, Ridge and Dubya are universally regarded as useless. Even their own partisans secretly admit these three are empty figureheads. But when allegedly serious statesmen like Colin Powell enter the fray, the world pricks up its ears. In terms of pure political spectacle, watching Powell destroy his hard-won legitimacy has had few parallels. To have lived the life that Colin Powell has lived, only to end up here, in the twilight of his public life, a willing tool for the forces of naked reaction... it's the stuff of which Great American Novels are made.

And then there's Dick. Sweet, miserable Dick. Like some grim, Satanic groundhog, the creepy veepy keeps periodically popping up from his underground lair to warn us about mushroom clouds and mega-deaths. "It's not a matter of if," he intones in that warm, defibrillated drone of his, "but when."

Where did administration officials get these horror stories they've been telling us? Not from the CIA, according to George Tennet, who publicly contradicted the White House party line on Iraq's "imminent threat." Not from the State department, which for the last three years has been suffering non-stop assaults by neoconservatives who accuse the diplomatic corps of failing to provide evidence for their unproven claims, or support for their untested theories... the swine!

There's a fine, broken line between interpretation and exaggeration. But the line between interpretation and fabrication is clear. Beyond that boundary lies criminality, and unless our five senses are conspiring to deceive us, many so-called public servants in this administration have most likely crossed that line. That a small number of individuals with ulterior motives, hidden agendas and ethically questionable entanglements were able to subvert and/or bypass and/or seize control of the nation's intelligence gathering apparatus is heinous and terrifying. That the White House and its neoconservative brain-trust now seek to fob off the blame for their mess onto the intelligence communities whose product they corrupted beyond all recognition is merely pathetic.

The Preznit's response to this exploding controversy has been predictably laughable. At first, he was hesitant to admit fault, citing the discovery of Saddam's "weapons-of-mass-destruction-related program activities," and insisting that stockpiles might still be discovered. But after David Kay's report, search teams were called back and it was obvious that the issue would need to be addressed. Ever ready to pass the buck, Dubya appointed a hand-picked, blue ribbon panel to investigate the "intelligence failures" that led to the war in Iraq. Immediately insuring that the panel would be relegated to the status of bad political joke, he appointed infamous VRW-conspirator Laurence Silberman to co-chair his Warren Commission.

Hopefully, the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation into whether/how administration officials exaggerated or misused intelligence will cast some light where light is sorely needed… for instance, into the Pentagon's neocon-only intelligence stove-piping operation, the Office of Special Plans.

Scandal Impact Rating: 7 - As long as Iraq remains a shit-hole - which appears to be its fate for a long time to come - there's no escaping this one.

Scandal Gravity Rating: 10 - It just doesn't get much worse than starting wars under false pretenses.

Author - Mr. Jerky

3. WILSON-GATE

(or: The Incredibly Arrogant Staffers Who Stopped Smirking and Became Nervous Wrecks)

In essence, Wilson-gate is about unknown Bush administration officials contacting conservative "friendlies" in the media to get them to expose the identity of an undercover CIA operative. They apparently did this for two reasons: 1) to get back at the operative's husband, former ambassador Joe Wilson, for being an outspoken administration critic, and 2) to have a chilling effect on any other career diplomats who might be thinking about criticizing this administration and its policies. But in Wilson's case, it was purely personal.

As Preznit Dubya and his cohorts were trying to convince a wary United Nations to sanction their proposed military strike on the crippled pseudo-nation of Iraq, the government sent Wilson to Africa, where he investigated documents purporting to show that Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase "yellow cake" uranium there. After a brief investigation, it was determined that the documents were crude forgeries. Wilson filed his report with the CIA and at the State department.

By January, when it was becoming obvious that the UN was in no way going to sanction Bush's war - and with the American people still 60/40 against attacking Iraq without UN approval - the 'mongers were resting their hopes on Bush's State of the Union address. And that's where Saddam's African uranium hoax found its way back into the official litany of justification for war. Soon afterwards, Colin Powell cited the Niger "evidence" as some of the most important in the USG's case for war.

Then came the war, which America aced. Then came the peace, which America flunked and is flunking, big time. The chronology from that point forward is important.

In a NYT op-ed piece that ran on July 6, 2003, Wilson criticized the administration's handling of the war. Perhaps more importantly, he made it clear that when Bush and Powell warned Americans about Saddam's African "yellowcake," they weren't just wrong, they were lying.

Two days later, the White House had to admit that the Nigerian "evidence" was bogus. This sparked one of the most embarrassing rounds of buck-passing in the recent history of the Presidency of the United States. The whole sorry spectacle came to a nadir when, much to Condi Rice's relief, CIA director George Tenet agreed to (sorta) take the blame for the information getting into Dubya's speech.

Three days after that, the Chicago Sun Times runs an op-ed piece by conservative columnist Robert Novak in which he claims top administration officials told him the only reason Joe Wilson got the Niger job was because his wife, Valerie Plame, was CIA.

Make that undercover CIA... in Africa. Working on cases relating to the proliferation of Third World WMD.

Needless to say, she isn't doing that anymore. Neither are the people who used to make up her network of what intelligence workers euphemistically refer to as assets.

At first, despite the fact that disclosing the identity of a covert agent is a felony offense, all hell did not break loose. It just sorta oozed past the starting gate. But thanks to a few outraged (and persistent!) bloggers, the story eventually caught hold in the mainstream. Now, months later, a Congressional probe into what is being dismissively called "the leak" is well underway. So far, they've apparently determined that somebody from the Vice President's office contacted at least a half-dozen conservatives in the media trying to get them to out Plame as CIA. [It's nice to know your tax dollars aren't going to waste, isn't it? - Jerky]

Novak recently tried to change his story. He said that people had misunderstood him, that nobody from the White House had ever contacted him, and that his source was some anonymous flunky.

To bad for Novak, then, that unidentified officials from the Vice President's office have told investigators that while it's true Novak was given the information in question, he'd been specifically warned not to print Plame's name.

Now that his former "prize pig" insider sources have tossed him to the sharks, do you think Novak is starting to regret letting himself be used and discarded like a phlegm-filled Kleenex tissue?

Nah. He's probably loving it. Most conservatives are secretly masochists at heart. That's because they're all so sexually repressed. Isn't that right, former Republican "drug czar" and problem gambler Bill Bennett?

"Why, yes it is! In fact, after a hard day spent slandering liberals and character-assassinating anybody who dares question the wisdom of the Conservative Movement that's sweeping the nation, there's nothing I like better than to fly to Vegas, lose a couple hundred grand in a high stakes game of poker, then pay a mulato she-male steroid giant to strap me to a rack and beat me 'til I'm black, blue and bleeding!"

"Thanks for the confirmation, Bill. Say, where do you get all your money, anyway?"

"Don't go there, girlfriend!"

Okay, that's it. We've gone far enough afeild.

Scandal Impact Rating: 3 - …but if, as some are predicting, the investigation reveals that Dick Cheney is somehow implicated in all this, it could break open real big, real fast.

Scandal Gravity Rating: 9 - This kind of hubris-fueled, gutter-grudge behavior is exactly what brought down the Nixon administration. Everybody at the White House is allegedly shitting bricks over this.

4. HEMI-GATE!
(or: How to Lose Friends and Influence Juntas!)
It goes without saying that the Bush administration has been an unmitigated disaster internationally, as well as on the domestic front. But there's an interim level between these two that sometimes gets unfairly overlooked: the hemispheric. The near invisibility of news about the rest of the Western hemisphere in our mainstream media is unfortunate, because while stories about Haiti, Cuba and Venezuela may not pack the visceral punch of our ongoing Middle East narratives, examining the evolution of American hemispheric policies under Bush is an education in subterfuge.

Considering the past histories of certain key administration figures in these regions - people like State's undersecretary for arms control John Bolton, US ambassador to the United Nations John Negroponte, and assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Otto Reich - it should come as no surprise that the Caribbean, Central America, and South America now form a particularly volatile political nexus. Today, in their rush to make up for eight years in the wilderness while Clinton was president, the same thugs whose anti-democratic meddling led to hundreds of thousands of deaths in 'secret wars' during the Reagan/Bush era now plot the naked, violent overthrow of regional leaders they find inconvenient.

Witness Venezuela, where evidence continues to mount that the highest levels of American political power were behind the failed 2002 coup against president Hugo Chavez, as well as the onslaught of anti-Chavez propaganda that set the stage for a fraught night-time siege of the presidential palace in Caracas. The whole event was caught on film in the stunning documentary The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, which you all have to watch as soon as possible. But I digress.

To understand the full, psychotic extent of the realignment that happened when the Bush regime re-took the White House, you need only examine the impact of the IRI (an international wing of the Republican party) on the attempts to oust president Aristide of Haiti. By advising and funding local insurgents and Macoutes, these globe-trotting GOPers are actively participating in the ouster of a man whose democratic election was generously shepherded by the previous American administration!

How fucked up is that?!

Scandal Impact Rating: 2 - Most people just don't care about this kind of stuff.

Scandal Gravity Rating: 7 - Sad to say that subverting democracy so close to home has long been par for the course.

5. DOMESTI-GATE
(or: Home is Where the Hurt Is!)
The Preznit and his party suffer from a particularly dangerous form of political schizophrenia. On the one hand, the Neoconservatives who have forged Dubya's foreign policy are addicted to empire, defense industry pork, and budget-blasting no-bid corporate hand-outs that suck frighteningly huge piles of cash from the American treasury.

On the other hand, you have the Free Marketeers pushing for more ideological purity in fiscal policy, less entitlements, more tax cuts for the rich, less government regulation of industry, more privatization of public utilities. Ultimately, this camp wants to do away with public education, public television, public radio... public everything, basically. Their stated goal is to shrink the federal government until it's small enough to "strangle in the bathtub," as shadowy-conservative-with-questionable-terrorist-connections Grover Norquist once vividly phrased it.

Yer old pal J. would argue that these two conflicting impulses - libertarian austerity and neoconservative largesse - enter into the sphere of the preznitcy via the august personage of vice preznit Dick Cheney, a man who should know better, but who apparently doesn't care. Either that, or he's privy to information about some impending cataclysmic disaster that renders the exploding federal debt and deficit irrelevant.

The other two forces that have profoundly influenced Dubya's preznitcy are the Christian Right, and the Political Machine. Yer old pal Jerky would argue that these two influences filter down to Dubya through Karl Rove, who is, in and of himself, the Political Machine.

I believe this "Mexican stand-off" of conflicting interests - and Dubya's rotating allegiance - has been the source of much dissonance during his tenure. Furthermore, I believe the Political Machine wins pretty much every argument. How else to explain this supposedly fiscal conservative administration's massive subsidies for the agriculture and airline industries, or their substantial tariffs on foreign steel? How else to explain drastic tax cuts during an unnecessary war of first resort?

How else to explain why every time Dubya gave a policy speech on some bold new initiative - improving health care for seniors, No Child Left Behind, increasing the profile of federal volunteerism organizations - it was a virtual guarantee that he was within weeks of cutting, de-funding or eliminating said program?

How else to explain the farcical budgets produced by this administration? How else to explain the blink-and-you-missed-it promise to set up a permanent base on the moon and send a manned mission to Mars? The promise to deal with the scourge of anabolic steroids? To end the kind of "sex tourism" his own brother enjoyed so well?

And you wonder why they have to run as the God Hates Fags party?!

Scandal Impact Rating: 5 - The cost of living now exceeds the value of labor. People are feeling it, and it's only going to get worse.

Scandal Gravity Rating: 10 - This diffuse set of scandals is going to cost Dubya the White House.

6. SCANDAL-GATE

I remember "scandal fatigue" was a conservative buzz phrase in the late 90s. The point, obviously, was to suggest the Clinton years were marred by too many controversies and that the public could use a little down time, free of strife and scandal. (Never mind that virtually all of these alleged indignities turned out to be baseless, partisan witch hunts that ultimately demonstrated no wrong doing on the part of Clinton or other administration officials...)

But with the news that the White House supports an investigation into the higher-than-advertised cost of Bush's Medicare plan, I started realizing that there have been an amazing number of investigations of Republicans since Bush took office, some of which directly involve the White House. So much for restoring "honor and dignity" to the Oval Office.

In fact, we've seen more substantive scandals involving the GOP in the last three years than we ever did with Dems in the 90s. I'm not talking about scandals that ought to be investigated; I mean Republicans and their scandals that have actually been the subject of formal investigation.

In no particular order...

* Cheney's secretive Energy Task Force was investigated by the GAO and the case is currently pending at the Supreme Court.

* The Valerie Plame Game is under investigation by the Justice Department.

* Bush's Medicare scam and the circumstances that led the administration to lie to Congress about the cost of the legislation is under investigation by the HHS inspector general's office.

* The massive intelligence failure that led Bush to lie to the world about the Iraqi threat is under investigation by a congressionally-authorized independent commission (which Bush fought the creation of).

* Bribes offered on the House floor to Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich.) in exchange for his vote on Bush's Medicare plan are under investigation by the House Ethics Committee and the Justice Department.

* Attorney General John Ashcroft was under investigation by the Federal Election Commission for violating campaign finance laws in 2000, and the FEC concluded that Ashcroft accepted $110,000 in illegal contributions.

* An investigation into House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's criminal fundraising schemes in Texas -- which allegedly used corporate funds to help state GOP lawmakers -- is already before a Texas grand jury.

* Republican staffers on the Senate Judiciary Committee were investigated for stealing thousands of confidential memos from Dem computers, a matter that has now been referred to the Justice Department for a possible criminal probe.

* Republican Connecticut Gov. John Rowland is under a criminal investigation (and an impeachment investigation) after he lied about prominent state contractors and several government aides paying for refurbishments to his lake-front cottage.

* Former Rep. Bill Janklow (R-S.D.) was under investigation for vehicular manslaughter, a crime for which he was later convicted.

* The Pentagon launched a formal investigation into well-armed evangelist and three-star General William "Jerry" Boykin, Bush's pick for deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence, and his record of extreme religious rhetoric.

* The circumstances that led to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 are under investigation by a congressionally-authorized independent commission (which, again, Bush fought the creation of and then later resisted cooperating with).

* And honorable mentions should go, of course, to investigations into Halliburton (Dick Cheney's former company) and Enron (George Bush's biggest corporate supporter).

* California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was investigated for violating state campaign finance laws, a charge for which he was later found guilty by a state judge. The state has a $100,000 cap on candidate loans; Schwarzenegger loaned himself over $4 million in the closing days of his campaign.

* The forged documents that led Bush to inaccurately claim that Iraq had sought to purchase uranium from Niger are under investigation by a Senate committee and the FBI.

* John Korsmo, Bush's choice to chair the Federal Housing Finance Board, is the target of an ongoing Justice Department criminal probe related to his political fundraising activities and their subsequent cover-up. The scandal cost Korsmo his career; he was forced to resign from his position last week.

* The Texas GOP's decision to seek assistance from the FAA to track down Democratic lawmakers fleeing the state to deny a legislative quorum was the subject of two formal inquiries -- one from the U.S. Department of Transportation, the other from the Department of Homeland Security.

* The General Accounting Office is investigating the legality of White House "video news releases" -- news-like proganda paid for with tax dollars -- which contain highly questionable claims about the alleged benefits of Bush's Medicare plan.

MORE POTENTIAL SCANDALS

* White House anti-terrorism coordinator Richard Clarke said "Rumsfeld was saying we needed to bomb Iraq....We all said, 'but no, no. Al Qaeda is in Afghanistan' and Rumsfeld said, 'There aren't any good targets in Afghanistan and there are lots of good targets in Iraq.' I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with [the 9/11 attacks].'"

* Dick Cheney, who last week questioned John Kerry's credentials on foreign policy and national security, last year hastened the war with these words: "I think it will go relatively quickly, ... (in) weeks rather than months." Rumsfield sold us the same bill of goods: "It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months." It's kind of amazing that these profiteers and buffoons are permitted any credibility at all. I don't, in fact, think that they are so patently stupid that they actually thought that Iraq could be conquered, pacified and converted to democratic governance in weeks or months. Nope, I just think they're liars.

* BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The first anniversary of the start of the war that ousted Saddam Hussein was a day like many others in Iraq: a mortar attack in a northern city, an attempt to kill a politician and news of a U.S. Marine cut down by rebel fire. Of course, there are 568 Americans who won't be able to join in the festivities, including Sue Sapir-Niederer's son, Screaming Eagle Seth Dvorin.

* Appeasement is an ugly word, and it's especially ugly when it's an undeserved accusation. There are a lot of apologies due the Spanish people, starting with Dennis Hastert, and working down through his minions and up through the Administration. While the neo-McCarthyites in the Republican Party may think that any disagreement with the current US regime borders on treasonous, it's still permissable for voters in a democracy to pick any leader they choose, for any reason they choose.

Gee, a government turned out for clinging to lies "despite mounting evidence to the contrary" while it pursues "clumsy attempts to quell antigovernment sentiment." No wonder Bushco is upset. "So there you have it." Krugman writes. "A country's ruling party leads the nation into a war fought on false pretenses, fails to protect the nation from terrorists and engages in a cover-up when a terrorist attack does occur. But its electoral defeat isn't democracy at work; it's a victory for the terrorists." Well, if you believe that, the terrorists have already won.

* Political Wire offers a link to Newsday's report that President Bush's re-election campaign website "has sold clothing made in Burma, whose goods were banned by Bush from the U.S. last year to punish its military dictatorship." According to the article, the offending item was a fleece jacket, which came in an order with a made-in-Mexico cap and a T-shirt of unknown origin. At least the cap is legal. Could all this imported campaign gear be a Bush bid for some support from international leaders? I'm guessing Spain is off the order list...

* Use of the House Committee on Resources public website for partisan purposes.

* Looking through Dick Cheney's Reagan Library rant, we gleaned this tidbit. "And we are applying the Bush doctrine," said the
veep. "Any person or government that supports, protects, or harbors terrorists is complicit in the murder of the innocent, and will be held to account." Except, "...the idea that the current administration is applying the "Bush doctrine" is palpably untrue. Aside from toppling the Taliban, an action supported by enormous majorities worldwide, we haven't gone after a single country that "supports, protects, or harbors" terrorists. Iraq had probably the most tenuous ties to terrorism of any state in the Middle East, while Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Syria have remained untouched. There may be very good reasons for this, mind you, but the Bush doctrine is nonetheless little more than hot air." "Palpably untrue". As in 'a lie'. As in Cheney, like the rest of the Bushco crew, is a liar.

* Military officials admitted to Congress during the war that the Administration had sent 40,000 troops into
battle without the best-grade body armor.

MORE BUSH SCANDALS:

* Medicare Actuary Threatened With Firing If He Told the Truth to Congress. Reps. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Rose DeLauro of Connecticut, Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, Pete Stark of California and Bernie Sanders issue a call for the Inspector General of the Heath and Human Services Department to open a probe of the role of former Medicare chief Thomas Scully's use of intimidation to block the report of the department's top actuary, which would have costs well above the estimates promoted by the Bush administration. Actuary Rick Foster had estimated in June that a Medicare proposal version similar to what became law would cost $551 billion, far above the $395 billion estimate that was used in debate on the legislation, and much closer to the $534 billion estimate that was only released when the bill was finally passed and signed into law. CBS News reports that "The lower number was politically significant, as nine Republican lawmakers in the House stated before final congressional approval of the legislation that they would not support a bill that cost more than $400 billion." So the bill's passage was based on a lie, and it appears the lie was preserved by some strong arm tactics by Scully, who required an ethics waiver to take the Medicare job in the first place (yeah, they can do that! Does that sound, ummm, ethical?). So, lying crooks or crooked liars? You decide.

* FMR. TREASURY SECRETARY THREATENED WITH INVESTIGATION AFTER TELLING TRUTH

* LINDSEY FIRED FOR TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT COSTS

* ZINNI FIRED FOR TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT FOREIGN POLICY

* TROOPS THREATENED FOR TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT COMBAT IN IRAQ

* REPORTER DEFAMED FOR TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT TROOPS

* GENERAL DISPARAGED FOR TELLING TRUTH ABOUT TROOP LEVEL NEEDS

* CIA BLAMED FOR TELLING TRUTH ABOUT BOGUS IRAQ-NUCLEAR CLAIM

* CIA OPERATIVE EXPOSED BECAUSE HUSBAND TOLD TRUTH ABOUT IRAQ

The Quote of the Day comes from our one-time nemesis, new-found political pal, Governor Howard Dean..

""I don't get to be the captain of the team. That's not what the voters said. John Kerry gets to be the captain of the team. And the question is, do you want to be on the team and work for change or do you not? And I do want to be on the team, and I'm going to work for change."

NEXT SEE HOW BUSH LEFT TEXAS WITH FEW CHRISTIAN VALUES

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