Just a thought; is it possible the Veep had a little heart attack while weilding a weapon, and that had something to do with it? It's as plausible as the mix of medications, and maybe more likely, since his history with heart problems is longer than his gouty foot.

I think they stated in the article that in the months after the photos were released, he was getting the audit trail together that lead to the Vice President's office. Yes, we all know where the order came from. But saying it doesn't make it hold up in any sort of legal or official manner unless you've got the documentation. And I think the article also mentioned how his attempts to get this documentation was stonewalled. Just look what happened to Dan Rather when he made a valid claim about the president but the documentation wasn't completely in order.

This doesn't excuse his boss, who if nothing else will be judged harshly by history by his silence after getting his paper trail in order. The only reason I can think that he hasn't said anything, beyond blind loyalty (which I'm not convinced of), is if that paper trail demonstrates how the Sec. of Defense and the VP made such a fantastic end-run around him and his staff. Powell was as asleep at the wheel after 9/11 as anyone was before 9/11.

One of the more disturbing aspects of the article is the vapid, simple, banal responses to the events by some of these students. They give these guys the power they have because they're hot, because they throw the best parties (which is subjective), because they're cool (again, subjective) --because to glom on to that kind of arrogance allows a person a certain false sense of self-worth that should haunt a thinking person with shame, but if you're vacant enough, fits like a new leather flip-flop and a polo shirt with the collar flipped up. What these students have agreed to is a social contract wherein these individuals have license to commit felony acts out of willful ignorance and a desire to one day be one of those untouchables, like so many administrators at such schools. I'm at one right now, in the south, and we seem to deal with similar issues each year while the administration who nees to rule on these people belong to the same secret societies and attend the same catillions. (Just a week ago a massive football player --white guy, lineman --grabbed me at an ATM on campus and started demanding money; I pretended I was deaf and only spoke sign language; he cursed and walked away baffled.)

And I can't understand why the president of Duke would not make any statement because such incidents occur at other instutions. What the hell kind of logic is that --just because a girl gets raped the Air Force Academy or the University of Michigan or Central High School in whereverland, name-your-state, they have to accept putzes raping women at Duke? How does an institution that demonstrates such a lack of critical thought, from the administration to the students, come to be a tier-one instution? Is it the money, the tradition, what? I'm sure if the students involved weren't such a visible part of the campus, justice would be a bit more swift and severe.

And now? All the sudden? As if kablam, lightning struck from the heavens and oil prices were instantly up?

But the funny thing about the president telling oil companies they need to watch the price gouging: This is kind of like a kid telling his dad who pays the allowance to stop earning so much money to pay that allowance (and after the kid had been demanding raises). If any oil companies are concerned about investigations, they're not concerned about investigations coming from the White House.

The first thing I thought of was The Baffler, but a quicker ms. anthrope got to it first. And I'm not so sure Thomas Frank, et. al. thought they were breaking any new soil, only trying to point out that that soil had already been broken, but somewhere between the Headbanger's Ball and too much New Coke the kiddees didn't pay attention to their jaded older siblings.

Agreed with nat that this is a rather pointless article, but was curious why nat, who felt the need to establish certain anti-Salon qualifications because of it's now supposed pseudo important magazine status, bothered to read the pseudo article, and then to even post. There's a lot of crap in the cereal aisle too, but that doesn't keep me from the wholesome oatmeal if I know where it's at.

The thing that strikes me, at least, is how myopic such analyses as Niedzviecki's can be. I had to tutor a student today who was discussing the same sort of thing; that what passes for most mass and pop culture is just the DC/NY/LA triangle reflecting itself back to itself on our televisions and print press, ignoring most of the other 220 or so million people here. There's a hell of a lot of us outside those regions, some even in the target market, who don't partake in nor care much about the issues that are causing the hand-wringing in the book (and many of us can still own televisions and not get carried away with them). You can comb Technorati or some other social networking space to witness the variety of strange, deeply-felt, and near autistically-obsessive interests that individuals find they share with a number of other individuals, and that provides just one of a number of ways out from having to be the next American inventor or something.

But nothing sells while feeling authentically real like crisis.