Bush also said: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job". I think this administration worries very much about one thing and one thing only: having to admit mistakes. To avoid admitting mistakes, they execute a bizarre head-in-sand strategy.

As a crisis grows (what crisis? any crisis! pick a crisis!) they insist that nothing is wrong and everything is going according to plan until things come to a head and the crisis becomes impossible to ignore. Then, the administration makes a minimal payment on what has become an enormous bill, and some heads do indeed roll. Sometimes those are high-profile heads (e.g. Libby, Rumsfeld) or low-profile heads, but a few ultimately expendable individuals are thrown to us left-wing lions, and we are supposed to be satisfied.

Subsequently, when the administration is asked if the sacrifice of the fall-guys implies any recognition of wrong-doing on their side, they blink and say something to the effect of "wha? who? huh?" They've done nothing wrong, you see. They merely made a heavy sacrifice to oblige the ravening wolves on the far left lunatic fringe. Nothing bad has been done. Water under the bridge, folks. Bygones = bygones. The echo-chamber, which has been bewailing the horrible transgressions of the left, which has DARED to demand justice in a time of war, now begins the laborious task of revisionism, painstakingly (and repetatively) sweeping under the carpet the facts of the scandal (what scandal? pick a scandal!) and pretending that nothing bad has ever happened. Bush and his cronies are inviolate, they've never done anything wrong, no mistake has been admitted.

The Matrix has now been re-loaded and we're primed for the next scandal cycle. To a biology geek, this is very much akin to enzymatic catalysis. Except enzymes actually do useful work in a cell. This administration, alas, is only good at the rapid and systematic degradation of its own host, in this case, the American nation. Kind of like a virus, one might say.

"Every Bush follower will have to confront the facts in that Op-Ed in order to argue that nothing improper occurred here."

Alas, the Bush followers won't read that Op-Ed or confront the facts, for Bush is God and Cheney is his Prophet. Or the other way around, who knows?

On the other hand, I might be expressing the obvious thing here (and it may have already been expressed, but I'm too lazy to read all the letters), but the chest-pounding and foot-stomping that's going on at the moment in Congress has nothing to do with FBI, oversight, the Constitution or American values. These are politicians fighting for their political survival and winning. I always get a little worried when bloggers (including you, Glenn) pull up quotes from 15 years ago by the same exact Senators and Congress Reps. Sort of drives the point home that no major change is really forthcoming. 15 years from now, when a different outrage upon the Law of the Land occurs, the same guys (and gals) will pronounce the appropriate verbiage and keep their positions of power for another election cycle.

To paraphrase my Father, government is just a group of thugs that has taken power and made laws that create the impression that it's okay for this group of thugs to be in power. And we, the people, let them get away with it because at least it's better than anarchy. (Or, at least, it's better than a government which shoots you for speaking out against it.)

You know, beginning with Ron Suskind's description of the Bush White House (complete with the derisive "reality-based community" statement by a Bush aide) I began to see a resemblance between Bush and Hitler. Hitler was a megalomaniac madman who had only two things to offer Germany: passionate oratory and a disastrous war. He was also highly amenable for manipulation by his handlers for their own political ends. I was about to say that, well, at least Bush hasn't built prison camps for the Jews... but then I realized that he's built them for the Muslims, some of whom are American citizens. The parallels are kind of scary. (Well, all right, Bush's gift of oratory is far inferior to Hitler's. We are fortunate that this is the case.)

Thankfully, there is one other thing that Hitler and Bush might have in common: though the Third Reich seemed invincible for a while, it didn't last long, brought down in the end by its own policies. I'm observing the current Constitutional showdown with a sense of relief: though the slash-and-burn Rovian strategy seemed unstoppable in 2004 (when my fellow reality-based folk were getting ready to go to Canada), only two years later its foul deeds are coming home to roost. Just as Hitler's persecution, paranoia and war of choice came back to destroy him and his Third Reich, so is with the Bush White House, and hopefully, this one will cost the world merely thousands of lives and not millions.

We are to be thankful that in our case we still have a system (dysfunctional or no) that can topple a dictatorship from within, by legal proceedings, rather than rely on a World War to do the job.

Remember when Nixon said: "If the President does it, it's legal"? Well, it appears that this ideology has not only been resurrected by the Bush White House, it's also evolved somewhat. Now, it seems, the idea is: "If the President does it, it's MORAL." What's next? At which point does Bush's word become law? (Well, not like it can. But they MAY try, mayn't they?)

Your Honor,

I will keep this short and sweet. Please, realize that Scooter is a small fry in this case. I beg you to limit his punishment to light spanking, and to hang Dick Cheney instead.

Sincerely,

FreeProton