Either the White House has lost the capacity to lie effectively, or they've never had this capacity or they probably have now lied themselves into a corner. I must say, it's very entertaining to hear the spokespeople blurt out stupid things and then squirm like snakes on the hayfork and embarrassing themselves further.

Mind you, given the horrid state of our Nation as a result of this administration's policies, watching them embarrass themselves is a consolation prize at best. But if we must fall down in ruin this century, at least the criminals responsible will be revealed in their lunacy and the generations to come won't judge us too harshly. And if they do, we can always use the Mad King George III excuse.

While the behavior of ABC news is, in their words, "outrageous" it is nevertheless nothing new. Successful institutions always seem to think that they owe their success to some sort of Inalienable Divine Right (tm) as opposed to continued hard work and incessant vigilance over their own conduct. It is no wonder that they become corrupt.

If you think about it, the United States government suffers from the same malady. After all, the presumption that we would be "greeted as liberators" in Iraq stemmed from the presumption that we were better than the Iraqis by the very virtue of being Americans. The question of why Americans are so great never seems to enter our Leader's mind. Americans have always been great. This is what the Romans had said shortly before their fall. I don't mean to sound poetic, but the scandalous behavior of some of America's journalists is not a disease but merely a symptom of a general decline.

On the subject of "Trust but verify". Someone said that they're loth to agree with Reagan on this matter, but I have to say that Reagan, in his now famous speech, actually quoted a Russian provert... in pretty terrible Russian, I must say. So, when you speak of trusting but verifying, you are not echoing Reagan, but dipping into the centuries of Russian folk wisdom. Which ain't that bad.

Now... wait. "Notes from the Underbelly". Explain this please (and use small words, so that my pea-sized male brain doesn't implode from all that thar vocabulary): WHY is a show about pregnancy and motherhood called that? Never mind the obvious questions: is the fetus taking notes? Is Stewie from Family Guy finally starting his own show? No no. My question is: what does Dostoevsky have to do with childbirth? How can "the rambling memoirs of a bitter, isolated, unnamed narrator (generally referred to by critics as the Underground Man) who is a retired civil servant living in St. Petersburg" in any way have a connection to pregnant women "blathering about epidurials"? Who came up with this thing?

(Clearly someone who went to college and probably hated their History of the Enlightenment course. Or perhaps it's someone who thinks they're awfully clever because they went to college and probably hated their History of the Enlightenment course. Or maybe it's due to a Fortuitous Alignment of the Spheres (tm). How the heck would I know?)

On the other hand, perhaps in one of the later episodes (that kicks off a whole arc, most likely) a seven-month fetus is suddently going to start pacing within "the Underbelly" and ranting about the evils of the Anglo-French Utilitarianism. Aww yeah! (Maybe then I'll actually watch it.)

I am strongly reminded of a dictator who is finished but refuses to realize it. He is so wrapped up in his own idea of his god-hood (reinforced, when he is seized by a rare fit of self-doubt, by the flatter of his handlers) that he is blind to everything else. At this point, he wages a mythical war on terror with mythical divisions of nonexistent (but energized) volunteers. He might as well sit in a room and push around toy soldiers. In fact, that's what he should do. I revise my earlier statements: this man belongs not in a jail but in a mental institution. They can give him a big map of the world and he can spend his days sticking pins into one country after another, pretending that yet another "failed state" has succumbed to the "Democracy on the march". And the army of the self-important media pundits can then go on closed-circuit TV (that he would watch obsessively) and talk about what a great and effective leader he is and how grateful the Iraqis (and then the Iranians, the North Koreans, the Russians and the rest of the barbarous world) are to have America teaching them how to live.

Oh, but a man may dream. A man may dream.