...this is VERY much like the "Potemkin Villages" erected by the Nazis to fool the world during World War II. This was most recently described in this past Sunday's 60 Minutes report called "Brundibar: How The Nazis Conned The World". Here are the first passages from this report, as published online:

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(CBS) How did the Nazis manage to kill six million Jews and keep so much of the world in the dark? Part of the answer can be found when looking at the history of a concentration camp called Theresienstadt, in what was Czechoslovakia. Near the end of the war, the Nazis used the camp to con the world.

Reports had begun circulating in allied capitals that the Nazis were exterminating Jews. The Nazis wanted to refute those reports, so they took this one camp and turned it, if ever so briefly, into a model town. They shot a movie there to prove how good they treated the Jews and invited the Red Cross to inspect it.

Central to the deception was the performance of a children's opera called "Brundibar." The opera survived the war and so did a few members of its cast. They are in their mid-70s now and a few months ago, they invited 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon to spend some time with them.

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As Yogi Berra might say, "Deja vu all over again!" How sad to realize that leaders of all political stripes, desperate to maintain their power and avoid responsibility, fall into this trap over and over again. And sadder still to recognize that a large portion of the public doesn't value the spotlight of a free press being trained on the excesses and mistakes of OUR GOVERNMENT, which acts in OUR names and by OUR authority.

To "anonymous" -- I didn't mean to imply that Nazis invented the Potemkin Village concept, although I can see that my earlier post might be interpreted that way. I'd intentionally placed the phrase in quotes to indicate this was a World War II update on the older Russian concept -- but in any case, clarity is always good, and the item I wrote wasn't perfectly clear.

...Cheney wouldn't recognize the truth if someone shot him between the eyes with it.

"The Marines hunger for training? Then let them train in the desert!"

...on the fingers of a soldier who lost both arms in Iraq.

Ron Suskind reported in 2004 that a White House "senior adviser" told him:

"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

That's Cheney's attitude, through and through. Wonder if he was the "senior adviser" then, just as he was obviously talking to the press "on background" last week?

How ironic -- Oscar Wilde, that notorious "faggot" (or bisexual, homosexual, pederast or whatever he was), knew EXACTLY what Ann Coulter is all about:

"There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."

Dear, sweet Ann personifies this approach to political life. The problem is, in order to stay "on top" (so to speak -- no slur intended about Ann's personal behavior or preferences!), an outrageous person must say ever-more outrageous things. Otherwise, you risk becoming yesterday's news, as other people pass you by and leave you breathing their rhetorical dust.

She may now finally be realizing you CAN be too outrageous -- that there actually IS a limit to what you can say or do. Sad that it took so long for this repudiation by her historic supporters and enablers, even if it's incomplete and basically insincere.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- At least three major companies want their ads pulled from Ann Coulter's Web site, following customer complaints about the right-wing commentator referring to Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards as a "faggot."

Verizon, Sallie Mae and Georgia-based NetBank each said they didn't know their ads were on AnnCoulter.com until they received the complaints.

I think we DO need to move on from this -- after all, Scooter Libby is just the tip of the iceberg. Now comes the hard part, exposing the rest of that rancid iceberg -- the entire Bush administration.

Subpoenas are starting to flow from Congressional committees that are finally fulfilling their constitutional oversight role. Let the chips fall where they may -- it's long overdue.

Scooter Libby and the Plame affair were never much more than a sideshow -- fascinating, but still just a sideshow. However, as the old Chinese proverb puts it, a trip of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Libby represents that first real step.

Let the journey begin!

Regarding this White House: "A foolish inconsistency is the hallmark of small minds."

NO ONE should expect anything else from THIS White House crowd. They've never been about logic, consistency or real justice. They're all about maintaining raw power at any cost, and have taken it to levels never dreamed by any previous administration.

No doubt they'll continue to avoid talking about the Libby case right up to the day when his presidential pardon is issued, justifying it by fuzzy claims that it's an "ongoing legal matter" precisely BECAUSE a pardon is a possibility that cannot be discussed or dismissed. And no doubt the pardon will be issued right after Election Day (Tuesday, November 4, 2008), since legal appeals will allow Libby and the White House to wait out the clock until then. He'll never spend one day in jail.