Catching up

Yeah, I know. It's been a long time - 10 days that I've been forced to abandon The Hue and Cry, shamelessly shilling for a major corporate client in the freelancer's endless pursuit of income.

Indulge me while I catch up.

A great place to start is this terrific piece by the always mahvelous Star A. Decise of The Enigmatic Paradox. Dissecting the deservedly embattled Donald Rumsfeld, Ms. Star notes:

Rummy has become the model of a modern major failure. He came into office confidently promising to reshape the American fighting machine for the 21st century, but lost the bureaucratic battle and was damned to repeat the past; he vowed to "shock and awe" the world with American power but succeeded only in demonstrating the limits of American might.

Rummy isn't the only Administration official being justifiably battered for his shortcomings. An overtly angry editorial in this morning's New York Times takes aim at President Bush's ridiculous excuses for his complicity in the Plame/Libby affair, stating:

[T]his president has never shown the slightest interest in disclosure, except when it suits his political purposes. He has run one of the most secretive administrations in American history, consistently withholding information and vital documents not just from the public, but also from Congress...

This fits the pattern of Mr. Bush's original sales pitch on the Iraq war - hyping the intelligence that bolstered his case and suppressing the intelligence that undercut it.

Can someone please explain to me why this man is still in office?!

And speaking of Iraq, this IPS report (via Think Progress) says that the central morgue in Baghdad "is unable to keep up with the daily influx of bodies."

Iraqiyun, a humanitarian group affiliated with the political party of interim president Ghazi al-Yawir reported Jul. 12 last year that there had been 128,000 violent deaths since the invasion. The group said it had only counted deaths confirmed by relatives, and that it had omitted the large numbers of people who simply disappeared without trace..

Another group, the People's Kifah, involved hundreds of academics and volunteers in a survey conducted in coordination with "grave-diggers across Iraq." The group said it also "obtained information from hospitals and spoke to thousands of witnesses who saw incidents in which Iraqi civilians were killed by U.S. fire."

Good God, what have we allowed our leaders to do in our names, simply because as a "post-9/11 society" we were so irrationally terrified, willfully uninformed, and inexcusably vengeful? How have the actions of this morally bankrupt Administration served to reduce the risk that members of the Muslim community will wish us harm?

You know, I'm suddenly not so sure I want to get caught up on the news any more...