BAGnewsNotes

The Official Games of the 43rd U.S. Presidency -- (with apologies to the Olympic Basketball competition)

It's clear the administration has been having a ball rewriting the rules of governance while making a game out of the constitution. In honor of their sporting ways, we will be adapting the official pictograms of various events throughout the Athens Games to commemorate the highlights (or, better yet, "lowlights") of team Bush's presidential exercise.

Mr. Dictatorhead

The story that Iyad Allawi, the newly installed Iraqi Prime Minister, had executed up to six insurgents in cold blood, was first reported around July 16th. The account, written by a respected journalist, Paul McGeough, in the Sydney Morning Herald, was based on information from two independent corroborating witnesses. (The original article is reproduced here at counterpunch.org.)

In a radio interview, Mr. McGeough, himself, predicted little would come of the story. He felt that it required extensive follow-up investigation, and was likely far too sensitive a subject for most media to pursue.

If you do a search on the most obvious attributes of the situation, you'll find most reports coming out of Australia (or the American far left). Of the few mentions I found in the American press, the story was framed in the context of "urban legend," or as a rumor planted by Allawi himself to reinforce his own "no nonsense" reputation.

Latest BAGnews Cartoon: Pulling Out all the Schnapps

Big Day Approaches

The BAGnews Cartoon: The Lord And The Flies

Bush preparing for funeral speech like it's the Super Bowl.

You Break It, You Fix It

The Pottery Barn analogy might have been a little too tame.

The Cambone's Connected To The Scandalbone

What's incredible is not that the Pentagon is denying any high level role in the intelligence scandal, it's that their whole strategy has become so transparent.

Of course, Sy Hersh has been the lead flack catcher. (Sadly, the NPR profile I heard on him today seemed to go out of its way to make him look bad. Even more sadly, the best they could do was play up his personality flaws, highlight an instance when he retracted content just before a deadline, and describe a book he wrote as "dark.")

If you've been off the planet for a week or so, you wouldn't of heard about Steve Cambone, the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. Hersh has drawn a circle around Cambone and his role in the torture policy by tapping information from CIA and Defense sources. On the other hand, Jason Vest has written a piece in The Nation, along with a follow up piece, which basically exposes Cambone solely through unsuspecting public statements and actions.

What I'm starting to find refreshing is that the Bush Administration is so blatantly arrogant, no one even thinks to try and cover it up.

Dick, We're Not In Analog, Anymore!

In a wonderful opinion piece in Monday's NYTimes entitled "Tourists and Torturers," Luc Sante discusses the meaning of the Abu Ghraib photographs. In contrast to the conventional buzz comparing them to My Lai, Sante sees them as trophy shots, more comparable to pictures of early 20th century lynchings.

(By the way, I gladly borrowed from Sante's analogy between Nixon's tape meltdown and Bush's digital disaster.)

President of La Mancha

"This is my quest, to follow that star ...
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far ...
To fight for the right, without question or pause ...
To be willing to march into Hell, for a Heavenly cause ..."

Martha Stewart Sends Her Regrets

She fought the law ...but the law won (at least, temporarily).