Sorry, getting all political again….

There was a great column today by the always rocking Robert Scheer about the lies and lying liars who make up the Bush Administration. Scheer's point is that since 9/11, Smirkboy and the Smirkettes (or is it Rummy and the Rummettes?) have used a strategy in which they make some big, huge pronouncement that's total BS but guaranteed to scare just enough bejesus out of everyone that people will support what they want to do. The press, of course, then goes out and hype it all up with the attendant logos, theme music, and breathless punditry proclaiming that it's proof that we should basically go nuke the rest of the world.

It works something like this- Cheney gives a big speech and announces that they have found recently uncovered documents claiming that Bill Buckner was, in fact an agent of Saddam Hussein and that he let the ball roll under his leg's in Game 6 of the '86 series because it was all part of some nefarious plot by Saddam. The press hears this and goes in full shark-frenzy mode. Does this mean that by not using Marshall Faulk at all in the 2nd half of the 2002 Superbowl that maybe Mike Martz is an agent of Saddam too? And if the evildoers have infiltrated sports, how do we protect ourselves and does this give Ashcroft the rights to arrest any athlete who screws up and send them to Guantonomo Bay?

Then, of course, after all the hullabaloo has been hullabalo'ed, Cheney will appear somewhere that guarantees nobody is paying attention, like on a news channel on at the same time as both "Friends" and "Survivor" are on or the Arizona Cardinals post-game highlight show, and announces that well, shucks, he misspoke when he said that thing about Bill Buckner. What he mean to say was that Saddam was a huge Sox fan and that Uday would often tease Saddam by constantly making references about Game 6 and would often call Saddam "your boy." This statement, of course, would barely register anywhere on the news, especially by sports fans who are too busy trying to figure out who the terrorists are and for the bombing of Yankee Stadium.

Or, the press might actually take notice and what'll happen is something like this. You know how I mentioned earlier that Cheney went on "Meet the Press" and basically pulled stuff out of his ass about supposed links between Saddam and Osama and that nobody except the Washington Post called him on it? Well, I was flipping through the channels and caught Chris Matthews on "Hardball" calling him on it. Or, more like asking his guest what he thought about Cheney's "alleged" claims. The guest whose opinion he was asking? Right-wing radio commentator and fellow convicted Watergate felon G. Gordon Liddy. Which is the exact right person to ask if you're trying to figure out whether Cheney's claims are right or not, a radio commentator so rabidly right-wing he makes other rabid right-wing radio commentators look like Phil Donahue. Hel-lo. That's exactly the kind of person you want for a fair and balanced view of the whole thing (err, maybe there's a better way of saying that- please don't sue me Fox News). Not so surpassingly, Liddy sat back and told Chris that no, there was no way Cheney was lying because, gosh darnit, Cheney would never lie.

Come to think of it, though, it does make some sense to interview a convicted felon who was put in prison for lying while working for a President about someone who is lying while working for a President. After all, who better to comment on the blatant lies of the White House than somebody who helped make blatant lies for Nixon.

I so need to get out of the house more…..