Insurge

What a difference a word makes. ABC-TV News anchor Charles Gibson reported last night that violent bomb attacks in Iraq were down to the lowest level since the insurgency began. Hold on, did he say since the insurgency began? If you track back a few years, to the alleged discovery of Saddam’s WMDs, say, wouldn’t the correct term here be invasion, or more precisely, “…since the United States invaded Iraq?” George W. Bush himself, after all, declared “mission accomplished” back then after U.S. troops attacked Iraq. At that time there was no insurgency, just the invasion. But now you see how, in time, by accepting and repeating administration propaganda — and in this case, one little word — even the mainstream media can make an illegal war acceptable to the mainstream of popular opinion. Since the invasion, there has been a surge in insurgents where none existed before Bush opened the doors and let them all in. Now, six years later, even after Bush's latest "surge," that’s all we’re talking about, insurgents, and that spurious little invasion is all but forgotten. So, what mission exactly has Bush accomplished?*

*Or was that Cheney, who had said ten years earlier we should never attack Baghdad because it would plunge the entire region into chaos but who, since then, has become considerably more oily?

Nothin'

Well, whaddya know? In an exclusive interview with ABC News's Martha Raddatz, President Bush said Tuesday he did not know about the destruction of CIA videotapes of detainee interrogations. The President said he was told just a few days ago, right after he came in from waterboarding out on the Potomac.

In a parallel development, following an exhaustive 50-year study of Republican administrations and their policies, the National Association of Gerrymanderists (NAG) has concluded that the most important principle a president can endorse for political survival is, "I don't know nothin'." As it turns out, NAG reported, this concept registers the highest levels of resonance not only with the American electorate but with the Supreme Court as well.