Sunday digest, Part 1: Show me the accountability

no doubt due to my upbringing as well as to the fact that i have only resided briefly in areas of the world where the day is just another day, sunday always has a different feel - quieter, more relaxed, better suited to sitting around, listening to music, reading, smelling up the place with good cooking... but, like it or not, the world moves on... here's some slices from today that, hopefully, won't cause indigestion over brunch or sunday dinner...

when wolcott writes, he is like a surgeon making a precise incision... it's quick, it's clean, it's accurate, and your head can be severed from your shoulders before you even know it's happened... he reminds us of just exactly where the accountability lies...

Who do you think would be more likely to press for preemptive war, General Tommy Franks, who knows what the logistics, manpower, and materiel demands would be, or former undersecretary of defense Doug Feith, "the dumbest fucking man on the planet"?

I suspect Dumbfuck would be the more forward forward-leaner.

[...]

[T]he 82nd Airborne doesn't "decide" what the US does about rogue states. The guys and gals of the 82nd don't wake up in their barracks one morning and kibbitz amongst themselves. "What the hell, maybe it's time we took out Iraq. Let's get our gear together and requisition a transport plane, treat ourselves to a few kickass months in the Sunni triangle."

The 82nd Airborne goes where the Pentagon decides it should go, and that strategic decision is made by the civilian leadership. When the quality of the civilian leadership is corroded by arrogance, ignorance, and ideology, it is a formula for catastrophe.

the boston globe has a reminder too... this one about karl rove who i think, as i have stated ad nauseam, is a pure dark force...

Rove's career, even before he became Bush's deputy chief of staff, is rich with reasons to think his motives in helping to identify Plame as a CIA agent were far darker.

[...]

Rove's record has been consistent. Over 35 years, he has been a master of dirty tricks, divisiveness, innuendo, manipulation, character assassination, and roiling partisanship.

the nyt weighs in with more on accountability or, to be specific, the total lack of it...

After four and a half years, we have come to expect the Bush administration to refuse to hold anyone of stature accountable for errors, misdeeds or even potential violations of the law. The bungling of the war in Iraq and the abuse of prisoners at military camps both come to mind. But the inspector general's report on the failures of the Central Intelligence Agency before the 9/11 attacks elevates evasion of responsibility to a new level.

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