Of Wolfies, Bushies, and Brownies

Alberto, Paul, and Donald have a few things in common. They are “loyal bushies”, and bushie is loyal to them. All three of them chose to ignore what a few years ago was perceived as an act of common decency in public office. Traditionally, if you made a mistake that tainted your name, or the name of the agency you represented, common decency called for you to step down. But they are not you.

They all have been doing (or did, in the case of Donald) a heck of a job, and evidence to the contrary should, according to bushie policy, be shelved right next to the box marked “Brownie”, located in the last basement of an undisclosed location near Crawford, Texas.

I wonder why people are so hard on them. Poor Donald held on for as long as he could, and although he was luckier than Brownie, he finally lost his grip in November 2006. During his farewell remarks, he must have meant to say “I’ll be back”, but instead, he seemed to utter “Abu Ghraib”. It must have been some sort of mistake from his speechwriters.

And then, there is Alberto. He is also a good guy, though he suffers from bad memory and that is a shame, because you would hope that the U.S. Attorney General could remember a thing or two. Alberto however, doesn’t recall many things, which is a quality that bushie actually seems to value a lot. His bad memory has in fact increased his boss’ confidence in him. Alberto, we can infer, is also doing one heck of a job.

The final top performer in this nice little story is also of the bushie kind, though he no longer acts under the authority of the decider. Nevertheless, we all know that he is also doing one heck of a job, so much so that his lover is now making even more money than one of the heavy weight loyal bushies (whom I surmise, must not be too happy about this). Paul, I’m afraid, will soon be following in the footsteps of Brownie and Donald. Let’s hope that Alberto decides to join them in the near future.

Virginia Tech Grieving

Lots of thoughts. Sadness, confusion.

I don't know anyone from Virginia Tech. I don't think I could possibly find any links to any of them. Yet, I feel incredibly close. As a student, as the leader of a student organization, as a recently nationalized American. When the death toll began to climb on Monday, I was shocked. When final reports came in, I understood that 33 dead were a lot of people, a lot of families. But it didn't sink in until this morning, when I saw a collage with the pictures and brief descriptions of each of the victims....Gasp.

It's almost as if he had chosen at least one member representing each community in America. Each part of this country... Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Indians, Middle Eastern, French, in the military, young and old. "Alameddinne, Clark, Couture-Nowak, Lee, Nebrescu, Loganathan, McCain, Ortiz, Shaalan, White, Unidentified..." and the list goes on. Did he pick them? Did he shoot at random, or did he try to find at least one person from each minority, from each ethnic group?

I don't know what to think, I don't know what to say. I feel strangely American today. Proud, confused, sad...

The dog ate their email...

So, our incredibly efficient Homeland Security system still has its flaws, at least when it comes to gathering information from White House officials. I thought it was funny to hear that Karl Rove et al. used their Republican National Committee email accounts to conduct official White House business, thereby circumventing the record-keeping procedures that do exist for whitehouse.gov email accounts. As a result, communications regarding the firing of U.S. attorneys and other related issues have been conveniently "lost", and the Senate investigation might not have access to potentially incriminating evidence.

Right. Homeland Security can spy on everyone in America, listen to our phone calls and read our emails. I bet if they really wanted to they could retrieve the first email I ever sent from my very first account in Yahoo!, (which I opened over ten years ago). But three year old emails from Karl Rove & friends? No, those are "irretrievably lost"...How convenient. The dog ate their email, but I'm not buying it.