WEAPON OF "MASS DISTRACTION"

It has not really been a good week for the Bush Administration. But I'm not gloating about that fact.

I'm wondering when is the American public going to be subjected to some event to distract us from what's really going on in the Administration?

For example, I can recall everytime something about GeeDubya that would have exposed his weaknesses, his faux pas, his plain old inability to just be friggin' Presidential, we either got the color Terrorist Alerts ratched up, or the news item that would have gotten to the truth was spun away in a rinse cycle I wish I had when I do my laundry. Tom Ridge said so; that he was ordered to "ratch up" the color code alerts to frighten the crap out of everybody until the crisis passed. But he didn't admit this until after he left his job as Homeland Security Director.

I wonder if he got tired, and began to think, "I'm an intelligent man. I was smart enough to be elected Governor of Pennsylvania. And I gave that up just to start a coloring book to guide Americans as to whether or not they should be scared of another terrorist attack?" Anyway...

Remember when Sen. John Kerry mopped the floor with Bush during the Presidential debates? And when the tide of public opinion was beginning to slant that way (if Sean Hannity said Bush blew it in the debates, you know dang well he did), lo, and behold, Saddam was pulled from his "hidey-hole" and captured, just in time to swing the attention and capture the fears of 59 million Americans (not to mention swiping a vote in Ohio) to propel Team Bush back into office and convince him that by beating Kerry by a mere two percentage points, that translated into a "mandate" and "political capital".

Yeah, right.

But lately, the distractions are coming more frequently. Almost to the point, we begin to expect them. This is a good sign in that, if we're expecting a media event to distract us, we can become more vigilant to keep alert to developments, such as a recess appointment of a wingnut judge, or some hair-trigger tempered Cabinet official like Bolton, to positions of power where they lack the competence to get the job done without employing the version of using a blowtorch to light a cigarette.

It didn't take long for alert Americans to start connecting "increased terror" alerts and color coded changes with the screwups in the Bush Administration. If we're honest, we got the first indication of it with the Project for a New American Century (PNAC)". Because that document proposal was rejected by Bill Clinton in 1997, the neo cons decided to bide their time and essentially craft an operation that is all too reminiscent of "The Manchurian Candidate". They had three years to find a politico dumb as a post and plant it in what is left of his brain cells, the idea to run for President of the United States. Meanwhile, we're distracted from the very fact that many in the President's Cabinet have criminal records, did time in jail, used drugs, alcohol, abuse their spouses, physically, emotionally, and sexually; have hangups with sex, period, and long for the days of Beaver Cleaver, and Rufus knew his place on the bus. The distraction was there to the point that the Democrats never considered filibustering any of these Neanderthals, and America continues to pay a steep price as a result of how well they represent our interests, domestically and abroad.

I know it's very easy to beat up on GeeDubya, because he's such an easy target! But in all honesty, I think something more sinister is going on here, and he's the authority symbol that was chosen to carry it out. Someone else's dastardly plan of one world order...or doing their best to bring Dr. Tim LaHaye's "Left Behind" Book Series to flaming life. By staging political media events, and not allowing real journalists to question what's going on behind the scenes, anything could be planned, strategized and implemented and we won't know until it's too late to do anything about it. Case in point.

For months, we're heard about prisoner abuses in Gitmo, and Abu Ghraib (we'ver nicknamed Alberto Gonzales "Abu Gonzales" as a result!). But when Newsweek published an article by the reporter who really did his part to trash Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky matter, Mike Isikoff, the White House administered a smack down that would make any WWF fan proud. Then they tried to order the media, starting with Newsweek, that any article regarding the abuse of prisoners had to be cleared by the Defense Department (Rummy).

In a recent press conference, Scott McClellan, is learning that you don't bite the hands that feed you, thanks to the vigilant bloggers over at Daily Kos (www.dailykos.com)

But before that story broke, the news that the White House, Capitol Hill, and other related offices were evacuated last Thursday, when Bush and a friend were out on a bike ride. The public was astounded to learn that the President was not informed of the evacuation until after his bike ride. WTH? Does anyone know how stupid this makes the Secret Service look?

Before we could chew on the stupidity of the Secret Service, the Newsweek scandal showed up. Probably to distract us from the can of whip @$$ that was broken out on Norm Coleman and the Senate Committee members courtesy of MP George Galloway. Although that public flogging was on National television, there's not a peep of it in the MSM.

Bush's approval ratings continue to drop. So out comes pictures of a nearly naked Saddam Hussein, cleaning his cell and generally being a model prisoner. Fresh off inciting riots in Afghanistan over using the Holy Koran as toilet paper, and further guaranteeing that no American should even think about going to Afghanistan in the next 30 years if they value their lives, someone had the bright idea to leak this photo to the press in the asinine hope that we would gloat over his capture and remember that all of this war mess was started to liberate the Iraqis. Not to remember that Bush is the leader of the Free World, and master of all he surveys!

All that picture serves to do is remind Iraqis that they are on the verge of Civil War, that they are not liberated as long as American troops are present, and that maybe life under Saddam wasn't so bad after all. All that picture reminds us is that Americans were lied to in order to justify a war; that deficits are at bankrupt levels never seen since the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, that our troops are dying daily as a result of the lies.

We're told that we should be concerned about Gay marriage, abortion, and fluff issues that any mature adult can handle themselves - but it is to distract us from sacrifices we're continually being forced to make because the Government is ordaining it so. We're told that it is for our own good, but the number of homeless continues to increase, seniors are worried about their survival and if it will depend on eating or getting needed medications, corporations are no longer offering workers the opportunity to pay into pension plans so they can support themselves during retirement, the instability of the stock market is where we're being told to put our Social Security, every child left behind in education, no health care...my God, I need to stop. It's too depressing.

But not when I remember that the staged media events, which occur everytime there's a dip in approval ratings, or the American people just may be waking up and getting wise to the fact that they have been fooled. In that moment, I can clearly identify a Weapon of Mass Distraction, and if I'm recognizing it, you will, too.

No, it was started because Saddam helped out Osama in the 9/11 attack.

No, that's not it, either. It's because Saddam had weapons of mass Destruction.