Kabuki

It looks like the GOP have closed ranks around their torture-loving Presidente. After a week where Republican Senators John Warner, John McCain and Lindsey Graham got to play "independent" and object to some Bush/Cheney Co. language with the Dems sidelined (some combination of choice and majoritylessness), they folded, I mean "compromised" today in a private session to create a bill that the White House is happy with and they can...act like they protected the Republic.

It's all feeling so theatrical, so Kabuki, masks and poses for news headlines and postures, faux statesmanship. A sideshow to mask the Bush/Cheney/Rove/Rumsfeld glee. Hey, why aren't we just talking about Iraq's accelerating descent into chaos?

Per The New York Times, it's "A Bad Bargain":

Here is a way to measure how seriously President Bush was willing to compromise on the military tribunals bill: Less than an hour after an agreement was announced yesterday with three leading Republican senators, the White House was already laying a path to wiggle out of its one real concession...

...The deal does next to nothing to stop the president from reinterpreting the Geneva Conventions. While the White House agreed to a list of "grave breaches"” of the conventions that could be prosecuted as war crimes, it stipulated that the president could decide on his own what actions might be a lesser breach of the Geneva Conventions and what interrogation techniques he considered permissible. ItÂ’s not clear how much the public will ultimately learn about those decisions. They will be contained in an executive order that is supposed to be made public, but Mr. Hadley reiterated that specific interrogation techniques will remain secret.

The fact is this legislation is not necessary, it's just a trick for George W. to put in the fix for himself, his cronies and underlings. Just like he transferred our entire buget surplus to the richest Americans through his bullshit tax policies, he and his mob are seeking to gain immunity for war crimes, both committed and future. He may have suspended habeas corpus already in Iraq, Pakistan and Guantanamo, but I'll be he's looking for more cover just in case we do let him get away with unilaterally invading Iran.

The way gangs or mob operations work when they get the votes is to shock their way by audacious disregard for establish law or civil custom wherever it benefits them to flout it and whenever they can. Since all the more civil folks are still playing by the old rules like, say, the traditional American interpretation of our Constitution, they get flattened.

Here we've got the defining issue of America, the republic. If our leaders make law circumventing the Geneva Conventions, we're no better than any other empire. Or maybe it's just us taking the mask off.

You'd think after six years of this radical activity the Democrats, the Press, the People, even the less ideological or corrupt Republicans might finally know the drill and even have developed strategies to combat it. Instead of folding their way into an unprovoked war on Iran.

Hello, October Surprise. Karl's ready, Cheney wants to be the second world leader in history to use nuclear weapons (our Harry Truman being the first and only other), and Bush has got his finger on the trigger. Maybe blame it on Iran, say we used conventional bombs but it must have set off one of theirs. Even though it's not possible -- they're not yet at that stage of nuclear refinement.

Gird yourself and for God's sake, speak out this time. Or else just shout out in our town squares and shopping malls, "Death to the Republic, Long Live the Empire!"