I'm no chemist but from what I understand the vial -- the one lousy stinkin' vial -- of botulinum that David Kay's team found -- after a three month, 1,200 person, 300 million dollar search -- is closer in chemical makeup to the botox that has so been liberally pumped into Arnold's forehead and Meg Ryan's lips than it is to its weapon grade cousin Botulinum A.

It's very difficult to determine which is more disturbing: that the central reason offered by Team Bush for the Iraq war -- Saddam's vaunted Weapons of Mass Destruction -- turns out to have been nothing more than what so many of us knew all along; an exaggeration and misrepresentation of a threat to the safety and well being of America that has few rivals in our history, or the shameless and pathetic efforts of its apologists to beating this thoroughly dead horse.

It can no longer even be questioned: The members of the Bush administration, and their legion of toadies, will say anything to advance their case. Just when you think they can't get any more duplicitous, they let loose with another whopper. Just when it appears as though they are finally caught in the web of their own making, they change the rules. Just when you think that their ability to outrage has been tested to the extreme, they surpass even themselves.

The current Bush administration will be remembered as one of the most dishonest in American history. Their obsession with "protect the message" is Nixonian and their naked and slavish devotion to the cause of corporate/private profit at the public's expense is reminiscent of the mass larceny which took place amongst land speculators and those involved with the Bureau of Indian Affairs during the Grant administration.

Now that the preliminary Kay Report has been released, rereading the following quotes (Thank you Josh Marshal, www.talkingpointsmemo.com) from two of the Bush administrators biggest "stars"shows just how distant these people truly are from reality:

"He will provide an interim report later this month, and I am confident when people see what David Kay puts forward they will see that there was no question that such weapons exist, existed, and so did the programs to develop one." Colin Powell, Meet The Press, September 7th, 2003

Not only did the release of the report do no such thing, Mr Powell's prewar UN testimony has now been called into serious question. Greg Thielmann, a high level member of the State Department's weapons team has come public in the past several days with the assertion that not only did Mr Powell "mislead" the American and world community on Iraq's weapon's capability, but that his tour de force presentation at the UN back in February was, "I think my conclusion now is that it's probably one of the low points in his long, distinguished service to the nation."

And speaking of low points what to make of this?

"David Kay is not going to be done with this for quite some time. And I would not count on reports. I suppose there may be interim reports. I don't know when those will be, and I don't know what the public nature of them will be." Condi Rice, Press Briefing, September 22nd, 2003

This is the head of the National Security Council, and one of the President's closest advisers, telling the world less than two weeks before Kay would testify before Congress that hopefully the report would never see the light of day.

This level of disassociation from reality is finally catching up to them and now that it has; the Bush team has an enormous problem. It is a problem which lies at the root of all their other problems. Their shell of credibility has been breached. It has not been shattered -- at least not in the eyes of an ever shrinking majority -- but it is definitely showing a few cracks. These cracks can either be dealt with immediately or they could very quickly lead to a scenario where putting Humpty back together again will be nearly impossible.

If a lie is believed then there is no need to prop it, you just let it lie and move on, but when the lie begins to show its innate vulnerability it must be maintained with all means available. This requires both that you repeat the initial lie as often as possible as well as create any number of ancillary falsehoods in support. If this process were represented in geometric form it would be a classic pyramid in shape; with one major difference, it would be inverted. The lies that come in support of the original lie do not "support" the lie in the engineering sense of the term. Rather they put ever greater pressure on it.

What will it take to topple this albatross of an edifice? I don't know but I do know that its collapse is all but certain.

 
You may contact Mike at [email protected].