This bulletin just in from Guantanamo: American propaganda puppetmaster Karl Rove has once again waved his magic wand and changed the subject

In breaking news, Khalid Sheik Mohammed has admitted that he's the one who fixed the 1919 World Series (and later bought black socks for all the White Sox players he bribed), and the one who kidnapped the Lindbergh baby. He's the one who shot J.R., and the one who told Irving Libby (not to mention Tim Russert and Bob Novak) about Valerie Plame being in the CIA. He also claims to know the whereabouts of Judge Crater, Jimmy Hoffa, and an honest Republican.


I bet the last thing you wanted to see again was this damned picture. Man, we seem to be seeing it everywhere we look.

Yeah, well, that's kind of the point.

Phew, what a coincidence! At the very moment the Bush regime is taking hits from all sides, suddenly Khalid Sheik Mohammed is singing the Guantanamo Serenade.

Of course from the tiny bits of information we've been given about the circumstances of the sheik's "interrogation" and "trial," it's clear that these "confessions" are totally the product of the most extreme physical and psychological violence it's possible to inflict on a human being short of murder. In a society that attaches even the slightest value to truth and justice, not a word of this would be admissible in any sort of judicial proceeding.

I would have no difficulty believing that our Khalid is guilty of all sorts of things. The irony is that the gang of psychopaths acting in the name of the U.S. government have managed to make him appear, from the legal standpoint, pure as the driven snow. Experts on torture agree that it produces not truthful admissions but any damn thing the torture victim thinks his torturers want to hear. That, in combination with his being denied every single right that our justice system requires be accorded to criminal defendants, makes these so-called confessions 100 percent pure, worthless garbage.

And of course, while we're arguing about this, we're not talking about the total corruption of the Justice Department (although in a way we are, aren't we? after all, how did Idiot Al "The Torture Guy" get his name?), or rampant Republican criminality, or the catastrophe in Iraq, or the scandalous abuse of our wounded and maimed servicepeople and veterans, or . . . well, you know the list.

Karl Rove the propaganda puppetmaster sprinkles his magic fairy dust, and it all goes away.