IF BUSH LOOTED FORT KNOX AND FLEW TO HIS ESTATE IN PARAGUAY, WOULD PELOSI PUT IMPEACHMENT BACK ON THE TABLE? MAYBE

It was all over the BBC World Service today, and all over CNN International. The pompous airhead whom conspirators and the mentally challenged call the president said he is "reserving judgment" on the destroyed CIA tapes. Does it strike anyone as odd-- like how about Bush-protector Nancy Pelosi for starters-- that he who should be judged thinks to puff himself up into some kind of pose of dignity and tell the media (with a straight face) that he is reserving judgment. Who buys this crap?

South Koreans just elected a right-wing crook. We taught them democracy real good. Putin learned from our political establishment too. He is reputed to have amassed a $40 billion fortune-- and the Russians, not exactly a democracy-loving lot, just worship him. He's in the same league as Bush and Cheney.

Well, at least the Washington Post has a columnist pointing out that the emperor has no clothes. "At a year-end press conference this morning, President Bush staved off questions about White House complicity in the destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes, refusing even to flatly deny that he was personally involved. Bush also declined to say whether he thought the destruction of the tapes was right or wrong."

The quote by Bush that is all over Thai TV today: "I'm going to reserve judgment until I find out the full facts." Will he then have himself arrested? The Post's Dan Froomkin suspects it is more likely to lead to the malevolent Cheney than to the hapless Bush. We'll see.

It's all highly reminiscent of Bush's no-comment strategy during the investigation of the White House role in the leak of Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA agent. Then, as now, Bush could have demanded that his aides tell him what they had done. But he obviously didn't want to hear it.

And now, as then, Bush can insist that he wants to wait for others to determine the facts, and then refuse to comment while an investigation is ongoing-- until the press corps loses interest in the matter.

Today, since former vice presidential aide Scooter Libby has dropped his appeal in the Plame case, the coast was clear for reporters to ask Bush any of the many important, unanswered questions about that case. But nobody did.

There's plenty of guilt, in the upper reaches of the regime, to go around starting with corrupt regime lawyers David Addington, John Bellinger III, and, of course, Alberto Gonzales. Yesterday's NY Times started the ball rolling. Destroying evidence is a serious matter and the media should be howling. Too bad we have a thoroughly politicized and utterly compromised Department of Justice. Let's try to keep in mind which collaborationist Democrats voted to approve this band of crooks as it all unfolds. This is at least as serious as Watergate. At least.