When President McCranky orders up those bombing raids on Iran, are we likely to wind up nuking, like, Ireland?

Why did Young Johnny pretend to be in North Hollywood?

by Ken

This falls into the category of The Friggin' Unbelievable.

Let me say that I didn't watch a second of the Republican National Convention. Even last night, I was actually kind of sorry that the NFL season-opening Giants-Redskins game didn't, like, go into overtime -- difficult as that would have been for my delicate fan's sensibilities. (Go, Giants!) As it was, it struck me as pretty eerie the way the game ended almost on the stroke of 10pm ET, just in time for NBC to switch over to . . . the other broadcast scheduled for that hour.

I gather, though, that Senator McCranky gave his big speech in front of a green screen that at some point morphed into a blue screen (which I'm told lends itself to editing in background images in exactly the same way a classic green screen does). And at some point, it appears, Young Johnny was seen standing in front of some unidentified palatial building, as shown above.

At this point, let Josh Marshall pick up the story, from his TPM post:

A lot of people were asking tonight: what the hell was that mansion up behind John McCain tonight during the first part of the speech? As I noted below, the TV close-ups only showed McCain's head against the grass in the picture, which made it look like he was reprising his famed green screen performance. And when they panned out, it looked like McCain was showing off one of his mansions.

Well, several readers have written in to tell me that the building is actually the main building on the campus of the Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood, California.

Josh duly posted both the above photo and an established one of the school in question.

Which still left the question: Why in tarnation would Young Johnny have been fake-plunked in front of a middle school in North Hollywood? Josh returned to this question in an update:

Several readers have suggested that perhaps one of the tech geeks charged with setting up the audio/visual bells and whistles for the evening was tasked with getting pictures of Walter Reed Army Medical Center but goofed and got this instead. At first I thought, No, that's ridiculous. This is a major political party with big time professionals putting this together. Nothing is left to chance. I mean, is this the RNC or a scene out of Spinal Tap or Waiting for Guffman? I still have a bit of a hard time believing they're quite that incompetent. But when you figure in what appears to be the utter lack of any logic for this school being behind McCain and the fact that it has 'Walter Reed' in its name, I'm really not sure you can discount this possibility.

To which an editor's note was added: "Special bonus snark: That's not stock photo keyword searching we can believe in."

No indeed.

Is McCranky's record off the record?

Now, until someone can provide an alternate explanation, I think we have to assume that it was indeed the medical center that the RNC staff wizards were going for, and that in their heads one Walter Reed building is the same as any other. This, for informational purposes, is the actual Army medical center:


Do you remember back in 2000, when it was blindingly clear to anyone who was paying attention that Gov. George W. Bush, despite the supposed crash course on policy matters he'd been through with all those outside experts (you know, giants in their fields like Condoleezza Rice), possessed approximately zero percent of the basic knowledge of issues that call for presidential decision-making? We were frequently assured that it wouldn't matter because he would be surrounded by crackerjack staff who would know.

We've seen how well that worked out.

Now we have Senator McCranky, who at one time or another has staked out just about every position you can stake out on every issue of interest to him -- except, in many cases, the sensible position. By now he's up to three or four positions on many issues. (So much for the theory that there are two sides to every question.) And yet it's impossible to find out what he actually believes on any of those issues. In fact, he turns, well, cranky anytime he's pressed on one of his "positions."

It's ironic that the senator should have tried and so spectacularly failed to associate himself with Walter Reed the medical center. It's emblematic of his gruesome record on providing real support for either active-duty military personnel or veterans. When it comes to proclaiming support, he's got one gigantic mouth on him. But when it comes to backing up that support with votes, his record is abysmal. On the searing scandals of the wholesale failure to provide anything like adequate resources for our military returnees in urgent need of physical and/or mental care, as exemplified by the shocking conditions exposed at Walter Reed (and I don't mean the middle school), Young Johnny has been AWOL.

What did Young Johnny not know and when?

Yet the Crankyman himself seems genuinely unaware of it. You can't press him on his scandalous Senate voting record on veterans' issues, because he never seems familiar with his own voting record. (He has a bad history of lying about -- er, misstating -- it.) To some people this is evidence of worrisome memory impairment. I'm more inclined to think it reflects rather a worrisome lack of interest in that tiresome voting stuff senators are pestered to do.

Oh, our Johnny does it, or at least he used to, at least sometimes, but that doesn't mean he paid much attention. I don't know, maybe he just voted the way his senior staff told him to. Or maybe he rolled the very same Lucky Johnny Dice that gave him Governor Who??? as a running mate.

I think it's possible he remembers so little about his Senate votes because he just never much cared about those votes, the way he doesn't seem to care about any policy issues except insofar as they intersect with his ambitions of the moment. Now it may be that he's going to care more once he's in the Oval Office. However, if we're counting on his staff to pull him through, we better hope they're not hanging out on a playground in North Hollywood.

#

JOHN MELLENCAMP-- SUPPORTING THE TROOPS, NOT THE BUSH REGIME WARMONGERS AND NOT THE WAR

John Mellencamp didn't play "Texas Bandido" or "Rodeo Clown," two songs he wrote about George Bush, a few nights ago at a concert he did for 200 wounded veterans and their families at Walter Reed Hospital. He did a sweaty 14 song set featuring bipartisan crowd pleasers like "Jack & Diane," "Hurts So Good," "Small Town," and "Little Pink Houses." According to the Washington Post "one can apparently appreciate Mellencamp's music even while disagreeing with his personal politics-- just as it's possible for the singer to support the soldiers while opposing the war they're fighting." The Post writer doesn't mention how he ascertained that the wounded men disagree with Mellencamp's "personal politics." But it's the Post, where an Establishment hack like David Broder is honored and esteemed as though he were a real journalist.

Mellencamp has been an outspoken populist-oriented opponent of Bush's worst excesses. He talks about and he writes songs about it. I doubt any of the tunes from Freedom's Road are on Bush's iPod with "My Sharona." It would have been great, however, if whoever loads the iPod would have stuck the whole album on it since the hidden last track, "Rodeo Clown," pans Bush mercilessly. "I didn't want to write about blame," Mellencamp explained to a journalist asking him about it. "With freedom comes certain responsibilities. You can't put Lady Liberty in a position by herself. To be above reproach she has to live up to certain ideals or the rest of us are screwed. I said it in 'Rodeo Clown.' It's always the same. It's rich guys making young kids fight their battles."

His concert at Walter Reed shows how very straight-forward it can be to support the young men and women fighting on behalf of the U.S.-- our troops-- while not supporting the war or the warmongers like Cheney and Bush. In fact, Mellencamp said it himself: "You can support the troops and not support the wa. If I can entertain these kids and get the people watching to think about who's making sacrifices for their country, well, mission accomplished."

If you missed Mellencamp on MSNBC's countdown, here's a 5 minute piece during which he explains what he did and why.

If you haven't heard John lately, here's a video always worth watching:

As the Bush regime makes a show of fake respect for "Army Families," how much do you figure the Pentagon'll be paying Halliburton for all those "F"s?

Longtime DWT readers are aware that we don't take kindly to the Bush regime's shockingly shameful, not to mention viciously hypocritical, history of abuse of our armed services.

It was bad enough that those vermin, puffed up with their megalomania and war-profiteering greed, put American military lives at risk for the sake of their delusional and bone-headed policies of unilateral aggression. But then to do so without making even a minimal effort to equip and supply those forces adequately, and to subject them to such grotesque overuse (in order to spare themselves having to confront the American people with the reality of their warmongering), in the process pulling apart the lives of all those reservists and National Guardsmen, and going farther than any American government might ever dare to render the country all but defenseless militarily, and finally--the crowning indignity--to treat our wounded and maimed servicepeople with such imperious disdain and ineffective care.

That alone should guarantee that every last scumbag who has participated in the formulation and/or execution of Bush regime foreign policy roasts in hell for eternity.

But then factor in the deliberate and vile hypocrisy, in the form of the monumental campaign of slimification waged by Dick Cheney and his America-loathing Right against authentically patriotic Americans who had the sense--and, it turns out, courage--to ask basic and obvious questions about those hateful and insane policies. For all these years in which the regime bullyboys have played on what they knew, at least in their lucid moments, to be a vicious and vile fabrication, that the questioners "don't support our troops"--well, can we consign them to roast in hell for two eternities?

Now finally, it appears, the Bush regime has recognized some obligation to the families who have been called on to make sacrifices that the Bushbullies would never consider making themselves. Or at least some obligation to Army families--or rather, now, "Army Families."

The customarily vigilant Al Kamen has the story in his Washington Post "In the Loop" column today:

Army Puts an Emphasis on Families

This e-mail from the Army brass was circulating last week:

"The Acting Secretary of the Army and the Chief of Staff, Army have emphasized that Army Families are a key component of our readiness. Army Families shoulder a great burden of sacrifice, supporting their Soldier and often enduring long periods of separation from their loved ones.

"Top notch care and support of Army Families demonstrate our sincere appreciation and gratitude for their many contributions, and allow our Soldiers to fully concentrate on the fight and focus on their duties.

"Effective immediately, the word 'Families' will be capitalized in all Army correspondence. Please ensure wide dissemination of this change. Thanks for your continued efforts to do all you can to provide steadfast support to our Army Families."

Also, Extended Tours, Multiple Deployments, Shortened Home Leave and Other Words Will Be Capitalized From Time To Time, As Deemed Necessary.

No word as of yet from responsible officials about the possibility of "steadfast support" for Navy, Air Force, and Marine families. (And Coast Guard? Merchant Marine?)


IRONIC POSTSCRIPT

I'm not sure "irony" covers dereliction of responsibility on this scale, but did you pause, while reading the above, to reflect: Why exactly is it, again, that we have an "acting" secretary of the Army?

Poor old Francis Harvey was just one of the (now rapidly) growing number of Bush regime hacks being forced to fall on their swords in the regime's increasingly desperate attempt to deflect attention--and of course blame--from its pervasive misdirection, corruption, and incompetence. Former Secretary Harvey retains the distinction of being the highest-ranking regime apparatchik to take a fall for the Walter Reed disgrace, a scandal that should by now have consumed the highest ranks of the Pentagon and then laid siege to the Oval Office.

A PORTRAIT IN REPUBLICAN HYPOCRISY-- C.W. BILL YOUNG, UNDERMINING U.S. TROOPS IN IRAQ, JUST LIKE HE DID AT WALTER REED

Like many Americans, it's physically difficult for me to listen to George Bush's defensive, whiny, passive-aggressive yowling these days. It's a really ugly sound-- like fingernails on a chalkboard-- regardless of the topic. I don't think "Bush fatigue" even begins to describe it. And nothing I do hear from him pisses me off more than his twisted Rovian talking points about how the Democratic Congressional leadership is trying to micromanage the war instead of letting "the men in uniform" do it. The hypocrisy drips from this creature's every pore. Every single time a professional military officer tried warning Bush or Cheney or Rumsfeld that their incompetent harebrained schemes were nonstarters, they were fired and their careers destroyed.

Today one of the worst Bush Regime asslickers, a worthless, honorless rubber stamp who should be driven from office by patriots in his Florida district, repeated the same line of garbage. We've come across right wing loon C.W. Bill Young before-- when it turned out that he made the conscious decision to let wounded American soldiers lay in vermin infested rooms at Walter Reed rather than do his job and embarrass the Regime. Today this sleazy apologist for Bush and Cheney is using more twisted logic to put forward the right-wing meme in favor of endless war.

The Army Times is reporting that Young is whining that Congress shouldn't manage the conduct of war.

Rep. C.W. “Bill” Young, R-Fla., said catastrophe always follows when civilians turn a deaf ear to their military officers.

In the 2003 run-up to the war, Young said in an interview, administration officials dismissed a top Army officer’s estimate that securing Iraq would probably require several hundred thousand troops.

“I just don’t think that it’s a good idea for us here in the Congress to try to manage the conduct of the war,” Young, a military appropriations expert, told his colleagues during a meeting Monday.

So Young thinks Congress should just abdicate it's responsibility and let Bush's failed policies spin further out of control, the same way he abdicated his own responsibilities to wounded soldiers at Water Reed? Bush and Cheney-- two of the least competent elected officials to ever get control of a military force-- haven't a clue how to handle the war they started in Iraq. It is Congress' job to get us out of the mess these maniacs have dragged us into. Young should be tossed onto history's trash heap at the first opportunity for being a shameful partisan enabler for these two criminals while Bush's puppet regime in Iraq falls apart and the increasingly anti-American insurgency goes, violently, from bad to worse.


UPDATE: DOES THIS SOUND LIKE A BUCKLE TO YOU?

In about an hour I'll be on a conference call with the House Leadership and maybe I should wait before I write about this. So just let me quote the CongressDaily:

House and Senate negotiators approved a $124.2 billion war supplemental spending bill Monday that includes a "goal" of withdrawing combat troops from Iraq by April 1, 2008, and troop readiness standards that could be waived by the president.

No comment... for now.

WALTER REED COMES BACK AROUND TO BITE BUSH IN THE ASS

I hope you haven't forgotten about the Bush Regime's Walter Reed scandal-- and about the young men and women serving our country who have been, in their time of great need, dumped there. With his photo ops, brazen and empty promises, and mindless happy talk, Bush has done all he could to put the "issue" to rest. Rove has been busy as a beaver getting it off our tv screens and off the front pages. But it's back-- and back at a place where neither Bush nor Rove will miss it: on the front page of today's Washington Post. And it's not more Bush happy talk.

A top-level Pentagon review panel has concluded that Walter Reed Army Medical Center should be closed as soon as possible, following revelations of poor care that the panel blamed on a "perfect storm" of failed leadership, flawed policies and overwhelming casualties.

...Even as they urged a speedy shutdown, members of the Pentagon group called for the immediate investment of hundreds of millions of dollars at Walter Reed for short-term infrastructure improvements and to address shortages of nurses and other medical personnel.

...The nine-member review board was established by Gates after the Washington Post reported in February about decrepit conditions at some Walter Reed facilities and shoddy outpatient treatment of wounded troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. The revelations led to the abrupt resignations of Army Secretary Francis Harvey and top Army Medical Corps officers.

Today's NY Times stirred it up a little today too: "The conditions at Walter Reed, including moldy, rat-infested quarters and a bureaucratic maze that left severely injured soldiers in limbo for months, have become a symbol of the government's broader failure to help troops injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. President Bush visited patients at the facility March 30 and said, "I apologize for what they went through, and we're going to fix the problem." Since then he's done very little, except promulgate more policies guaranteed to insure a steady flow of severely wounded young Americans into the facility and others like it. And every serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination-- not just strollin' John McCain-- can only say one thing about the Iraq Occupation: STAY THE COURSE.

MEAN JEAN SCHMIDT CHANGES OUT OF HER VOMIT-SOAKED GOWN IN TIME TO COME DOWN FIRMLY AGAINST THE INTERESTS OF OUR WOUNDED VETS

No one in their right mind ever accused Mean Jean Schmidt of supporting-- other than with empty and ironic slogans-- America's fighting men and women. From her first sally onto the floor of the House of Representatives she has distinguished herself as one of the most vicious haters of our active duty servicemen and our war veterans. Mean Jean Schmidt is the posterbeast of the GOP's disdain for the men and women sacrificing their lives for the Republicans' pointless and catastrophic wars.


Last week, drunk at a congressional St. Patrick's Day party she slipped in Rep. Michelle Bachmann's puke and ruined her dress. Today she was no longer hung-over and had recovered enough to send out a psychotic attack on the serious members of Congress trying to assist the men and women who have been victimized by Republican greed and neglect who had the misfortune to fall into the hands of facilities like Walter Reed Hospital. According to today's Cincinnati Enquirer Schmidt calls the stories about the horrible conditions there "overblown."


Presumably when she was still somewhat drunk-- if no longer covered in puke-- she wandered down to Walter Reed for a look-see. "I found the situation at Walter Reed to be overblown by both politicians and the media... While I believe that this building [18] is beneath the standard of what is acceptable, I think it is wrong to suggest that mold found behind an air conditioner somehow is an excuse to say that all of our veterans are receiving substandard medical care. It is important to remember that the building in question is an apartment building, not a medical facility. Further the building was scheduled to be torn down within two years.''


She has chosen to join other right wing Republicans in defending the indefensible-- wounded vets laying unattended in their own urine in vermin-infested rooms under government "care." Do Schmidt, C.W. Bill Young (R-OH), John McHugh (R-NY), Steve Buyer (R-IN) and Phil Gingrey (R-GA) just intend to keep sending Americans into battle unprepared, un-equipped and then just treat them like garbage when they come home wounded? These members of Congress are criminals and they should dealt with as such.

WHEN WILL THE ABUSE OF OUR WOUNDED VETS STOP? I THINK YOU KNOW THE ANSWER TO THAT

Yesterday we had a provocative session at Firedoglake, the object of which was to pick five Democratic incumbents who have been keeping their campaign promises and doing a great job. One of the winners was Louisville freshman John Yarmuth and almost everyone who was pushing him mentioned the work he's put in on cleaning up the disgraceful mess our wounded vets have been subjected to in the military medical system. And Yarmuth isn't the only Democrat in Congress working to fix the mess perpetrated by the Bush Regime and congressional rubber stamp accomplices like John McHugh (R-NY), Steve Buyer (R-IN), C.W. Bill Young (R-FL) and Phil Gingrey (R-GA). Nor, in fact, are congressional Democrats the only ones leading the charge for our wounded vets.

Several Democrats who are running for Congress next year, especially military vets themselves like Eric Massa (NY) and Charlie Brown (CA), are boiling with rage at the way these men and women have been treated. The palpable anger one feels from outside the Beltway on this is a lot stronger than from insiders. Charlie Brown, one of the most beloved of all our Blue America candidates last year-- and the first candidate we added to our list this year-- first challenged the Regime and its corrupt, rubber stamp rep in his home district (Doolittle) because of "the abject failure of Washington politicians to competently address America’s security needs and keep faith with to those who serve in our armed forces."

Like Massa and several other of the 70 vets who ran for Congress in 2006, Charlie is readying another challenge to The Machine. "In the wake of the Walter Reed scandal, it is the continuing pattern of neglect that leads me to believe that many of us will be back in 2008.

As I noted in my recent Op-Ed, the problem is much bigger than conditions at Walter Reed. This government’s failure to plan for wartime contingencies and post-war obligations to veterans has been systemic. The chronic under-funding of the VA Healthcare system, over-extending and under- equipping of our active duty troops, and the growing epidemic of PTSD, homelessness, suicide, substance abuse, and divorce among veterans past and present are just a few of the symptoms. While these challenges can’t be solved by empty slogans like “support the troops,” they can be solved by our sustained commitment to change.

From now until the end of March Charlie is contributing 10% of all campaign cotributions to local (CA-04) outreach programs that help homeless veterans (1 in 3 homeless men in America is a veteran), and other veterans in need get back on their feet.

Please donate directly to Charlie Brown's campaign here through Blue America. I might also add that Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA), the first Iraq War vet to be elected to Congress, and Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN), the only other incumbents we've added to our list for 2008, are also total hawks on making sure "support our troops" means supporting the men and women in uniform or formerly in uniform and not the foul Regime that mis-uses and abuses them.

IS C.W. BILL YOUNG GOING TO RETIRE AND CEDE A REPUBLICAN SEAT IN FLORIDA TO THE GOOD GUYS?

When the blame for the disgrace that Walter Reed has come to symbolize-- the horrifying abuse our wounded vets have taken from the Bush Regime-- get apportioned, and there's plenty to go around, I'm sure several rubber stamp members of Congress will be right up there with Bush cronies from the Regime itself. That blame will fall disproportionately hard on members whose jobs it was to oversee the medical care of our wounded servicemen and women, from real villains like John McHugh (R-NY) and Steve Buyer (R-IN) to a hapless and well-meaning chump like Florida's C.W. Bill Young. (I explained the case against Young last week.)

Yesterday Young, 76, said he has been contemplating retiring. This district leans Democratic and there is a good chance that if he does retire-- or even if he doesn't go voluntarily-- it is a possible pick-up for Team Blue next year. Young doesn't want to slink off with his tail between his legs. His wife, Beverly, is a huge advocate for the wounded vets and he's extremely embarrassed to have been exposed for, at the minimum, being in a severe state of denial. This week he told CongressDaily that he had "given some serious thought to retiring at the end of this term. I do not run away from political threats. If the national Democrats think that this smear attack, based on this big lie, will get me to retire, they don't know me very well."

The less than moribund Florida Democratic Party seems to have suddenly awoken to the opportunity making itself apparent in Young's district.

Democrats served notice Thursday they hope to make a serious run at Young's seat by blasting the veteran lawmaker for not using his clout as chairman and now ranking member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee to force changes in the care that injured soldiers receive on their return from Iraq and elsewhere. Former Rep. Karen Thurman, chairwoman of the Florida Democratic Party, sent an e-mail to 150,000 party activists that Young's "silence on this issue is a moral outrage" and urged them to contribute to the party and write letters to the newspaper. "Most Americans would agree that our heroes should come before politics. It's simple human decency, and if our members of Congress don't understand that, they need to be fired," Thurman wrote. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee last week sent Southern regional political director Bret Wask to the district to meet with potential candidates. A Florida Democratic Party spokesman said Thurman acted out of personal outrage at the Walter Reed revelations, and noted that her former district has one of the highest concentrations of veterans in the country.

He blames bloggers for his bad press on this and claims he's being smeared. The reality is, what he feels in his heart about helping the wounded vets did not get translated into action. He's elected and paid for getting something done, not for feeling sympathy. Beverly Young did a great job. C.W. Bill Young failed and should resign.


The DCCC is feeling feisty and aggressive and they smell a shot for a pick-up in Florida. Unlike Emanuel, whose only experience is fighting progressive Democrats, the new DCCC head, Chris Van Hollen, actually took on an entrenched Republican and beat her. Emanuel was good at attacking grassroots and anti-war Democrats and failed miserably when it came to electing Democrats over Republicans. Most Democratic winners last year won despite Emanuel, not because of Emanuel, John Hall, Carol Shea-Porter, Jerry McNerney being some of the most outstanding examples of Democrats he tried to defeat but who were able to overcome him and then the Republican incumbents. In FL-10 state Reps. Lars Hafner, Bill Heller and Rick Kriseman, state Senator Charlie Justice, Bayfront Medical Center CEO Sue Brody, and former state House Speaker Peter Rudy Wallace are all good bets to run whether Young decides to retire or not.

WHO'S REALLY UNDERMINING U.S. TROOPS?

Today Darth Cheney accused the Democratic leadership of undermining the troops. I haven't spoken to a single enlisted man who buys that line of crapola. Instead I got some information that clearly shows exactly who is undermining the troops.

This morning I got some even more disturbing news from the front. Aside from the regular stuff about how things are getting worse and worse, which one always hears from guys stationed in Iraq, something new and very ominous. The soldiers are being told that the Democrats are cutting off funding. That has started manifesting itself in reduced meals, reduced perks, signing for ammo on a per-round basis...

If this is true, it's insane! Are they actually trying to make it look like the Democrats are screwing the troops, something not even the most gung-ho anti-war Democrat would ever allow? Or are they trying to save money to make up for what they've already stolen? Or stretch their resources so they can keep the fighting going longer? Reducing meals immediately makes me thing of Halliburton profiteering. But they could also be reallocating money for covert operations or even an attack against Iran.

Or maybe troops like the idea of going over the Iraq without sufficient armor? And know that if the lack of training and lack of adequate supplies causes them grievous injury, they'll be dumped in a vermin infested hovel for sub-adequate care (unlike Cheney's private hospital at his home)? Congresswoman Solis told me she had just come back to the U.S. from a fact-finding trip to Iraq where she did listen to the profession Bush Regime propaganda specialists pushing the Regime line but that she also made a point of speaking to random enlisted men and women at every opportunity. Her impression: many of these young patriots were biting the bullet, doing their duty and praying they'd get home in one piece and in a reasonable amount of time. They were in fact, "doing time."

I do however, think the Democratic leadership has undermined the only troops Cheney actually cares about, his Halliburton shock troops of grand larceny. In fact, they're so undermined-- and so petrified of investigations into their war profiteering, recklessness, and theft in the range of many millions of dollars, that they're picking up stakes and moving to a safer place... safer than Texas? What could be safer for a corrupt corporation than Texas? Halliburton, meet Dubai; Dubai, Halliburton. Oh, you already know eachother? Oh.. that well. Who knew?

Well, the question might be-- aside from you really knew?-- who should have known and, more important, who should have done something about it. Pinocchio-in-Chief and his rogue regime found another poor schnook to offer up as a third scapegoat for their malfeasance and criminal incompetence regarding Walter Reed. Bush feigned shock and horror when told. Any shock and horror, though, was the shock and horror of being exposed for what a bastard and hypocrite he is.

Forget for a moment that top Regime supporters and rubber stampers in the Congress like John McHugh (R-NY), C.W. Bill Young (R-FL) and Steven Buyer (R-IN) were supposed to know what was going on with the care of military wounded were getting, did know all about the disgrace that a Halliburton offshoot had turned the place into, and chose to brush it under a rug and make light of it. Instead, let's look for a moment at Bush's desperate attempt to play dumb.

Although Bush can plausibly deny he reads newspapers (or anything other than Shakespeares and Camus), a major series in the Washington Post can hardly be ignored by the entire Regime. However 2 full years ago when Mark Benjamin first broke this story at Salon and then on National Public Radio's On the Media (with a follow-up on January 5, 2005), Bush and his co-conspirators could keep their fingers crossed and hope no one with a louder voice said anything-- or that the next episode of the Paris Hilton/Anna Nicole Smith roadshow du jour would overpower it, not just on Fox, but on the pathetic Fox imitators like CNN. It worked.


UPDATE: AND NOW WILL CHENEY CRAWL BACK IN HIS UNDISCOLSED HOLE?


Cheney's outrageous slander of the day was smacked down by grievously wounded war hero Max Cleland almost as soon as he spewed it out. John over at Crooks and Liars has the video.

"Where the hell were you in the Vietnam War?" Cleland asks the odious and oft-deferred vice-president. "If you had gone to Vietnam like the rest of us, maybe you woulda learned something about war. You can't keep troops on the ground forever-- you gotta have a mission, you gotta have a purpose. You can't keep sending 'em back and back and back with no mission and no purpose. As a matter of fact, the real enemy is Al Qaeda, it's Al Qaeda stupid, it's not in Iraq."

Speaker Pelosi can't call Cheney an idiot (too polite and respectful of the office). But she might as well have:

It is a disservice to our military personnel for President Bush and Vice President Cheney to continue to advocate for an open-ended commitment in Iraq, while brushing aside the advice of military leaders and the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, all of whom argue that the war in Iraq cannot be resolved militarily but only through diplomatic, economic and political means. As the Vice President's remarks today prove again, the Administration's answer to continuing violence in Iraq is more troops and more treasure from the American people.

The House Appropriations Committee will consider a plan this week that will take Iraq policy in a new direction. The bill will hold the Iraqi government to the President's own performance benchmarks, reduce the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, honor our promises to our military personnel and veterans, and refocus our efforts on Afghanistan and fighting terrorism.

JOHN McHUGH IS GUNG-HO ON SENDING OUR TROOPS TO FIGHT IN IRAQ BUT DOESN'T WANT TO SPEND A CENT TO TREAT THEM WITH DIGNITY IF THEY COME BACK WOUNDED

A day or two ago we ran a post about some of the wingnuts in Congress who have neglected our wounded servicemen, such as far right extremist Steve Buyer (R-IN), ex-chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, and C.W. Bill Young (R-FL), ex-chair of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee. Both were aware of the disgraceful situation at Walter Reed and other hospitals charged with looking after wounded military men and women. They have failed-- dismally-- to do their duty. We followed up today with a story about right-wing nutcase Phil Gingrey, a warmonger member of the House Armed Sevices Committee, who basically blamed wounded soldiers for causing the vermin and black mold infestation at Walter Reed by leaving food around and being messy.

No one disagreed with the jist of the two pieces or with any of the half dozen pieces we've run on this outrageous scandal. But I did get several e-mails yesterday from constituents of Congressman John McHugh. "How could you leave McWho out of your coverage?" chastised Sharon from Plattsburgh. "He's the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and, ultimately, he's responsible for this mess."

Well, I'm not certain that he's completely responsible but there's plenty of blame to go around and a good share belongs to McHugh. For one thing McHugh has a perfect voting record when it comes to health care for veterans and active militray personnel-- a perfect zero. In recent years there have been a dozen roll call votes on health care issues for our vets and military servicemen and McHugh voted against their interests every single time.

Clint from Watertown says McHugh "was in charge of the oversight committee for the well being of our troops at Walter Reed and all the medical facilities in the system. He failed our men and women in those facilities and he failed his constituents and he failed America. If he were in Japan, he would have commited sepaku. In our part of the world, if he was a man he would resign."

Several of McHugh's constituents, North Country Democracy for America, are planning a peaceful demonstration on March 17 to help expose his incomptenece and callousness. In 2002 McHugh was returned to Congress without opposition. In 2004 anti-war activist Robert Johnson opposed him and got 29% of the vote. Last year Johnson took 37% of the vote. Let's call that a trend-- in a marginally Republican district. Johnson forced McHugh to spend three-quarters of a million dollars to retain his seat, far more than he's ever had to spend before. It isn't unreasonable to assume that when folks in the North Country, regardless of politics, find out about McHugh's role in this shameful affair they will agree that it is time for their rubber stamp congressmen to bounce into an entirely different line of work.


UPDATE: PRIVATIZATION ISN'T THE BEST SOLUTION TO ALL PROBLEMS ALL THE TIME

No doubt Cheney's Halliburton pals made a bundle off the Walter Reed deal and, no doubt, plenty of Regime-connected politicians got lots of juicy bribes campaign contributions in return for the opportunity. But many people feel that at least some of the problems at Walter Reed stem from the ideological and avarice-driven rush towards privatization. Today's Washington Post points out a need for some long overdue scrutiny.

The scandal over treatment of outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center has focused attention on the Army's decision to privatize the facilities support workforce at the hospital, a move commanders say left the building maintenance staff undermanned.

Some Democratic lawmakers have questioned the decision to hire IAP Worldwide Services, a contractor with connections to the Bush administration and to KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary.

OK, WE KNOW THE REPUGS CALL US DIRTY HIPPIES BUT THAT'S WHAT THEY CALL OUR WOUNDED SOLDIERS TOO????

One of the most extreme right-wing war mongers in the entire Republican caucus, Phil Gingrey (R-GA) is blaming the wounded soldiers for the disgrace at Walter Reed. (He also blames the media for exposing the situation.) People who heard him say "if you leave food around in a motel room or a dorm room at a college, you're going to get some mice show up at some point in time" weren't sure if he was joking or serious.

The Center For American Progress has a tape of Gingrey's anti-servicemen rampage. What is it with Bush and Cheney and these damn Republicans who expect young American men and women to go fight and die in Iraq and Afghanistan without proper training or proper equipment and then think they can treat them like trash when they come back to the U.S., wounded because of the lack of training and equipment?

I just can't understand what kind of people-- let alone 71% of his constituents-- vote for a man like Phil Gingrey... or any of these heartless right-wing thugs. What's it going to take for people to wake up-- even in Georgia? Posing in front of an American flag doesn't make someone a patriot and calling the invasion and occupation of Iraq on the Colbert Report "the greatest America war," doesn't give you the right to kick the men and women who are fighting in to the curb when they're wounded. Gingrey, who, bizarrely, referred to himself as a "Georgia peach," is on the House Armed Services Committee and has the #1 worst voting record on Iraq of any congressman, anywhere. He also has the #1 worst voting record of any congressman when it comes to health care for veterans and active military personnel. Yeah, some peach... he should be thrown off his committee immediately and someone should let the poor, deluded folks back in northwest Georgia's 11th CD know what an ass they have representing them.

C.W. BILL YOUNG (R-FL) OFFERS HIMSELF UP AS A TARGET FOR DEMOCRATS NEXT YEAR: "KICK ME, I'M A JERK"

About a week ago, Adam, the DWT sometimes art director, briefly sobered up long enough to introduce me to a friend of his, a perfectly nice guy who has the misfortune to be related to a Republican congressman. Adam didn't remember which one. "What difference does it make?" he asked. "They're all the say anyway and my friend is a Democrat." Well, as John Aravosis over at AmericaBlog pointed out last night, they're actually not all the same. When mainstream conservative Chris Smith (R-NJ) was a little too pro-servicemen when he was chairing the House Veterans Affairs Committee, the GOP leaders removed him and put in a far right extremist who loves wars and hates the men and women who fight them, Indiana neo-Nazi Steve Buyer. Today Buyer is still doing all he can to continue hurting our wounded soldiers and vets. He claimed that all the fuss over Walter Reed Hospital is just politics. It just happened to have happened on Buyer's watch and, as Aravosis suggested last night "this GOP America-hater should be forced to spend a month at Walter Reed, in a wheelchair, with the mold, the cockroaches, the asbestos, the 3rd degree burn showers, sleeping in his own urine-- then see how political he thinks our maimed soldiers are being complaining about what the Republicans have done to them." That sounds so sensible. Can I second that? And when it comes to screwing returning vets, Walter Reed is just the tip of the iceberg.

But neither Buyer nor Smith is Adam's friend's uncle. Florida Republican C.W. Bill Young is. Until the Democrats won the elections in November Young was chairman of the uber-corrupt House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee (from which Randy "Duke" Cunningham, Duncan Hunter, Virgil Goode and Jerry Lewis abetted so many "generous" Republican donors in defrauding American taxpayers out of so many millions billions of dollars).

Young admits he was aware of the mold and cockroaches and asbestos and rats and all the little problems at Walter Reed calls "political." So why didn't he do something about it? He wanted "to avoid embarrassing the Army while it was fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan... We got in Gen. Kiley’s face on a regular basis. We did not go public with these concerns, because we did not want to undermine the confidence of the patients and their families and give the Army a black eye while fighting a war." That's what Young said. Like the soldiers and their families didn't see the black mold and the rat shit and feel the frustration of trying to get decent treatment? That didn't undermine their confidence?

Young represents Florida's 10th congressional district, all the white parts of Pinellas County. It's a swing district (Cook Partisan Index says it's +1 Dem. Gore had 51%; Kerry took 49%. The Democrats often run no one against Young or, when they do, don't seriously contest the seat. Last year he ran against a single mom, Denise "Samm" Simpson, with virtually no money and no Democratic Party support, and took 66% of the vote. Young has a garden variety rubber stamp voting record, especially atrocious on Iraq, and a flat zero-- terrible on every single vote-- when it comes to health care for vets and active military personnel.

Perhaps the Florida Democratic Party, one of the worst-run in the country, and the DCCC, now that it's partially out from under the clutches of Rahm Emanuel, can look into supporting a grassroots Democrat with Democratic values and principles against Young next year. When Howard Dean talks about a 50 state strategy, districts like FL-10 should be a given even before we start talking about heavily Republican areas.

WALTER REED: ANOTHER NATIONAL DISGRACE PERPETRATED BY A ROGUE REGIME

An old buddy of mine-- who prefers to remain anonymous-- called me last year. She's been going to Walter Reed Hospital and Bethesda Hospital bringing wounded service men iPods with music she loads onto them and she was wondering if I wanted to help fill some iPods up. Right up my alley! I guess the brass has kept her, Potemkin Village style, in the nicely painted rooms, with functioning windows and no rats or creepy crawly things.

I saw Bush on TV yesterday trying to cover his Regime's ass. It made me want to throw a shoe at the plasma screen. With all his usual excruciatingly whiny, defensive, passive/aggressive charm he was on the attack. He had heard about the rats at Walter Reed. He had heard about wounded soldiers left to sleep in their own urine. And he was going to get to the bottom of it; after all he is the Decider and he's been Commander-in-Chief for 6 years. And he outsourced the running of Walter Reed to one of Cheney's Halliburton cronies. So who better to solve the mess? And what better way to solve it than another blue ribbon panel he needn't pay any attention to?

After clowning around like a chimpanzee onstage, he addressed the American Legion yesterday: "I'm as concerned as you are about the conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. ... My decisions  have put our kids in harm's way, and I'm concerned about the fact when they come back they don't get the full treatment they deserve." He said the situation is "unacceptable." No one shot him. No one threw rotten fruit at him. No one hurled curses at him. He plunged on heroically-- what a leader he is-- "We have a moral obligation to provide the best possible care and  treatment [to wounded troops]. ... They deserve it, and they're going to get it." He won't tolerate these conditions. Is he your idol?

The vast majority of Americans outside Utah think his entire Regime is unacceptable and they no longer fall for the cheap and tawdry lies Karl Rove puts in his mouth. Almost no Americans think he can solve any problems, just exacerbate them and create new ones. And the care of our wounded soldiers is a new one, a uniquely Bush Regime problem, very much like FEMA. What Bush did for New Orleans is what Bush did for our wounded soldiers. In fact, as Bob Geiger points out today, even in the light of all the fuss and media attention over Walter Reed, Daniel Akaka, Chair of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, caught Bush trying to cheat vets out of another $3 billion.

The Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee last week renounced attempts by the White House to raise fees for Veterans receiving medical care and recommended an increase in funding in the administration's fiscal year 2008 budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs medical care allocation.

Senate Democrats rejected three Bush administration proposals designed to reduce funding requirements, through increased out-of-pocket fees for Veterans, and by deterring certain categories of Veterans from using the VA system, including the following proposed in the 2008 budget:

     •     An increase in prescription drug co-payments from $8 to $15 for "middle-income" veterans.


     •     An annual enrollment fee of $250 to $750 for veterans whose families make $50,000 a year or more.


     •     Eliminating the practice of offsetting VA first-party co-payment debts with collections from insurance companies.

Me, I'd trust Steve's fans with the welfare of our vets before I'd trust scumbags like Cheney (who still hasn't resigned) and Bush. More on impeachment later today.

IMPEACHMENT IS ON THE TABLE-- NOT JUST FOR GONZALES BUT FOR CHENEY AND BUSH AS WELL

Are the Democrats so crass, so cowardly, so unconcerned with the massive and unrelenting criminality being perpetrated against our nation that it will take a Republican to call for the obvious: the impeachment of Cheney and Bush? In the new Esquire Chuck Hagel (R-NE) brings up the I-word that should be Topic-A instead of Anna Nicole Smith, Ann Coulter, Paris Hilton or any of the other nonsense the corporate mass media is passing off as "news."

"The president says, 'I don't care.' He's not accountable anymore," Hagel says, measuring his words by the syllable and his syllables almost by the letter. "He's not accountable anymore, which isn't totally true. You can impeach him, and before this is over, you might see calls for his impeachment. I don't know. It depends how this goes."
The conversation beaches itself for a moment on that word-- impeachment-- spoken by a conservative Republican from a safe Senate seat in a reddish state. It's barely even whispered among the serious set in Washington, and it rings like a gong in the middle of the sentence, even though it flowed quite naturally out of the conversation he was having about how everybody had abandoned their responsibility to the country, and now there was a war going bad because of it.
"Congress abdicated its oversight responsibility," he says. "The press abdicated its responsibility, and the American people abdicated their responsibilities. Terror was on the minds of everyone, and nobody questioned anything, quite frankly."

This morning a powerful crooked Democrat-almost-as-bad-as-a-Republican, Rahm Emanuel, suggested there is a new dynamic at work in Washington now, one that puts genuine oversight into the equation. OK, that can only lead to one thing: first hand Cheney his resignation letter to sign and then impeach the other criminal, turn them both over to a tribunal for judgment and punishment and get busy now cleaning up the disgraceful mess his they and their cronies have subjected us to for these last 6 years.


Today the news is about the conviction of Cheney's top aide, Irving Libby (AKA- "Scooter") as the fall guy for Rove and Cheney himself, Bush's two top lieutenants, and about the absolute destruction of the Justice Department under the Bush Regime, and about the nauseating disgrace of the way our wounded servicemen have been systematically treated-- as though they were nothing but a bunch of disposable Katrina survivors-- by these contemptible criminals who have hijacked our government. No one ever says it better than Paul Krugman.

When Salon, the online magazine, reported on mistreatment of veterans at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center two years ago, officials simply denied that there were any problems. And they initially tried to brush off last month’s exposé in the Washington Post.

But this time, with President Bush’s approval at 29 percent, Democrats in control of Congress, and Donald Rumsfeld no longer defense secretary-- Robert Gates, his successor, appears genuinely distressed at the situation-- the whitewash didn't stick.

Yet even now it's not clear whether the public will be told the full story, which is that the horrors of Walter Reed's outpatient unit are no aberration. For all its cries of "support the troops," the Bush administration has treated veterans’ medical care the same way it treats everything else: nickel-and-diming the needy, protecting the incompetent and privatizing everything it can.

What makes this a particular shame is that in the Clinton years, veterans’ health care-- like the Federal Emergency Management Agency-- became a shining example of how good leadership can revitalize a troubled government program. By the early years of this decade the Veterans Health Administration was, by many measures, providing the highest-quality health care in America. (It probably still is: Walter Reed is a military facility, not run by the V.H.A.)

But as with FEMA, the Bush administration has done all it can to undermine that achievement. And the Walter Reed scandal is another Hurricane Katrina: the moment when the administration's misgovernment became obvious to everyone.

The problem starts with money. The administration uses carefully cooked numbers to pretend that it has been generous to veterans, but the historical data contained in its own budget for fiscal 2008 tell the true story. The quagmire in Iraq has vastly increased the demands on the Veterans Administration, yet since 2001 federal outlays for veterans’ medical care have actually lagged behind overall national health spending.

To save money, the administration has been charging veterans for many formerly free services. For example, in 2005 Salon reported that some Walter Reed patients were forced to pay hundreds of dollars each month for their meals.

More important, the administration has broken longstanding promises of lifetime health care to those who defend our nation. Two months before the invasion of Iraq the V.H.A., which previously offered care to all veterans, introduced severe new restrictions on who is entitled to enroll in its health care system. As the agency's Web site helpfully explains, veterans whose income exceeds as little as $27,790 a year, and who lack "special eligibilities such as a compensable service connected condition or recent combat service," will be turned away.

So when you hear stories of veterans who spend months or years fighting to get the care they deserve, trying to prove that their injuries are service-related, remember this: all this red tape was created not by the inherent inefficiency of government bureaucracy, but by the Bush administration's penny-pinching.

But money is only part of the problem.

We know from Hurricane Katrina postmortems that one of the factors degrading FEMA's effectiveness was the Bush administration's relentless push to outsource and privatize disaster management, which demoralized government employees and drove away many of the agency's most experienced professionals. It appears that the same thing has been happening to veterans’ care.

The redoubtable Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, points out that IAP Worldwide Services, a company run by two former Halliburton executives, received a large contract to run Walter Reed under suspicious circumstances: the Army reversed the results of an audit concluding that government employees could do the job more cheaply.

And Mr. Waxman, who will be holding a hearing on the issue today, appears to have solid evidence, including an internal Walter Reed memo from last year, that the prospect of privatization led to a FEMA-type exodus of skilled personnel.

What comes next? Francis J. Harvey, who as far as I can tell was the first defense contractor appointed secretary of the Army, has been forced out. But the parallels between what happened at Walter Reed and what happened to New Orleans-- not to mention parallels with the mother of all scandals, the failed reconstruction of Iraq-- tell us that the roots of the scandal run far deeper than the actions of a few bad men.

Meanwhile Charlie Cook points out that "one would have to go back to the Watergate scandal and its aftermath to find a time [when Republicans] seemed to be as disillusioned as they are today." He posits that Republican voters' apparent attraction to Rudy Giuliani, a man who stands for almost everything they despise, could be a "primal scream for help." Or are they just too ignorant to know what they're endorsing? Republican primary voters are, after all, the ultimate in the low information voter-- or at least the misinformation voter. Last month a Gallup Poll showed that only 17% of Republican voters were aware that Giuliani favors civil unions between same sex couples and only 20% were aware that he is pro-choice. (When told he favors civil unions and that he is pro-choice 18% said that that would rule out any chance of them voting for him and 25% said it would make them less likely to vote for him; that's 43%. They are going to find out-- either during the primaries... or after.

THE WALTER REED CATASTROPHE-- PAR FOR THE COURSE, THE BUSH REGIME COURSE

I hope our country survives the two more years of Bush's horrible, stolen 8 years in office. His is the most venal and corrupt and incompetent presidency in history. No one, not a Democrat, not a Republican, not an independent is anything short of disgusted with how grotesquely the Bush Regime has handled our wounded servicemen coming back from the wars. No matter how anyone feels about Bush's attack on Iraq, no one is satisfied with his attack on the health he has launched against our wounded military men and women. Ken and I have both been writing about the disgrace of Walter Reed Hospital. Now we find out that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to providing care for our veterans.

Monday's Washington Post paints a sickening picture. Torn gowns, broken wheel chairs, mold, mice, rot, a lack of trained nurses... this is becoming the emblem of Bush and his foul, stinking regime.

Stories of neglect and substandard care have flooded in from soldiers, their family members, veterans, doctors and nurses working inside the system. They describe depressing living conditions for outpatients at other military bases around the country, from Fort Lewis in Washington state to Fort Dix in New Jersey. They tell stories-- their own versions, not verified-- of callous responses to combat stress and a system ill equipped to handle another generation of psychologically scarred vets... Soldiers report bureaucratic disarray similar to Walter Reed's: indifferent, untrained staff; lost paperwork; medical appointments that drop from the computers; and long waits for consultations.

Sandy Karen was horrified when her 21-year-old son was discharged from the Naval Medical Center in San Diego a few months ago and told to report to the outpatient barracks, only to find the room swarming with fruit flies, trash overflowing and a syringe on the table. "The staff sergeant says, 'Here are your linens' to my son, who can't even stand up," said Karen, of Brookeville, Md. "This kid has an open wound, and I'm going to put him in a room with fruit flies?" She took her son to a hotel instead.

"My concern is for the others, who don't have a parent or someone to fight for them," Karen said. "These are just kids. Who would have ever looked in on my son?"

To give unending tax breaks for his wealthy corporate supporters Bush has made the V.A. system untenable. "Nearly 64,000 of the more than 184,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who have sought VA health care have been diagnosed with potential symptoms of post-traumatic stress, drug abuse or other mental disorders as of the end of June, according to the latest report by the Veterans Health Administration. Of those, nearly 30,000 have possible post-traumatic stress disorder, the report said." The Bush Regime wrecked the V.A. system and there is a current backlog of over 400,000 benefit claims. To Bush and his rich supporters it's all just socialism. The individual stories in the Post are heartbreaking.

So am I trying to say that Bush has something against our country's military? No, he doesn't-- he just hates people from the other side of the track-- all of us but the richest 5%. He has the utmost contempt for working people and the middle class that has made this country great. Look how he has continued to bungle the reconstruction of New Orleans.

My friend Michael goes down there for Mardi Gras every year and he writes a piece for my travel blog. "In its own way," he writes, "this trip was as lovely as all of my prior visits, despite the knowledge that so much has changed, will never be the same, and needs to be done to insure the town’s future." In fact so much needs to be done-- so many solemn promises need to be kept-- that the city has decided to sue the government for $77 billion. Residents claim that it was the failure of the Army Corps of Engineers to develop a river outlet into the outlying wetlands that destroyed ecosystems and turned the shipping channel into a funnel for surging waters when Katrina struck on August 29 2005 and that the Corps built substandard levees that failed to protect the city.

Bush is still mouthing meaningless platitudes-- "I committed to the people of this part of the world and the Gulf Coast that the federal government would fund recovery, and stay committed to the recovery-- while less than half the $110 billion dollars committed by Congress has been spent. And as my buddy Michael-- and everyone else-- points out, "outside the downtown tourist area, large areas of the city remain disrupted with violent crime and murders on the rise and access to healthcare limited."

But the richest 5% of Americans have gotten obscenely richer while Bush has been in power and vast segments of our society have come under unrelenting pressure.

UPDATE: WALTER REED SCANDAL-- CONGRESS CALLS BUSH ON THE CARPET

Jeff Feldman at the Frameshop has a report on the congressional hearings into how the Bush Regime has treated our wounded soldiers. If you missed the broadcast, Jeff's managed to capture the essential moments very well. He suggests we avoid falling victim to White House spin in the Walter Reed debate, discussing it in terms of our soldiers' experiences, not buildings that Bush can claim to be fixing (like he claims to be fixing New Orleans and Iraq). Jeff suggests certain words like:

• neglect
• abuse
• cruel
• emotional
• suffering
• heartbreaking
• people
• families
• Treated in ways "a dog didn't deserve."

And, Crooks and Liars has some videos up already, including one of Jack Cafferty who draws the same conclusion I did about Bush, Katrina and Walter Reed.


UPDATE: WHY DOES BUSH HATE OUR FIGHTING MEN AND WOMEN?

By the way, when did Dear Commander-in-Chief know and what did he do about it when he did know? And is he a lying sack of crap who should be impeached along with any congressman who doesn't work towards that end? Just asking. Cliff's got some answers... and some more questions.

The scandal at Walter Reed: What ever would greed-saturated (but never sated) crony capitalists do without a good old-fashioned scapegoat?

By now you've heard, I'm sure, that the commandant of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Maj. Gen. George Weightman [right], has been sacked in the wake of the scandal over conditions and treatment at the legendary (but now-decrepit and slated for shutdown) D.C. facility, which has been a major treatment center for severely wounded military returnees from the Iraq and Afghanistan maiming grounds.

And I'm sure you too responded: Yeah, I'll bet that's whose fault it is. That'll fix everything.

Well, as Steve Vogel and William Brangin point out in the second graf of their Washington Post story, General Weightman took command of Walter Reed just this past August! And the appointment of his predecessor, Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley [right], as his immediate, "temporary" replacement--

surprised some Defense Department officials because soldiers, their families and veterans' advocates have complained that he had long been aware of problems at Walter Reed and did nothing to improve its outpatient care.

So nothing changes. Oh, I'm sure we'll get some "reform" and fixing-upping at Walter Reed--whatever is needed to get the story out of the headlines. But I wouldn't expect a whole lot more. Because in Karl Rove's Bushworld, this scandal, like all issues of negative publicity, involves nothing more than an exercise in damage control.

At this point it becomes harder and harder for the Bush administration to shock some of us with its confounding self-satisfaction (based on absolutely nothing), its blindingly total incompetence, and its equally total disdain, even psychotic loathing, for anyone who isn't part of its inner circle of moneybags cronies and family leeches. And yet they do still manage to shock on a regular basis.

If the American people ever got wise to how much these slugs hate everything decent about America . . . well, it doesn't appear that we'll ever find out, because so much of mainstream America seems so desperate to be fooled.


POSTSCRIPT: DID YOU CATCH BOB WOODRUFF'S ABC REPORT
ON THE TREATMENT OF TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURIES (TBIs)?

The first 25 minutes or so of To Iraq and Back was devoted to the harrowing story of Woodruff's own remarkable recovery from his injuries in Iraq, which were far more devastating than I ever understood. (He's seen here with his wife, Lee--and the photo shows his "bad" side, the side of his head that was largely blown off.) From that point on, the program justified its billing as "Bob Woodruff Reports." Woodruff took over the reporting of the story of the country's well-meaning but massively underresourced treatment effort for our seriously wounded military personnel. (His own principal TBI treatment, by the way, came not at Walter Reed but at Bethesda Naval Medical Center.)

You can't not feel overwhelming relief and happiness for Woodruff's own loved ones at having their guy ultimately returned to them in something resembling his former form. Then you have to give him credit for making coverage of this story his "beat," for the sake of all those other men and women--and the untold number to come--still in desperate need of treatment.

And then, recalling how compulsively celebrity-driven our culture is, you consider that, while Woodruff is no Anna Nicole (of course Anna Nicole wasn't either before she died), his status as "that news-anchor guy who got blowed up in Iraq" is going to give his coverage a "reach" unlike anyone else's. And it appears that To Iraq and Back, along with related coverage of Woodruff's "return," has generated substantial response. (There's a link on the ABC News website.)


UPDATE: ARMY SECRETARY RESIGNS

The Bush Regime response to the shameful scandal at Walter Reed is typical: find a scapegoat. They picked Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey, who abruptly "resigned" today. Defense Secretary Gates actually fired Harvey because he was infuriated that he replaced General Weightman at Walter Reed with the even more culpable General Kiley, someone who was just ethusiastically endorsed this morning by reactionary America-hater Joe Lieberman.


THE THING ABOUT DAMAGE
CONTROL, YOU SEE, IS . . .

Thanks for the update, Howie. The thing about damage control is that if at first you don't succeed, well, you've got to roll another head, and so on and so on, until . . . well, until the damage is controlled. One not-good-enough scapegoat demands a better one. So sorry, ex-Sec'y Harvey [right]. Write if you get work.

Say, you don't suppose that he could be the father of Anna Nicole's baby?

And definitely check out Howie's link above to Holy Joe getting his holey head handed to him by Imus for supporting the war and claiming ignorance (as McCain had with Imus) of the mess at Walter Reed, and then claiming that the (re)appointment of Kiley is "a good first step," earning a really derisive slapdown from Imus. (This is the good Imus, the don't-feed-me-bullshit Imus, I listened to all those years before I couldn't take any more of the pompous right-wing evil Imus twin who took him over.) C'mon, Idiot Joe, if you sustain your living as a corporate whore by being a media whore, you've got to be at least a little bit prepared when you go a-whoring.--Ken