Left, Right, and Centered

I don’t know.  Maybe my sense of outrage needs a dose of Viagra.  I think most of my outrage was used up during the Bush years.  Speaking of used up and Viagra, I must share a quote that is reportedly from Willie Nelson on the occasion of his 75th birthday (which I have been unable to confirm as true vs. an urban legend): “I have outlived my pecker”.  Perhaps a folk genius of his magnitude would have made a superior Surgeon General. 

Look, I tend to agree with my blog-mate that the scandal of the CIA and Darth Cheney witholding information on a secret assassination program from Congress is a tempest in a teapot.  I’ve read enough Tom Clancy-esque novels in my life to know that there are probably thousands of such “black operations” that never have and never will see the light of day.  Whether the program in question had any merit is impossible to judge, since we have no idea of the details or even the rough outline.  Here’s what IS alarming, though: We’ve all become so inured to the concept of Dick Cheney running some sort of shadow government that no-one stands up and says, “Hey, wait a minute! What the hell is the vice president doing running covert operations with the CIA?  Isn’t that the president’s job?”  Does anyone seriously believe that Dan Quayle or Walter Mondale or Al Gore ever picked up the phone at the Naval Observatory and called the deputy director of covert operations and said, “I want so and so dead, and I want plausible deniability”?  Does anyone seriously believe that Cheney didn’t? 

The bigger scandal with Cheney and the CIA shouldn’t be overlooked because of this particular distraction.  Hunting down and shooting known Al Qeada leaders is one thing, and torturing prisoners of war is another.  There has been a persistent push from progressives for these abuses to be investigated and for those responsible to be punished.  Now there is talk that Attorney General Eric Holder is considering doing just that.  Which brings up another issue.  It seems pretty clear that Obama wants to let sleeping dogs lie where the torture probe is concerned.  Doesn’t Holder work for the president?  So is the tail wagging the dog or what?

As a final note, if you want something real to worry about, as opposed to whether a wise Latina woman might on occassion demonstrate more common sense than a rich old white guy (and I’m betting the answer is “yes”), or whether Sarah Palin has gotten together with Pat Buchanan and put out a hit on Levi Johnston (hey, hunting accidents happen all the time), consider that over the fourth of July weekend, the US was actually hit by a cyber-attack which closed down the servers at a few minor locations like the Treasury Department.  The suspicion is that the North Koreans were behind it, which is scary enough with Kim Jong Loonadoodle at the helm, but we were apparently lucky that these guys weren’t very good.  What if someone who was really skilled decided to mount a major cyber attack?  Go watch “Live Free or Die Hard” and spend the night wondering just where the line between fiction and fearful fact is drawn.

BW