Dear Friends,

 I love these silences, these times just before the other shoe drops.  In the halls of power hardly a creature is stirring - not even an Asian chicken.  Even the explosion at the Palestine Hotel seems a distant echo – hardly a Tet.  This is the perfect time for reflection and a time to take stock.  Tomorrow all hell will break lose.  Tonight Calligula sleeps the sleep of the just.

The cynic in me expects that the worst of the toxins in this vile stew may ultimately fail to percolate fully to the surface.  A best-case scenario will at least have Libby and Rove doing the Halloween perp walk down the steps of the White House.  Alert trick o treaters will remark at the scary monsters bring hustled into waiting Federal marshals’ black SUV’s.  Carrying this fantasy even further, dare we think that this Plame affair might actually have coattails long enough to carry a majority of the loyal opposition into congress in ’06?  Ah, when you wish upon a star…

I have just finished reading Tom Engelhardt’s essay entitled “Washington Implodes.”

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=990

 In it he carefully details all the slings and arrows that beset the current administration and with an almost obsessive documentation details the exact location of each arrow, its angle of impact, depth of penetration and an exact blood trail.  Like a primitive Mexican artist lovingly rendering a portrait of the martyrdom of St Sebastian he paints a complete picture of what the administration is about to endure in future weeks.

Another dispatch may have gone unnoted amid the swelling ranks of conservative critics of this most inept administration in modern memory. The latest deserter is Colin Powell’s chief of Staff, Col. Laurence Wickerson. His comments have been noted but something I found most interesting in his speech that went unnoted is a comment concerning the founding fathers and the reasons for violent revolution.  I quote:

“Generally with regard to domestic crises like Katrina, Rita – and I could go on back – we haven’t done very well on anything like that in a long time.  And if something comes along that is truly serious, truly serious, something like a nuclear weapon going off in a major American city, or something like a major pandemic, you are going to see the ineptitude of this government in a way that will take you back to the Declaration of Independence. Read it sometimes again. …and read in there what the founders say in a very different language than we use today.  Read in there what they say about the necessity of the people to throw off tyranny or to throw off ineptitude or to throw off that which is not doing what the people want it to do.  And you’re talking about the potential for, I think, real dangerous times if we don’t get our act together.” 

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/Wilkerson%20Speech%20--%20WEB.htm

Perhaps in the silence of this dark before the dawn you will allow a couple more observations.  A lot has been made of the outing of a CIA operative by the Cheney administration.  Let’s remember there is little to be said in praise of the CIA agency.  It has a bloody past, present and future.  I have always felt that as long as there is a CIA I can never have any respect for this country.  I am happy that this incident may just provide the leverage to bring down this foul house of cards.  Nevertheless, I have no love or respect for "poor" Ms. Plame or the organization she works for.  I think we have been stampeded into devils bargains with some of these scoundrels because of our fear of terrorism.  I daily have to remind myself that the FBI and the military are, together with the CIA, three of the greatest evils this nation faces.  They represent all that is inimical to the spirit of democracy and the very survival of humanity.

In case you still have any optimism left, I will wrap up with the conclusion of an interview with Robert Frisk of the London Observer by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now.  You must read the whole thing:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/20/1411211

“ ROBERT FISK: If you go to war, you realize it is not primarily about victory or defeat, it is about death and the infliction of death and suffering on as large a scale as you can make it. It is about the total failure of the human spirit. We don't show that because we don't want to. And in this sense journalists, television reporting, television cameras are lethal. They (collude) with governments to allow to you have more wars because if they showed you the truth, you wouldn't allow any more wars.”

AMY GOODMAN: …What gives you hope?

ROBERT FISK: (long audio pause)  Nothing. I’m sorry. Nothing. I’m sorry. Nothing at the moment. Ordinary people, I guess. Ordinary people who speak out. People in the Arab world as well. But in terms of governments, nothing much. I may be wrong. I may be too much of a pessimist because I've seen too much.”

As Edward R. Murrow used to say: “Good Night and Good Luck”,

Bob Boldt

…and as Dave Garroway used to say: “Peace”

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