MORE DENIAL

Coach Hastert now fighting for survival as Speaker of the House opts for D.C.'s latest weapon of choice.... more denial-- Lack of any disciplinary action due to fear loathing exhaustion forgetfulness or any litany of excuses could pertain to why he didn't act soon enough to head off the e-mail scandal now threatening to engulf and defoliate the entire Republican Party and any chance it may have had to hold on to power in congress-- Republican operative Vin Weber implies the scandal is resonating sheer disgust among Christian evangelical groups who will probably not stampede to the midterm polls in support of the imploding Republicans-- If Weber were not so loathe to dispute the obvious he might acknowledge the sound he hears belongs to the blade of a guillotine being sharpened-- Then, again acting in consort, denial is the coin of the realm these days-- Something is rotten in the state of Denmark-- Everything is rotten in D.C.--

George Will's take on Woodward's State of Denial denies the book 'demonstrates that the president is in a state of denial' but the administration's spin doctors have effected such a huge effort to deny the denial that given the repetitive nature of todays frantic news cycles only perpetuates the question and further denial or even affirmation for that matter only serves to add fuel to the fire-- Clearly Bush's War Cabinet exudes a public facade of denial over the worsening mayhem ripening to potential defeat in Iraq even while Woodward points to the repeated highly specific and disconsolingly negative briefings Cheney and Rumsfeld have received-- The question one should ask is not so much whether Bush is in denial but whether or not he is in contact sufficiently often enough and interestedly deep enough to understand the increasing severity of this situation on the ground-- If all his attendant sycophants refuse to bear him the bad news, news potentially of possible implosive failure, what realities can the leader even begin to inquire of his messengers-- The President is in dire need of someone trusted and brave enough to compel him to face facts, rough music or not--

One particularly disturbing scene in Woodward's book has exiting CPA Chief Jay Garner briefing Rumsfeld on what would soon become three hugely tragic mistakes Mr. Bremer executed in post-Saddam Iraq and how they could potentially bode mission failure only to have Rumpot, the omnipotence of his deadly lectern now missing in non-action, dismiss him saying in effect 'Well there's nothing we can do about them now'-- Garner is then ushered into the Oval Office where Bush greets him jocularly much like he greeted poor old Hurricane Brownie obviously in a "Bring it on!!!!" mode inquiring whether Garner wants "to do Iran next?"-- Garner jokes that he would prefer Cuba for their quality rum and more beautiful women but he doesn't press for an opportunity to counsel the Decider over his trepidatious concerns and sadly Bush shows no inclination to delve into Garner's experience--

Will goes on critical of Bush's mistaken 'almost exclusive and increasingly grating reliance on the rhetoric of unwavering resolve'-- Sorry, George, it may be all he has to offer... adhering, perhaps at one of Kissinger's Kurtzian behests, to ideologically illusionist prescriptions and riding bicycles while the Middle East sinks into the scourge of flames-- A sidebar question here asks if Kissinger was on board in an advisory role to Bush aiding and abetting the stupidly over-aggressive and criminal Israeli attack on Lebanese civilians and its incompetently botched ground incursion against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon??-- 'Victory is the solution to the insurgency' so says Doctor K.-- 'I love the scent of napalm in the morning. It smells like......Victory!!' so said Wild Bill Kilgore the hollywood Wagnerian chopper-commander in the film Apocalypse Now-- The only problem.....Vietnam may have smelled like victory but it never resembled real victory except for North Vietnam and neither does Iraq and all the Denial in the world will not make it so--

Bush poised on the precipice of defeat of such magnitude the ship of state increasingly flounders militarily and economically and may soon run aground-- The Democrats at a loss for a salvageable agenda of its own....something with a salutary resonance hides in the dugout waiting for the other team to fail refusing to send its players onto the field-- Did America deserve the treat of this spectacle?..... Bill Clinton four years too late and three dollars shy entreatingly and whiningly confessional...Sure I failed but my failure was less than Bush's failure and them meanie republicans......-- Hoping to blunt full bore damage from Woodward's disturbing portrait of an out of touch White House embunkered in (yes, capital 'D'), Denial, Will disingenuously borrows one of Clinton's slick oft-employed media canards when damaging information surfaces simply claiming there's nothing new in the charge-- It may lessen the immediate commotion dusting up the blathersphere but fails to confront how portentiously it may define a predicate of objective disaster-- Will is correct though to echo his hideous dismay in Bush's oblivious question 'Where's the Leader????'--