SLAM DRUNK

There were at most a handful of administration players in the room-- George Tenet prefers to feign ignorance and a lack of concern about who leaked his celebrated 'Slam Drunk comment to consummate DC insider Bob Woodward (who was only too happy to curry favor from the Bushie crowd facilitating a deflection of public opinion by implicating the inept Tenet as a scapegoat for failure to find WMD's in Iraq) but was quick to peddle his abused integrity playing the victim card, "the most despicable thing that ever happened" to him.-- Since the promotional copy coming from the recent 60 Minutes interview with Medal of Freedom recipient and former CIA Director Tenet did not identify any of the potential leakers, it would appear Tenet is seeking Justice for his outraged bureaucratic sensibilities a whole lot less than drumming up potential book sales--

The 'woe is me' Tenet whines, "And the hardest part of all this has been just listening to this for almost three years, listening to the vice president go on Meet the Press on the fifth year [anniversary] of 9/11 and say, 'Well, George Tenet said slam dunk' as if he needed me to say 'slam dunk' to go to war with Iraq"........-- Never mind that 3500 American troops have had their young lives snuffed-out and tens of thousands more have met grievous wounds and psychological maiming-- Never mind 3 million Iraq refugees have lost their homes and jobs and family roots and a half million more have lost the breath of their life to boot-- The 'hardest part of all this' for the self-pitying Director of the Central Intelligence Agency ensconced in the air-conditioned comfort of his mahogany foxhole was not watching the the administration's incompetent war efforts implode in the insurgent dust of murderous Iraq and the subsequent devolution of American influence and stature worldwide but the VP Cheney's Machiavellian mis-characterization of a superficial cavalier soundbite to help sell a bogus threat as a rationale for pre-emptive eternal war--

"........And you listen to that and they never let it go. I mean, I became campaign talk. I was a talking point. 'Look at the idiot [who] told us and we decided to go to war.' -- What narcissistic pap!!!-- Beaming in the presence of the Decider in Chief, Mr. Tenet accepted his Medal of Freedom proud of his contribution enabling the Neocons' Project for a New American Century even as earmarks began to appear signaling an emergent insurgency quite capable of inflicting serious damage up to and including stalemate to occupation troops while the evidence of security problems countrywide became more and more visible-- Intel concerns had shifted from making a phony case for pre-emptive attack to administrative denial of Iraq's burgeoning insurgency but by then Tenet was gone--

For three years Mr. Tenet, incredibly, endured this malignant affront to his dignity and professional integrity in absolute silence-- 'Slam Dunk' now gets bandied about in mockery and verbal parody of any effort that overstates any case with faux and facile certitude-- Mr. Tenet's intellectual and professional reputation is now nil-- His ridiculous denials of torture strain credibility but the success of the "alternative techniques" he, now, endorses as being more intel-productive than anything his CIA effort was able to achieve over the years-- Why not challenge Cheney's misrepresentation immediately??-- Why wait three years to defend yourself??-- Why accept the medal??-- You went along to get along, crybaby!!--

That Cheney or Rummy or Rover or even Bush would seek to shift blame for the Iraq disaster to Tenet is not beyond the realm of possibility but entirely feasible and quite probable-- Imagine boss Cheney nodding as Bush nervously looking for a fall guy asks 'Hell,..... I mean,..... Why not stick Tenet's head in the meat-grinder?'-- The question suspended from a momentary eternity until......... "After all,...... he..... is...... a Clinton holdover"......... breaks the overwhelmingly unbearable silence-- The voice behind the White House curtain belongs to Woodward to which the grinning smirking Decider replies, "Slam Drunk"--

BLEAK HOUSE

It will now require nearly 8 months to whittle down the outstanding inventory of houses currently for sale nationwide, a 30% rise from a year ago-- Extant headlines everywhere seem to echo the gloom as existing home sales plummeted downward at the quickest rate (three times faster than expectations) in 18.........yes, eighteen....... years while home prices came in second in the downshifting race plunging at the steepest rate in 13 years-- Crumbling Consumer Confidence, a notoriously fickle number usually based on sentiment and/or exuberant moods induced by the prospects of another credit-binge, finished a distant third pegged at numbers not witnessed since last August-- The Conference Board said its Consumer Confidence Index drooped below their own economists' already negative expectations for the 6 month outlook while its Present Situation Index also declined for the first time in 6 months-- Optimism looks to be running on empty--

Fed Chairman Bernanke looks pinioned between the proverbial rock and the hard place-- Does he raise interest rates to protect the crumbling dollar cookie, recently reaching twenty year lows against the Brit Pound and on the lower rungs on the Euro ladder nearly an all-time record, risking a death blow to the local economy (recently fueled to faux euphoria by fading dollars) or does he lower rates deploying into hyper-inflationary terrain in a vain attempt at salvaging the seriously slowing domestic economy(being hammered by the humbled Housing bubble's puncture) while risking the collapse of the entire globalist system-- Double trouble on the home-front as well as worldwide considering large stakeholders in the weak American currency may seek greener returns elsewhere-- The threat that foreign capital may take flight is both real and serious-- Are the brood of elitist vipers locked in paralytic stupor at the Federal Reserve's arcane temple soliloquizing, 'To fish or cut bait??--

Protectionist volleys have been fired across the bow of the Chinese media-piracy ship by wounded Hollywood hotheads unconcerned in their myopic hubris that our slowing economic and political system might be inescapably held captive by Chinese financial credit-- While Confucious may have once allowed it wisdom for a dog to bite the hand that feeds it poison, the dog must actually be in position to deliver his fangs to its intended target and it must reasonably assume it can depart the premises without incurring damaging wrath from the other hand-- Wisdom Washington clearly failed to apply when it unleashed Shock and Awe quagmiring itself into oil rich Iraq between two religious sects bent on murdering and torturing each other non-stop as well as young American troops whenever the opportunity avails itself-- A penny borrowed is not synonymous with a penny earned!!!!!--

The Decider rattles his veto threat and the demies demand deadlines for troop withdrawal in a strange absurdist dance being played out in slow motion as the only game in DC but US currency reserves larded Chinese coffers last quarter to a tune of $1.2 trillion...... no small amount of power even calculating their globally diminishing value-- The Chinese Government now holds trump but appears at least temporarily content to continue the increasingly costlier subsidizing of the nightmarish misadventure in Iraq as well as the ongoing American consumer's feeding frenzy at the credit trough-- Opting for craven indebtedness alleviates most directorial options on the control panel in the boardrooms of Manifest Destiny--

Gasoline for May delivery surged 3.3% in New York, more than 7 cents, to $2.2826/gal., an 8 month high and the summer driving season only beginning to kick in-- Over the past month alone, gasoline prices skyrocketed 11%-- Inventories are at 18 month lows-- Operational capacity at refineries came in down nearly 3 full percentage points when experts had forecast an increase-- These earmarks bode serious trouble for those whose manifest difficulty in meeting monthly house payments continue to swell the mounting rolls of foreclosure, default and delinquency-- Commuters have no options but to drive themselves ever onward toward insolvency-- Everywhere the ghost of Tom Joad wonders how to escape the crushing load of magnum debt and the liability chains of negative equity at ground zero--

One winces sharply when the largest US home builder, D R Horton reveals an income loss of 85% for the first quarter-- New home orders down 37% for the quarter took nearly a $2 billion tumble in dollar value while cancellations of prospective buyers hit 32%-- No matter how much they try, these are numbers upon which the advertising/public relations world of economic forecasters cannot paste ubiquitous smiley faces--

This collapse of the Housing sector is occurring against the backdrop of a hollowed-out manufacturing base, a diminishing supply of oil based energy production worldwide, a wobbly dollar losing favor and face worldwide, an agriculture bent on speculative fantasy before common sense, our national army on the verge of breakdown in the increasing likelihood of abject failure in Iraq, an endangered unpopular administration coupled to a paralytic Congress clearly out of touch with world reality and the will of its American voters-- Living beyond our means enriched the money/mortgage lenders and bloated financiers while pulling the rug out from under the real economy-- Bloated consumers still spend money not yet earned hoping oblivion catches them before foreclosure punctures their obese bubble-- Sooner or Later sees Big Trouble waiting Right Around the Corner--

WELCOME TO BAGHDAD, VIRGINIA

The pervasive ongoing anti-Imus rant miring so many indulgent webblogs in an embarrassing overkill (no pun intended) of very disconcerting holier-than-thou pontification, may finally relegate itself to the backseat as the hand-wringing futility of another gun-debate begins to emerge from the tragic mass murder at the Virginia Tech University on some early accounts by an isolated green-card Korean student bringing his variation of Shock and Awe to the degenerate schoolyard--

Civility in this culture has been falling down for a great long time now but, while Imus wasn't the most artful practitioner of Rude speech nor the most humorous, nor the first, nor the only, his firing, based more on monetary concerns over the loss of commercial sponsorship than any good faith attempt to raise cultural standards, will not restore what we have lost-- For lack of a better term............. Civilization--

His sin here was not even close to pre-meditated murder yet the media-sphere elevated it into a crescendo of malignant judgementalism and narcissistic self-purification-- The fast and furious fall of Imus obliterated most coverage of the bomb that exploded inside the Iraqi Parliament-- The scale of perspective that deviates these two events in importance in our media culture purely and simply repudiates HOPE-- The complicit media who cheer-led the Cheerleader in Chief's maniacal excursion into a country we knew nothing about, now wallow in the lament for a crusty celebrity down-famed-- He was one of their own.....'but he just crossed over the line'--

The rampant rude vulgarity that sullenly permeates our lack of living culture is symptomatic and emblematic of our present and coming downfall-- 300 million isolated automatons linked only to other automatons through the ulterior motives and the material venality (of the now fading power) of the dollar-- The incivility of the so-called 'Culture Wars' as practiced so witlessly and crudely by the lowest common denominator of every social class, every gender, every skin color and every metaphysical and political creed across the full spectrum of America and its media, is indicative of self-loathing-- America has come to dislike what it has become..... very much so!!!--

Aristocratic matrons liberated by reveling in the venomous curses of the gutter-- Eight year-olds in the mall whose foul language makes old salt sailors blanch--Legions of emasculated suburban white boys 'talkin shit' as if emulating the devil-may-care tough-talk of the angry ghetto will somehow redeem their young manhood from the spiritual desertification imposed on it by the material splendor of monetary success and the anti-male tenets of Feminist theology-- Debates across the full spectrum substituting catty invective and outright insults for respectful thought......the list could go on and on!!--

Crotchety Imus and his pitiful surly crew found strange solace insulting any and everything from studio microphones hiding behind padlocked doors-- And that's the Imus problem, in a nutshell-- From the studio fortress there's no danger of someone's insulted reputation fashioning a fist to re-arrange the noses of the phony studio toughs spouting acidic contempt for everything in every direction--Those lady roundballers from Rutgers would probably kick Imus butt in a real street fight-- Nobody kicked Jihadi butt like the studio toughs wielding swordlike telestrators taking out regimes here and re-arranging entire geographies elsewhere in the run-up to eternal war-- All so effortlessly achieved from the santuary of the unreal studio-- On the real ground inside the real Iraq things turned out to be considerably more difficult-- And the price this exacts will be astronomical--

Accumulating all those falling dollars with a madly single minded focus has rendered our culture exhausted and miserable(from the root word MISER) not happy or joyful-- The repetitious vulgarity we are cudgeled into 'tolerating' in the public square has a spirit killing effect on its partisans as well as their audience-- More and more people every day answer 'yes' to the pollsters who ask if America is on the wrong track-- We have lost our way in Iraq and here at home our faith in everything is being shattered-- We do not control our own destiny but we still long for and pray for........... the fiction we do--

Ask the students who witnessed the hideous massacre of their unfortunate classmates in Virginia how ugly real violence is, compared to the sanitized versions Hollywood foists upon the collective consciousness of America and the world-- Whatever demons (purported to be an antipathy toward rich kids and open debauchery on campus but who really knows??) drove Mr. Cho to his heinous deed may never be unveiled but that won't stop psychobabble everywhere from attempting to prop-up a rational sounding explanation or maudlin motive or clinical subterfuge to his madness and wring their hands over the futility of preventing such willfull attacks in advance-- Mr. Cho's sullen bloody rage rubs the American nose in the acute violence we so cavalierly ignore in Iraq or vicariously feast upon inside darkened theaters-- Accusing all of us, he wrote, .........."You made me do it" !!!!!--

The people of Iraq have endured this type of real violence from way more explosive ordinance than a 9mm Glock on a daily basis for numerous years-- More than 3 million Iraqis have become refugees from this mayhem (over a half million killed) while those still fixed inside the country expect death any minute-- The Killing Chant of Mr. Cho-- Coming Soon!!....... to a slaughterhouse near you-- Welcome to Baghdad, Virginia.......Keep you heads down!!--

THE NEW WAR CZAR

One by one the chips fall-- Paul Wolfewitz, the architect of the new Middle East, the world banker who eliminated world poverty and the corruption-fighter who brought a new regime of Honesty to the World Bank itself, is too baffled by his own consummate self-held virtue to even begin comprehending why World Bank staffers in unison-ed chanting demanded his resignation-- In response to the discovery of no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq by occupation forces, Wolfie once had the cavalier verve to publicly admit in arrogant candor that the WMD's were a canard designed simply to get the US into Iraq--

There is obviously no dishonor inherent in well-intentioned political lies from his self-deluded perspective while virtually no mainstream media call him to account for his bravado posing and specious intellectualizing that led to the resultant murder of an entire country, hundreds of thousands of dead and maimed, millions of refugees ripped away from roots, families, homes and employment, the utter destruction of civilized amenities like electrical power, indoor plumbing and home security-- No Wolfie has earned a free pass from his cheerleader friends in the incapacitated American media for his part in America's coming Downfall--

Wolfie just does not comprehend why an architect of the most magnitudinous foreign policy disaster in American History should have to answer for nepotistic cronyism involving his romantic interest-- God, how rich!!!!.... of all the oxymoronic faiths rampant in the world she has been purported to be an Islamic Feminist--Should Wolfie be interrogated for trysting with terrorist cells??--Obviously an absurd posit that the scandal mongering demies would have to have invented to destroy troop morale in Iraq as the duplicitous Bush, on his most recent radio address from Bunker City, would inveigh against almost everything else the whispering demies have attempted to accomplish which really isn't all that much-- Like the mainstream media the demies can't bear to face their complicity for the Iraq debacle either-- Hence, their whispering approach to governing----

Why not promote Wolfie's girl to War Czar since her lucrative position at the State Department out earned State Sec Rice and tasked her with the hazards of answering to one Lynn Cheney???-- The first four Retired Generals Mr. Bush approached for the job declined the opportunity and who can blame them??-- Who wants to 'lose Iraq' charting an incoherent course with no direction known as a final installment to one's careerist resume??-- Hell, offer the job to Wolfie, didn't he help design the initial mess??-- How about Chertoff, didn't he leave DC while Katrina disemboweled New Orleans??-- Is Brownie still drawing unemployment??-- McCain, does he not still believe in elective victory by additional but phantom troops??--

The bomb inside the Iraq Parliament exploded all pretense of cautious optimism for the Bush/AEI Surge plan as a vehicle for triumph-- The War Cronies have lost all credibility-- Epic failure and all its attendant demoralization awaits and who commandeers the lion's share of the narcissistic media spotlight circling round the drain this week-- Not the vainglorious scandalized Wolfewitz-- Not the embunkered decider hiding from Baseball's Opening Day, Mr.Bush-- Tempest in a most hideous teapot-- Ladies and Gentlemen, read it and weep,........the new War Czar,........ Don Imus!!!!!!--

MADAME SPEAKER

Nancy Pelosi's recent sojourn to Syria ostensibly in search of furthering peace efforts in the Middle East fizzled into frustration as the venal cynic who sent her into this grieving vortex with an encouraging message that Israel wanted to renew peace talks denounced her efforts on her return-- As a token of his sincerity presenting her with a captive Israeli soldier's dog-tags as an amulet for her safety and success, the corrupt and duplicitous Ehud Olmert, groveling in lapdog homage to the paralytic Bush/Cheney's lack of efficacious strategy, proceeded to stab her in the back by disavowing the veracity of her offer-- That Pelosi ventured to the inflamed region in the first place, no matter how significantly so her naivete, is searing testament to the insolvent rationale and acute weakness of America's flailing failing foreign policy-- Utterly transparent for the whole world to glimpse is the glaring bald-faced answer to the question of who really wants peace in the Middle East--

No matter how hard Madame Pelosi tries or how rational and articulate her personal efforts apply, the bottom line is that violent madness and coercive greed combined do not lend themselves to moral suasion-- In such an explosive cauldron feeling one's way to peace is fore-defeated but Pelosi's impulse to right the listing ship of American influence is similar to Senator McCain's market stroll into misbegotten self-delusion or political suicide-- Both sought to save a seriously deteriorating situation incognizant of it's deepening futility while their weakened astigmatic leaders hide among royal sycophants in deafening denial--

Bush, embedded and embunkered in mega-fantasy no cogency of fact will ever dislodge, decided, in an unmistakable metaphor of signatory retreat, not to renew a Rite of Spring by refusing to throw out the ceremonious first pitch on Baseball's Opening Day-- Mr. Olmert, the wavering loser, cornered by financial scandals and the luster of incompetent military defeat, will say or do anything to maintain his tattered grip on his waning authority--

Arial Sharon once bragged that he had America in his pocket, perhaps not too long after the ashen-faced Mr. Bush emerged from their meeting to proclaim Sharon, a Man Of Peace to a big wide world that knew quite better-- Olmert obviously had the inexperienced, AIPAC-bought Pelosi in his and has certainly showed her the bottom side of his Coin of Honor-- Nearly 60 years in the region and Israel has no friends to show for her endeavours except those she buys and the proof of Olmert's shameful treatment of Pelosi echoes why-- As Israel bears the earmarks of failed statehood, American gets ever closer to recognizing exit from the Iraq disaster is her last best option-- Thanks for the effort, Madame Speaker--

PRETENSE NO LONGER SERVES TO FURTHER

John McCain's stroll through one of Baghdad's successfully surged neighborhood markets wearing a visible bullet proof vest and a look of focused concern is either a disingenuous campaign promotional photo-op designed to burnish his pro-surge bona-fides or a feeble exercise in self-delusional idiocy or more than likely some of both-- To the right of the command coterie in the news photograph are a group of Iraqi men watching the US officials on parade two of whom exhibit countenances closer to pure hatred than Chamber of Commerce welcome wagons--

Locals later claimed the area was teeming with dozens of armed US soldiers who arrived in heavily armored Humvees while numerous gunship helicopters hovered and circled overhead-- Locals later disputed a statement from McCain's group that the stroll was no different than a Sunday trip to an outdoor market somewhere in Indiana citing the constant threats of possible insurgent attacks at any time-- People may now wear bullet proof vests to Sunday markets in New Orleans but.........Indiana????-- Not yet, by a long shot!!!!--

The Surge may have shifted execution style killings away from Sadr City and other violent Baghdad neighborhoods but the number of killings country-wide have not diminished and lethal car bomb explosions everywhere have multiplied to record highs in both February and March-- The Sadr Shiites are not going to battle US soldiers toe to toe in a decisive formation they know in advance would fail-- The Shia have more than a healthy fear of the desperate Sunnis and if the US is unwittingly willing to take the fight to those Sunni insurgents on their behalf, the Sadr Militia is more than willing to allow it-- Hence, it is certainly not surprising the Shia, knowing full well Father Time is still currently on their side, would lie low and not openly challenge the US surge into their territory-- If McCain and his ilk read this superior position as a sign of weakness on the part of the Shia or as a sign of imminent full scale success on the part of the Surge chances for a sane conclusion to this fatal mis-adventure offer absolutely no hope--

Never say Die!!! is most often a commendable attitude but if it burnishes the sagging morale of abject congressional dimwits and oblivious has-been Neocon tank-thinkers while executing the destruction of an entire Army through imperial dissipation, bankrupt sloganeering and willful politcal refusal to cogitate harsh facts on the ground, what will it ultimately have wrought??-- Myopic security concerns of a piecemeal nature this late in the game have counterproductivity written all over it--Is Baghdad security so important that other areas are allowed such negligent security support they become cauldrons of everything the surge attempts to prevent in Sadr City-- Bloodletting mestastasizes as Baghdad becomes an island of temporary restive calm surrounded by an ocean of seething shrieking violence elsewhere??-- Who but posturing politicians could label this success??-- Wake up, Mr. McCain!!!!!--

Had the skillful intelligent Petreaus been in charge of the CPA at the beginning instead of Bremer his asymmetrical expertise may have been used to optimum effect but at this late stage he still obviously doesn't have the manpower to police the entire country all at once, nor are there troops enough here at home or around the world to fill this aching bleeding void-- The hearts and minds lost at the outset and during the ongoing torturous years Rummy and Company devoted to denial first of insurgency and later of outright civil/sectarian conflict won't give Petraeus the full scale second chance his plan would need-- Over a million, some say two, talented Iraqi civilians have opted for refugeedom and have left the arena-- Lost time is not found again-- Even as the Sadr militia melts away rampaging Sunni car bombers fearlessly ply their deadly attacks in the vacuum-- Wherever American Officials pronounce even minor success insurgent attacks pounce to dispel it as false and the Middle Eastern media are there in force to disseminate the continuing flaming chaos and its ugly truth-- The tempo and terrain belong to the natives everywhere but the Greed Zone--At the precipice of defeat pretense no longer serves to further---