When the only sound on the empty street
Is the heavy tread of the heavy feet
That belongs to a lonesome lobbyist,
I open shop.

The moon so long has been gazing down
On the wayward ways of a journalist clown
My smile becomes a smirk. I go to work.

News for sale
Appetizing insider’s news for sale
News that stinks and not unspoiled
News that’s only slightly soiled
News for sale.

Who will buy
Who would like to sample my supply
Who’s prepared to pay the price
For juicy news that’s not so nice
News for sale.

Let the writers pipe of news
In their phony ways
I know every type of news
Better far than they
If you want the thrill of news
I have been through the mill of news
Old news
New news
Every news but true news

News for sale
Appetizing insider’s news for sale.
If you want to buy my news put cash down and buy the booze
News for sale.

Richard Cummings [send him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new book, The Road To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq. He is a contributing editor for The American Conservative.

The Best of Richard Cummings

The counterparties have never been disclosed but the Wall Street Journal reported that they included Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, UBS and Deutsche Bank.

AIG and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York have unwound many of these contracts. To do this, they offered to buy the CDOs (collateralized debt obligations) that were originally insured by those agreements. The counterparties sold these assets at a discount, but were compensated in full in return for allowing AIG to extricate itself from the obligations. The counterparties also got to keep the $37.3 billion in collateral, according to the Wall Street Journal.

While Bear Stearns was collapsing, Goldman Sachs boasted that it had insulated itself by buying insurance against the mortgage-backed derivatives. As it turns out, it was, in fact, rescued by the Fed when it bailed out AIG. In 2007, Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs’ CEO, received $70 million in compensation, including bonuses, $27 million in cash. A Democrat, he contributed $7,000 to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. At the time the New York Fed came to AIG’s assistance, Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner was its head. Blankfein is still drawing down millions in compensation. The rationale for his compensation is the alleged profitability of Goldman Sachs, which raked in over $9 billion in 2006. It should also be noted that the bailout stopped Goldman stock from plummeting, thereby protecting not only Blankfein’s fortune, but that of Hank Paulson, the former chairman of Goldman Sachs, who was Secretary of the Treasury under George W. Bush. This is perhaps the greatest financial scandal in American history but most Americans are totally ignorant of it.

On top of this, the AIG bailout enabled John Thain to pay out billions in bonuses while he headed Merrill Lynch, just prior to its sale to Bank of America, a recipient of billions of bailout money, this while the unemployment rate is headed towards ten percent and the market collapse has caused losses in the trillions. Were the names of the banks made officially public, there would be cries of outrage so loud as to be deafening, making any further bailouts dubious for political reasons. And while Bernanke has said that he would not permit the big banks to fail, the looting of America by some of the richest and most powerful people, such as Blankfein and Thain, goes on, with no end in sight. Pandit the bandit now says Citigroup is profitable, enabling its stock to rise above a dollar, generating a temporary euphoria in the market. The cheers going up on CNBC can be heard all the way to Warren Buffett’s coffers. And American tax payers are not only bailing out the American banks, they are also bailing out Europe. What suckers!

Richard Cummings [send him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new book, The Road To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq. He is a contributing editor for The American Conservative.

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I smell a rat in the indictment and trial of Ted Stevens, the senator from Alaska. Sarah Palin had fought with him for control of the Alaska Republican Party, and by refusing to endorse him for reelection, she looks like an anti-corruption fighter, the maverick who takes on the powerful in the interests of the common people.

But all of a sudden, the judge in the case has thrown out critical evidence because of prosecutorial misconduct involving the use of evidence it knew was false. There is no way to know what the outcome of the trial will be, but it is starting to look more and more like a political hatchet job to the benefit of Palin. This would not be the first time the Justice Department placed politics above its true responsibilities. In the corrupt world of American politics, Stevens is a sacrificial lamb, a senate seat lost to the GOP so the national ticket will prevail. It looks more and more as though Palin was not a sudden choice, but part of a calculated scheme to give the K Street gang an inside track to a recovery of its interests.

But what happens if Stevens is acquitted? He will start sharpening his knives to stick into Palin before the election, if he isn’t doing so now. All of a sudden, seven people who had refused to testify against Palin in the state investigation into her possible abuse of power by firing the Public Safety Commissioner because he wouldn’t fire her ex-brother-in-law, a state trooper involved in a nasty custody fight with her sister, have changed their position and are testifying. A whole bunch of people in Alaska has to act fast before she can use her power as vice president to do them in.

The Commission investigating her will have enough testimony, even without her and the First Dude’s cooperation to write a damning report before the election. It should come as no surprise if the legislature adopts a motion to begin impeachment proceedings against her in time to embarrass the McCain campaign. Since this will involve Republicans as well as Democrats, the charge that the proceedings are biased politically cannot stand.

The hubris of all of this is amazing. These are people who think power is something to be employed to ride rough shot over the legitimacy of both government and legal process. Palin’s minions are now packing the results of a PBS poll on whether or not she is qualified to be vice president, voting early and often. If you fool enough of the people enough of the time, you get to take and keep power.

But this is close to backfiring because a trial is like a war and just as there is a cloud of war, there is a cloud of criminal process. You never know what’s going to happen. One day, O.J. Simpson gets away with murder, the next day, he is on his way to the can because of kidnapping. Whoever made the decision to go after Stevens may well have made a strategic mistake of monumental proportions, with a blowback that could derail not just McCain and Palin, but her entire future political career.

Those who are not taken in by her phony populism will not shed a tear. But even if she goes down, her legacy is likely to continue as the new force of the National Populists, the Nat Pops, gains momentum as the economy collapses. There is a feeling in the land that the powerful forces that run this country have been pulling a fast one for years. The politician who is likely to pick up the pieces after the debacle is Mike Huckabee, rejected by McCain’s inner circle as "too populist." So instead, they went with Palin to capitalize on female discontent after Hillary Clintons’ defeat.

The Republicans under Atwater and Rove were superior tacticians who knew how to use fear and hate to win elections. After Bush used this tactic against him, McCain figured that in his last chance at the presidency, he would adopt those tactics himself. The problem is for McCain that he looks terribly uncomfortable doing it. He drags Sarah Palin around like a prop and unleashes her as his attack dog, the way Nixon used Agnew. The polls suggest that this is not working and this may be because Obama has David Axelrod, the toughest operator on the scene right now. It is really laughable how the Republicans denounce him for his ruthless tactics. They thought Obama would fold like John Kerry, that the Democrats were soft. It turned out that they were wrong.

This spectacle means that the chances of cooperation between Democrats and Republicans in Washington after the election are just about nil. With the market continuing to plummet, there is no telling where this will end. Who would have thought that some home repairs done to Ted Stevens would be of such consequence? Never let it be said that our leaders have put the nation first. The collapse of bourgeois democracy in the age of aggressive war has brought about a crisis with which Lenin would have been all too familiar. In his "State and Revolution" he predicted all of this. His only intellectual superiors were Hayek, Mises and Rothbard, and they are forbidden thinkers in the American academy. Who ever said ideas don’t matter?

Richard Cummings [send him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new book, The Road To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq. He is a contribution editor for The American Conservative.

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Sarah Palin is unique in American politics now because she is the only leader to have taken action in a fundamentally radical way to share the wealth. She doubled the taxes on the oil companies and then sent checks to the residents of Alaska from the oil revenues. Huey Long advocated the same sort of thing. He said Americans needed to "share the wealth." Roosevelt saw him as his biggest threat because Long was going where Roosevelt would never go. Roosevelt was a patrician aristocrat who feared this sort of economic redistribution. It is astonishing, then, that she is on the Republican ticket with a candidate from the WASP establishment, which, throughout American history, has done whatever was necessary to not share the wealth.

Should McCain die in office, America would have its first truly radical president, to the left, economically, of the liberals. The conservative Republicans are using her to keep power, just as the conservatives in Italy thought they were using Benito Mussolini. But beyond her Huey Long radicalism, she is basically a Peronist in the sense that Bush is a Peronist. What they advocated is the "ownership society," much as Peron did with his philosophy of Justicialism. Peron concluded that if everyone owned his own home, no one would be a Communist. And the Bush-Palin brand of Peronism has led America into the same crisis that plagued Argentina under his rule. Sub-prime mortgages are a form of Peronism to give a home ownership stake in the society, so that a deep conservatism would take hold and forever defeat the Democrats. Peron, using his wife Evita to attract the working class into the fold, took what had been a sound economy and trashed it, turning Argentina into a Third World country when it previously had been considered a developed nation.

This is precisely what has happened in America. Our once great economy has been trashed beyond recognition, with wild spending and cheap mortgages with ever-increasing interest rates because of the very inflation that these policies have inevitably engendered. Using social conservatism, much as Peron did, to whip up hostility to the left, Palin has managed to sell her brand of populist radical economics while still posing as a conservative. But however much she opposes abortion and gay marriage and advocates the teaching of creationism in science classes, the real Sarah Palin is Eva Peron with an Alaskan accent and without the high fashion, although now, she has a much better hairdresser and her clothes have dramatically improved.

But there is an underside to Palin’s populism and this is its inevitable authoritarianism. Her interest in banning books is just the tip of the iceberg. When she spoke at the Republican convention, she accused Barack Obama of worrying about their civil liberties while the Al Queda terrorists wanted to blow us up. The crowd cheered wildly as though they were at a Peron rally, shouting "Sarah! Sarah!" the way the Argentineans shouted "Evita! Evita!"

Then, there is the matter of "Troopergate." Her defenders now say that she had every right to try to get her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper because of his drinking, his abusive behavior and his threats to her parents. But that is precisely the point. She had no interest in calling for a hearing so he could defend himself against these allegations. Moreover, if he were fired and had no job, the question of custody of the children would have been clear-cut. He would not have had a chance to get custody. Now, she and her husband, Todd, have announced their refusal to cooperate with an investigation that had been authorized by both Democratic and Republican legislators.

But we know the defense. "It is a political circus." Palin has enemies not only among the Democrats, but also among the Republicans because of her efforts to weed out corruption in her own party. Everyone in the legislature is out to get her and only a hearing before the Ethics Board would be fair. But since she has appointed the members of the Ethics Board, how fair and impartial could that hearing be?

The answer is that she is a reformer. As a reformer she would not go against her own principles. But here, once again, there is a similarity to Huey Long, who created Louisiana State University, the first public university in the state so the less fortunate in the state could get a college education, and then, shut down the student newspaper for criticizing his authoritarian methods. Can a reformer abuse power? Of course. Just look at what Eliot Spitzer did in going after Senate Majority leader Joseph Bruno.

Her strategy, that McCain has embraced, is to keep stalling and denying until the presidential election is over. Once elected, she will be beyond the reach of the Alaska legislature because she will be leaving the governorship and Troopergate will be mute, particularly because the trooper in question has managed, thanks to his union, to keep his job. But is this what America needs now, a regime with no respect for this constitution? After all, if the rule of law doesn’t apply to the government, it doesn’t exist. The Bush administration had already interpreted the constitution to justify unbridled executive power, something they call the "unified executive." Madison did not create the separation of powers to allow this kind of approach to government, and Jefferson didn’t insist upon a Bill of Rights so America could have a dictatorship, however populist it might be.

That we have come this far is appalling, with John Marshall being relegated to the ash heap of history. William Buckley said his philosophy, which led him to found the National Review, was to hold up his hands and yell, "Stop!" That is precisely what America must do now.

Richard Cummings [send him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new book, The Road To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq. He is a contribution editor for The American Conservative.

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I can’t imagine when I have ever experienced greater euphoria. Having just learned that the New York Times had hired the 21st century’s greatest sage, William Kristol, as a columnist, I broke out the champagne in celebration of this glorious event. He now joins David Brooks as the Bobsie Twins of the pseudo-American right living off the largesse of the pseudo-American left. Known as "Quayle’s brain" during his stint as chief of staff to the mind-bogglingly stupid vice president to Bush I, he gained fame for sinking Bill Clinton’s health plan. His rationale was that if it ever passed, it would make the American middle class beholden forever to the Democratic Party. He famously wrote the memorable line delivered by Bob Dole in rebutting Clinton’s state of the union address, "What health crisis?"

Kristol teaches a course at Harvard on Xenophon, whose claim to fame is that there was never a war he didn’t like. Naturally, he was a favorite of Leo Strauss, the thinker Kristol most admires. We can also thank Kristol for founding, along with Bruce Jackson, the Project for the New American Century, the propaganda vehicle that launched the war in Iraq.

Why would the Times do this now after Kristol has been totally discredited and is nothing more than the detritus of the defunct neo-conservative movement? It’s true that the Times is slow on the uptake. It usually takes them at least five years to figure out what is going on, but why should they care that Kristol has been their constant critic since it’s been at least five years since anyone took him seriously? It’s a bit late in the day to bother to buy him off when maybe the only people to take him seriously are Irving Kristol and Gertrude Himmelfarb, and that’s only because they happen to be his parents.

There simply must be some other reason for this monumental event. I thought and thought and finally came to the conclusion that there must be some justification apart from the general conspiracy of mediocrity that haunts America. And that reason is Rupert Murdoch. For years, Murdoch has connived to figure a way to take down the New York Times, and while I generally disapprove of him, I have always cheered him on in this endeavor. Now, he has the vehicle for doing it, the Wall Street Journal, which Murdoch is in the process of overhauling to make into an all-purpose newspaper capable of not only challenging the Times, but defeating it, so that the Journal becomes the paper of record so that the "grey lady" will simply lapse into desuetude.

One can just imagine the meeting that took place in Pinch’s office, the great brains of American journalism knocking about names that could ward off Murdoch by preempting him from the right. After skipping over all the great luminaries of the right, from Taki to Lew Rockwell, they came to the conclusion unanimously on the lamest writer they could conceive of, William Kristol. I can just hear David Brooks gnashing his teeth. "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the rightist of them all?" And the mirror answers, "William Kristol, jerk!" The nebbish one then hurls his wine glass at the mirror, smashing it into a thousand pieces in jealous rage, and spilling the Chardonnay all over the floor.

And the indignity to read Kristol’s first column:

"I quote from Ecclesiastes: u2018The wise man’s understanding turns him to the right; the fool’s understanding turns him to the left.’ And what does it mean to be on the right as a columnist for a liberal newspaper? It means that I can speak truth to power by virtue of the largesse of power, teaching its readers that u2018right makes might.’ It makes it, not figuratively, but literally, so that once the standard Republican version of the right, and by that I definitely don’t mean Ron Paul, is in power, it will make might by adopting a defense budget so large that it will be the envy of Dick Cheney.

"I will teach them to look to Iran as the source of all the world’s problems by explaining how it supports Al Queda, just as I taught America when I wrote for the Weekly Standard, which I also founded and sold to Rupert Murdoch for a bundle, that Saddam Hussein supported Al Queda. Before long, Bill Keller will be agreeing with me the way he agreed with Judith Miller and we will be safely and assuredly on our way to the next war. And because the Times will be for it, Hillary Clinton will be for it, with the understanding that she will deny she was ever for it after it turns into another disaster. And as for Pakistan, we must support Musharraf until the end because we have no other choice, even though he is universally hated for being a puppet of both America and Britain.

"By virtue of my new position with the Times, I am now an official pundit of the system, replacing the unctuous William Safire, "Spiro Agnew’s brain." You have to hand it to the GOP. If nothing else, they sure know how to pick vice presidents.

"I’ll be writing my column three times a week, giving me ample space to communicate with you on a regular basis. You can expect me to challenge your most deeply held beliefs and provoke you into thinking things from a different perspective, which is another way of saying, u2018Keep buying the Times.’ Because if you don’t, I might have to make an honest living as the headwaiter at Elaine’s."

Richard Cummings [send him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new book, The Road To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq. He is a contribution editor for The American Conservative.

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Just because I am for Ron Paul doesn’t mean I can’t give odds on the other candidates in both major parties. The most interesting Democratic candidate is, by far, Hillary Clinton, if for no other reason, that her supporters represent the most compelling example of what Freud called "Cathexis." Cathexis, he said, was the investment of mental and emotional energy in a person, idea or thing. And no one is more cathexed to someone than a supporter of Hillary Clinton.

Leading in all the polls of Democratic candidates by wide margins, she seems invincible, notwithstanding a few goofs in the debates. The reason most Democrats give for supporting her is that she is the best-prepared and the most electable candidate they’ve got. They are cathexed to the idea that no one can beat a Clinton, and particularly Hillary, whom they see as the only one to take on the evil right-wing conspiracy. I know some of these people. What they whisper in your ear is that in the voting booth, no white person will vote for Obama, that there is no way he can win.

Why is Hillary such a sure bet for them? Mostly, it has to do with the Democratic women, who are still living in the past of the women’s movement, led by such bogus characters as the CIA-connected Gloria Steinem and the late loudmouth, Betty Freidan. Somewhere in the recesses of their collective consciousness of the left, they hear that inane anthem, "I Am Woman, I Am Invincible." Why, you may ask, is a woman invincible? Because American men are such wimps? Because they know something the rest of us don’t?

I remember when Hillary (everyone calls her by her first name, as though she were some universal icon with whom everyone is on intimate terms) had carpet-bagged her way into New York State to get herself elected to the senate. I was having dinner with my family at World Pie in Bridgehampton, outside in the warm summer evening, when I saw two particularly bovine Hillary types on deep conversation about their candidate. It was Hillary this and Hillary that, until I wanted to scream, "Hillary Clinton has no idea who you are! She couldn’t care less about you!"

They must have known that I was looking at them with scorn, because they eyed me back as if they knew exactly what I was thinking. There was an instant when I thought they might have perceived in my iconoclastic glare that they were, indeed, making fools of themselves. The moment passed, and there they were, back in their cathexed state, waxing euphoric about Hillary the Invincible, the American Joan of Arc, leading the feminist troops to final victory.

The utter blindness of these people is astonishing. Look at all the polls of who is, by far, the most electable candidate, and it is always John Edwards. But no, they will tell you, he has no chance because he has no money. Well, why doesn’t he have money? It’s because no one amongst the pseudo-capitalist left would give money to someone who has pledged to take it away from them. The wives of all these faux Hamptons hedge fund managers all identify themselves as feminists, Johnny come lately as they are, unaware that "feminist" is not only obsolete, but a term of derision, referring primarily to spoiled brat white upper middle class harridans with the analytical skills of an orangutan.

But never mind. "I am woman. I am invincible," they chant feverishly as they ignore the polls in Ohio, the state the clique of Clinton shrews, led by that perpetual viper, Ann Lewis, will tell you is the state that will put her over the top. "Kerry plus Ohio," is their refrain, referring to an inevitable victory based on winning all the states Kerry carried plus Ohio. They fail to take cognizance of the fact that in Ohio, she leads by only one percentage point over Rudy Giuliani, who has yet to set foot in the place, while Hillary Clinton has the endorsement of the Democratic governor, her potential running mate. Edwards, on the other hand, is running six points ahead of Giuliani in Ohio. He is also hugely popular in Kentucky, one of the bluest of the blue states where they would tar and feather Hillary Clinton should she appear there.

But oh no, "I am woman, I am invincible." Well, not in Kentucky, honey, or North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and so on. In Montana, they would run Clinton out of town on a rail, as they would in most of the west and Midwest. Bill Clinton says she will win in a landslide, with him campaigning by her side. But Bill Clinton, hugely popular in the Democratic Party, is not so universally loved in the country. He squeaked through in his two elections, largely because of Ross Perot, and never hit fifty percent of the vote. And he ran against a lackluster George Bush and a tepid Bob Dole.

I figure that in politics, as in baseball and in crime, the "three strikes and you’re out" rule applies. The Democrats went with Al Gore when Bradley would have wiped up Bush, and they went with Kerry, when Karl Rove heaved a sigh of relief that they didn’t go with John Edwards, who would have squashed Bush. If they go with Hillary Clinton because they think she is invincible, the way they thought Gore and Kerry had it cinched, and she loses, that’s the ball game. By blowing this election, the Democrats will be on their way out.

Were Andrew Jackson alive, he would have been appalled by Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, and not because she’s a woman, but because she has allied herself with the post—laissez faire corporate statists, the corrupt lobbyists, and the residue of a political organization that sold out ages ago. Those votes for the war in Iraq and for giving Bush carte blanche in Iran were not aberrations, done to win the general election. They were consistent with the merchants of death of the Iron Triangle who are contributing handsomely to her campaign. The British press, but not the American, has documented how Lockheed Martin has come over to her side, filling her coffers in anticipation of a deadly status quo that will, inevitably, lead to another war, should she be elected.

No, Edwards and Obama were not beating up on her because she is a woman. It’s because they want the troops out of Iraq and she doesn’t, because they oppose a war with Iran while she hedges her bets. But not to worry, she will tell you. "I am woman, I am invincible."

Richard Cummings [send him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new book, The Road To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq. He is a contribution editor for The American Conservative.

Oh yes I’m the great decider (ooh ooh)
Adrift in a world of my own (ooh ooh)
I play the game but to my real shame
You’ve left me to decide all alone

Too real are these decisions of make believe
Too real when I feel what my Sec Def
Can’t conceal

Ooh Ooh yes I’m the great decider (ooh ooh)
Just bombing and gay like a clown (ooh ooh)
I’ve decided to be what I’m not (you see)
I decide like I’m wearing a crown
Pretending we’ve got enough troops on the ground

Yeah ooh ooh
Too real when I feel what my SecDef
Can’t conceal

Oh yes I’m the great decider
Just bombing and gay like a clown (ooh ooh)
I’ve decided to be what I’m not you see
I’m deciding like I wear a crown
Pretending that Rove
Pretending that Rove’s still around.

Richard Cummings [send him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new book, The Road To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq. He is a contribution editor for The American Conservative.

Jimbo was on a Naval ROTC scholarship, so after graduating and marrying his Swedish girlfriend, Birit, he did his tour of duty with the navy before entering George Washington University Law School. He became the editor of the law review and then joined Wilber, Cutler and Pickering, a prestigious D.C. firm made up of Beltway power brokers.

But Jimbo was not on a typical career path. He took a couple of years leave of absence to be a pro bono lawyer in Mississippi to work for civil rights. He returned to his firm and rose to partner. Then, President Clinton appointed him to a federal district court judgeship in Washington and he began deciding mundane cases, giving up his lucrative partnership for the life of a modestly paid federal judge. But 911 changed everything and he found himself presiding over Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.

Afghani militia forces captured Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama bin Laden’s driver, in November of 2001, and turned him over to the Americans, who held him in captivity for several years in Camp Delta at the Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba, while the military decided what to do with him. In 2003, President Bush determined that "there was reason to believe that Hamdan was a member of Al Queda or was otherwise involved in terrorism against the United States Hamdan." Scheduled to be tried before the Military Commission that President Bush had created, and placed in solitary confinement at Camp Echo, he petitioned in 2004 for habeas corpus on the grounds that he was entitled to a hearing before a tribunal under the Third Geneva Convention to determine if he had the right to be treated as a prisoner of war and thus, entitled to a trial by court martial, where he could, amongst other things, confront the witnesses against him. (He had no such right before the Military Commission. Indeed, the military had appointed his lawyer for the purpose solely of plea negotiations.)

Jimbo, who had been in the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton and honored its motto, "In the nation’s service" (which was also the title of an address by Wilson as president of the university), concluded that the president, who was responsible for having him named an "unprivileged belligerent," was not a tribunal under the Geneva Convention, which applied to the case, and that, therefore, Hamdan was entitled to his writ.

The federal court of appeals in Washington, overruled Jimbo in an opinion joined by now Chief Justice Roberts. No, the court, held, the Geneva Convention is not enforceable in the federal courts, notwithstanding the fact that treaties are part of federal law, as Jimbo had pointed out in his lengthy and scholarly opinion. Because of this opinion, Bush supporters labeled Jimbo a "left-wing" judge," a charge that is laughable to anyone who knows him. Almost painfully patriotic, Jimbo does not have a left-wing bone in his body. Had that been the case, Chief Justice Rehnquist would never have appointed him to the eleven member United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which is authorized to expedite requests for court orders to wiretap suspected enemy agents.

Serving on both courts simultaneously, Jimbo was, indeed, in the nation’s service, believing, as he did, that for the rule of law to exist, it must apply to the government. Otherwise, what did Marbury v. Madison mean? Chief Justice Marshall did not exempt the executive branch from the doctrine of judicial review just because Article II of the constitution is vague.

One morning, Jimbo woke up to find he had been hoodwinked. The NSA had, with orders from President Bush, been snooping on American citizens, monitoring their phone calls and e-mails without even consulting the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, even though Bush had publicly said that all wiretaps required a court order. What did this all mean? Was Bush concerned with sleeper cells or with doing away with dissent, as Richard Nixon had attempted to do with his infamous Huston plan to spy on everybody in the country, in search for subversives? Had J. Edgar Hoover not nixed it, Nixon would have had his way. As it is, the Pentagon has put the Quakers on a list of potential terrorists. That ought to give one pause for thought. Did they then bug the entire Swarthmore campus?

St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that a judge faced with upholding laws or actions that violated natural law had only one choice. He had to resign. And so Jimbo, the true believer, sent a letter to Chief Justice Roberts, resigning from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court without further comment. The next day, he was back at work as a district court judge. Senator Specter has pledged to hold hearings on Bush’s actions, and Bush has countered by getting the Justice Department to order an investigation into who leaked the details of the NSA’s actions, which included monitoring who was visiting which websites, to the press. And the Supreme Court has granted certiorari to review the decision of the court of appeals in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.

The irony is that to win the hearts and minds of the Moslem world, Bush has pledged his support for democracy in Iraq and elsewhere. The leaders of Al Queda mock him. They say American democracy is a hoax. Their propaganda is consistently reinforced by Bush’s own actions. We now know that Bush gave George Tenet, as head of the C.I.A., the authority to decide whom the Agency should kill. Bush’s lawyers have told him this was not unlawful assassination because it was self-defense. Using legalistic arguments instead of legal ones, what Bush has done is turn the C.I.A. into Murder Incorporated and the NSA into the KGB. We even have gulags and torture to complete the picture. (Bush’s lawyers told him that was lawful, too.) So much for the rule of law, without which there can be no democracy.

All of this is precisely what Osama bin Laden had wanted. He has managed to paint Bush as the villain, as Bush turned American democracy into a hoax. No one in his right mind wants to let the terrorists get off so they can strike again. But the great American intelligence system blew it in the first place, notwithstanding a $40 billion a year budget, and failed to head off the 911 attacks, and they have yet to find bin Laden, even though Porter Goss says he knows where he is. If Bush thought the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which created the surveillance court, was outmoded, he could have said so and asked Congress to fix it. But he didn’t. He took Article II of the Constitution and decided it made him King George. Not to Jimbo, though. He had enough and resigned. For that, I pay him homage.

Richard Cummings [send him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new book, The Road To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq. He is a contribution editor for The American Conservative.

My fellow sleazebags. As I look down at this audience of fat cats who suck the blood of the state as if it were their own, I am filled with a sense of gratification that I am not alone in standing up for America’s biggest phony, and that includes the president and myself. That all of you have forked up a grand a piece so a pack of Washington sharks can make a bundle off of Tom’s legal troubles proves to me that the system is in tact, notwithstanding the cowardly criticisms coming from the anarcho-radicals of the left wing of the Democratic Party.

I was, like many of you, proud of Tom when he proclaimed "I AM the federal government." Not since Louis XIV has a public figure so accurately portrayed his role. Indeed, I have it on good information that, like Tom here, at least a hundred congressmen and senators are all under scrutiny by the Justice Department for the kind of patriotic rip-offs that Tom stands for, like fleecing Indian tribes so Jack Abramoff and Ralph Reed can become billionaires. Is Tom a role model or what?

Take it from me as one who has looted a gigantic corporation, Halliburton, and bringing it to the verge of bankruptcy by buying a company facing vast liability for asbestos negligence and then bailing it out with billions on no bid contracts for a war in Iraq I launched as vice president, that it takes guts to outdo me. But Tom did it. And he did it with style. Once known as "Hot tub Tom" for his old frat party ways, he got religion, just like our great president did after his booze episodes.

So why is Tom in hot water today? And why are his aides getting indicted? So he laundered a few bucks to make illegal campaign contributions in Texas. That’s like bringing coal to Newcastle, if you get my drift. Is there such a thing as a clean campaign in Texas? Do the Democrats, who got Tom indicted, ever mention how Landslide Lyndon got elected to the Senate? A buck here, a buck there, and it ads up. Hey, this is an indigenous culture that is in need of preservation in the name of diversity. As far as what Tom did or is alleged to have done, all I can say is, to paraphrase Claude Raines in Casablanca "I am shocked, shocked, to learn that things like this go on."

What we have to day is a serious threat to an entire way of life in Washington, just like the threat to the way of life of those same American Indians Jack Abramoff has worked so hard to help. If Tom DeLay goes to jail, who might be next? Before you know it, they could have the entire federal government in the can, and where would the country be then? I’ll tell you where it would be. It would be hopeless and helpless without the culture of corruption based on man’s basic need for deceit and hypocrisy. Where would the writers be? The playwrights and moviemakers like George Clooney and Michael Moore? Without us, they would be on the breadline. Think of the thousands of people who would be thrown out of work. The investigative journalists would have to get honest jobs, like truck driver or dog walker. The prosecutors would be forced to become bartenders or go back to Ireland. Without us, the economy would not be pumped up with federal spending on military contracts that were awarded as the result of bribery. Don’t let anyone lie to you. We NEED this war in Iraq and Tom is one of the upfront guys that brought it to you.

And that is why this pack of ingrates is looking to bring him down. There isn’t one ounce of gratitude in any of them. You would think they would be kissing Tom’s designer Italian shoes the way they have all benefited from his patriotic pilfering of the public purse. And if you think the great Spiro Agnew inspired those alliterations, you are right. Those same types drove that great statesman from office just because he took a few groceries from friends while he was governor of Maryland, the only state to rival Texas as the nation’s capital of sleaze. But does anyone even remember Agnew today, forced out as vice president before the impeachment of "I’m Not a Crook" Richard Nixon?

I know what you are thinking now. That this is a familiar scenario and that the same thing is going to happen all over again. Thirty years ago, a brave president presiding over an unwinnable war who launched a policy of Vietnamization and supported a tyrant in Ethiopia is impeached after the lynching of his vice president, with his two top aides, Halderman and Erlichman indicted and sent to the hoosegow. Then, his Ethiopian puppet got overthrown. And now, there is me, and Liddy and Rove and Iraqization and the new tyrants in Ethiopia we back for reasons of national security. And let me tell you, if Tom goes to the can, can George W. Bush be far behind? When those commie sharks smell blood, its doomsday for America. They will even pull the plug on those essential new Ethiopian tyrants we fund to fight war on terrorism on the Horn of Africa.

If you think this is history repeating itself, you are right. Which is why I am here tonight to tell you that writing big checks for Tom to pay his lawyers is in all of our interests. Louis XIV did not only say "L’etat est moi ("I am the state"). He also said, "Apres moi le deluge." Which means, "After me, the flood," O.K., so in our case, the flood has already happened. The entire French Establishment, king and all, ended up getting their heads lopped off, and we wouldn’t want that to happen to us, would we?

My friends, I say to you tonight, when they complain that the war in bankrupting the country "Let them eat cake." And as I look down on my plate, I see that we have cake for dessert. So dig in.

Thank you.

Richard Cummings [send him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new book, The Road To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq. He is a contribution editor for The American Conservative.

Peron: Ah, the good old days. But Bush, you have been listening to me and have set your country on its course for total bankruptcy and the destruction of all human liberty.

Bush: You can’t know how grateful I am. It takes a whole lot of work to wreck a country, but with your example, it has become easy.

Peron: Yes, before I took over in Argentina, it had a strong economy and was regarded as a prosperous and developed nation. Then, I started printing money and the rest followed. I called it "Justicialism" because it was so just and soon, the money was worth nothing. But everyone kept cheering.

Bush: Well, how did you manage that?

Peron: I made great speeches, and, of course, I had a secret weapon, Evita.

Bush: You mean….?

Peron: Yes, you have Laura. Everyone loves her. When she speaks, everyone forgets what you have been doing and they start to believe again.

Bush: What happened when things got really bad? I mean, they’re really bad here now.

Peron: I got rid of the opposition and shut down the press. I made them close La Prenza and put them in jail. No news is good news.

Bush: Where did I hear that before?

Peron: You must have been talking to someone else. It’s not a new idea.

Bush: I got myself in a helluva mess in Iraq. What do you think I should do?

Peron: For one thing, you are on the wrong side. This entire democracy thing is going nowhere. Give it up. You should sell the real American model, which is state control. It will go down well.

Bush: But that’s what they had under Saddam Hussein.

Peron: Precisely the point. Saddam was my kind of man. And after all, he was your baby once. Your C.I.A. told him to knock off hundreds of people, and he did it. They were the guys the Americans didn’t trust. They were for democracy; you know, professors, lawyers, doctors, journalists and the like. So you got rid of all the best people in Iraq. No wonder Iraq can’t get its act together. You got rid of all the ones who might have pulled it off.

Bush: Got to make sure that’s kept a secret. Lemme phone up Porter Goss to make sure that stuff is under wraps.

Peron: Not to worry. The New York Times will never print it anyway.

Bush: Why not? Hey, they hate me.

Peron: They hate you but they do not hate the system. They hate you because they are convinced you are wrecking the system they feed on. Remember that they suppressed the story about the Bay of Pigs because the C.I.A. told them not to write about it. They are part of the game.

Bush: I can pay some journalists to cock up stories. Gotta do that. Lemme phone up Rove.

Peron: The GAO said that was illegal. You should get rid of them.

Bush: Right! I’ll get my own accountants.

Peron: That is essential. Never let anyone else check out your books. That’s a big mistake.

Bush: So, Iraq?

Peron: You can’t put Saddam back, but there are surely others who can take his place. It’s the only solution.

Bush: But once they found out there were no WMDs, democracy became the reason for the war. Transform the Middle East. Make the world safe for democracy.

Peron: That’s the one Freud’s nephew gave to Wilson as an excuse for getting into World War I, after he promised not to do it. And you know where that led. Not to democracy, but to Adolph Hitler. So maybe it’s wasn’t such a hot idea to use Sauce Bernays.

Bush: Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.

Peron: Forget it.

Bush: So, if you were so smart, how come you got thrown out?

Peron: I wasn’t defeated in an election. My own military turned on me.

Bush: I can’t believe it. What a bunch of ingrates.

Peron: Tell me about it. I started having problems paying them because the money wasn’t worth anything.

Bush: I’m sort of having the same problem. Not enough money to reimburse the soldiers who had to buy their own armor and other equipment. I mean, it’s not as though I didn’t want to do it. I just didn’t have the cash.

Peron: I would watch my back if I were you.

Bush: You mean…?

Peron: Yes. Hire a food taster. It’s an imperative. And make sure you’re bags are packed.

Bush: But where would I go?

Peron: I understand Chalabi has villas for rent.

Bush: You mean….?

Peron: Exactly. Convert.

Bush: Shi’ite or Sunni?

Peron: At this point, I stop giving advice.

Richard Cummings [send him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new book, The Road To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq. He is a contribution editor for The American Conservative.

Bush: What water?

Noah: That’s precisely my point. Because you can’t see the water, you must be Bush.

Bush: Wait a minute. I know all about water. I can walk on it.

Noah: That doesn’t help every body else. The least you could have done was build an ark. Load up two alligators, two po boy sandwiches, two Republicans. The works. But you sat there at the ranch, dry as a bone.

Bush: I got Mike Brown at FEMA taking care of all that stuff. Doin’ a great job.

Noah: The Times-Picayune said you should fire him.

Bush: Hell, that’s just a newspaper. What do they know?

Noah: His last job was director of the International Arabian Horse Association. And they forced him out.

Bush: Those Arabian horses don’t know squat.

Noah: So what will you do now?

Bush: For starters, I’m giving all the survivors of Katrina a two grand debit card, so they can charge up stuff at Wal-Mart.

Noah: How are they going to get there?

Bush: I’m giving them all rowboats.

Noah: I’m starting to like this. What next?

Bush: I’m going to hire them to rebuild New Orleans.

Noah: When do they start?

Bush: As soon as the water recedes.

Noah: By then, they won’t need the rowboats.

Bush: You may have a point there. Forget about the rowboats.

Noah: I understand Halliburton is going to do all the rebuilding. You mean Halliburton is going to hire all those people?

Bush: Exactly right. Cheney is down there now, getting it all set up.

Noah: So, you’ve got thousands of troops all over the place. Where did they all come from?

Bush: We called some of them back from Iraq.

Noah: If you don’t mind me asking, what were they doing in Iraq?

Bush: They were bringing the Iraqis democracy.

Noah: Never heard of it. What is it?

Bush: It’s when people get to vote for the people who govern them.

Noah: If I’m not mistaken, in New Orleans, they voted for that mayor who sat on his duff waiting for you to do something. And the Americans voted you in, and you sat on your duff waiting for the mayor of New Orleans to do something. Would you mind telling me why you would give the Iraqis a system like that? It doesn’t seem to work.

Bush: We got the troops over there to make sure it works, and we’ve got them in New Orleans to make sure it works there.

Noah: That sounds like a good old-fashioned military dictatorship. Look, in my case, God figured that things had gotten so rotten that the only thing to do was to let it rain for forty days and forty nights, so the great flood would wash away everything so we could all start again. It was my mission to build the ark, so we could have enough of the best to do it.

Bush: That’s not the case here, Noah. Things are basically great. We just got a little bit of rain and some wind, and now we have to ride it out. Stick to the plan, that’s my motto, in New Orleans and in Iraq. And I’ve got the best team in both places, you wait and see.

Noah: I’ve seen better teams on chain gangs.

Bush: Don’t you worry. We’re gonna have those guys working, too.

Noah: But it will all still be below sea level. What’s the point? There’s bound to be another flood, another hurricane.

Bush: That won’t be my problem. It’ll be someone else’s. By then, I’ll be back at the ranch, cooling out with Laura.

Noah: I’m not so sure I like this. It sounds a lot like passing the buck, not "the buck stops here."

Bush: Look, back in your time, you didn’t have politics. Now, that’s what we’ve got. Politics is the art of the possible.

Noah: Back in my time, if the people messed up, God saw to it that they got what they deserved. Why not now?

Bush: Heck, I pray all the time. Only instead of praying TO God, I pray AT him. I tell him what’s what and what he should do. That’s leadership. And God put me here to lead. I can’t lead if I have to ask him what to do.

Noah: When was the last time you spoke with him?

Bush: It wasn’t long before Katrina. I told him the news from Iraq was terrible and that he had to do something about it. I told him to whip something up that would eclipse the Iraq news.

Noah: You mean….

Bush: Hey, Noah, keep this to yourself. Katrina was a blessing. Nobody is talking about Iraq and I get to hand out debit cards in New Orleans. Now that’s what I call compassionate conservatism. And meanwhile, the Corps of Engineers is plugging the holes in the levies. What more could you ask?

Noah: How about knowing the truth and the truth making you free.

Bush: And pray tell, what truth would you be talking about?

Noah: That you lied to get America into the war in Iraq because the war would get you reelected, and that you spent billions on the Department of Homeland Security, because the government failed to prevent 9/11 when it easily could have, and now, after all that money, it messed up totally when Katrina hit. And because of the war in Iraq, which you have messed up, the National Guard had its guys over there instead of here, when the New Orleans police cut and ran. There was no one around to stop the looting and to protect the victims of violence.

Bush: Hey, you take care of your flood and I’ll take care of mine.

Noah: I’ve got news for you. It’s the same flood.

Bush: Did I just hear thunder? And was that lightning?

Noah: No comment.

Richard Cummings [send him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new book, The Road To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq. He is a contribution editor for The American Conservative.

The dust is all caked
‘Round you boots as you march
In pursuit of insurgents galore.
And there’s blood on your face
That is burnt in this place
As it never has been burnt before.

They tell you you’re winning,
That it soon will be over,
But you know it is all for the birds,
‘Cause wherever you look,
It is not by the book,
With the Sunnis, The Shi’ites and Kurds.

The bombs that you dropped
Left Fallujah in rubble,
For the stench there can’t be any words.
But no one could tell
In this bloody hell,
Were they Sunnis, or Shi’ites or Kurds?

You don’t give a damn
For Iraq or Iran,
Or for all of the president’s words.
You just want to get out
And give one final shout
To the Sunnis, the Shi’ites and Kurds.

A bunch of your buddies
All died in an ambush
As Al-Qaeda attacked you in herds.
But they keep rolling on
As the new ones come in
To face Sunnis and Shi’ites and Kurds.

Now one day this all
Will be over –
And Iraq will be carved into thirds.
They’ll dismember the land
To the sound of the band
Into Sunnis, and Shi’ites and Kurds.

So wherever they lay
Down your body –
Your last wish they might think absurd-
"Don’t place me beside,
Where last I reside,
Near a Sunni, or Shi’ite or Kurd."

And Bush and his cronies,
That old pack of phonies,
Let them rot in a hell they deserve-
Where they’ll be made to pay
For their deeds of their day
To the Sunnis, the Shi’ites and Kurds.

Then, if you’re embedded,
You could be beheaded –
Like Iraq, you’ll be sliced into thirds.
So prepare for your death
And breathe your last breath,
Midst the Sunnis, the Shi’ites and Kurds.

Richard Cummings [send him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new book, The Road To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq. He is a contribution editor for The American Conservative.

Bush: Who are you? Never heard of you. You’re not on my summer reading list.

Alexander: I’m Alexander the Great. But you can call me Alex. I was the first guy to conquer the known world. Someone might have clued you in.

Bush: Sorry, Alex, but I’m too busy invading the world. Just sent Rummy over to South America to warn them about lefties. You can’t be too careful.

Alexander: With all the geniuses advising you, you probably don’t want any advice from me, but let me warn you about those Persians.

Bush: Who:

Alexander: Persians.

Bush: Never heard of them.

Alexander: I think you call them Iranians.

Bush: Oh, those guys. Gotta nuke ‘em.

Alexander: In a manner of speaking, I did. Took them out entirely. I annexed their entire empire. Now that’s how to create empire. You go in, kill everybody, and declare them your subjects. In any event, it was a preemptive strike. It was them or us.

Bush: But if they’re dead, what difference does it make?

Alexander: Good point. You might have thought about that before you attacked Iraq.

Bush: But I was bringing American style democracy to them. It had to help.

Alexander: Did it ever dawn on you that those Iranians wanted you to do that?

Bush: Why? They hate democracy. At least the ones who run the place.

Alexander: Exactly. They suckered you into Iraq so you would fail and they would pick up the pieces.

Bush: Heck, I’ve got the best intelligence service in the world. They would have figured it out.

Alexander: Are you so sure they didn’t? Did you ever hear of Aldridge Ames? He sold out to the Russians. And the Iranians have more money than the Russians ever had. You never heard of the word "mole?"

Bush: So, you’re trying to tell me that guys like George Tenet didn’t know what they were talking about because some guys down the ladder were on the take?

Alexander: It costs a lot to send your kids to college these days. Not like me. I just sat under an olive tree and listened to Aristotle.

Bush: That guy again. I had a run-in with him and everybody had a big laugh at my expense.

Alexander: Let’s face the facts. Who was it who got you to invade Iraq in the first place because he said they had all those WMDs?

Bush: Easy. Chalabi. And we gave his group tons of money.

Alexander: So how come it never dawned on you that he was an Iranian spy? I mean, he had this huge villa there and spent lots of time hanging out with his co-religionists. Those Iranians are all Shiites, just like Chalabi. You gotta wonder about your C.I.A. If they weren’t on the take, then they were just jerks.

Bush: You’re tryin’ to tell me I was sold out? And besides, Judith Miller believed him.

Alexander: He’s kinda cute. That can go along way with a doll. Hey, there’s gotta be an explanation for how they missed this. Rummy is saying that Iran is causing all the trouble in Iraq, now, worse than Al Queda. Why do you suppose that is?

Bush: Because they want to take over Iraq after we leave.

Alexander: Like "duh." Hello? They couldn’t do that while Saddam Hussein was in power and they couldn’t afford another war with him, which they could never win. So what did they do? They got you jerks to do it for them. Now, they’ve got the Iraqi police (all Shiites) knocking off the Sunnis. Hey, it’s just the beginning. If you stay you lose, because that fuels the insurgency, and if you get out you lose, because Iran wins. As long as they’ve got you pinned down there, you can’t invade Iran. And if you leave, they come in and take over Iraq. Lose, lose.

Bush: But what about democracy? That’s what it was all about. Democracy is the way to win the war on t error.

Alexander: Don’t kid me. Are you pressing the House of Saud to become, like the Iowa caucuses?

Bush: Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Alexander: You can say that again.

Bush: Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Alexander: My point exactly. Let’s be honest. You’re trying to be Rome. At least we Greeks brought civilization with us. Or at least we thought so. After I died, the Persians went right back to being what they were before. The biggest imperialists. And what you don’t seem to understand, is that they still are. Scratch an Iranian and you get a Persian. There’s a new Great Game in Central Asia, and they’ve outfoxed you. They will be the only country with both nukes and oil. You used to be, but you used up all your oil.

Bush: Like, I said, I’m going to nuke them. No way will I allow them to have nukes.

Alexander: Make one move in that direction, and you will have to deal with China, which has started conducting joint maneuvers with Russia. And because you bullied Russia by meddling in Ukraine, they’re selling all their oil to China instead of you. So you now have to go back to Saudi Arabia, hat in hand. And the House of Saud is hated. The closer you get to them and Prince Turki, the more recruits Al Queda will get. So you are in a complete box.

Bush: So, Mr. Smarty Pants, how do I get out of this mess?

Alexander: You got yourself into it, you figure it out.

Richard Cummings [send him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new book, The Road To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq. He is a contribution editor for The American Conservative.

W: Well, sometimes, more is less.

Yogi: Casey Stengel said somethin’ like that about the Mets. "We came up slow, but fast." So what you’re tellin’ us is you’re pullin’ out fast but slow.

W: What I’ve been saying, Yog, is that we need to significantly lower our expectations about what we can achieve in Iraq. Let’s admit it. We were somewhat unrealistic. We can no longer expect to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry, or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges.

Yogi: There’s a mental health group that says, "Lower you expectations and your performance will rise." Are you saying that you’re joinin’ up?

W: Well, it’s a fact that we can no longer defeat the insurgence with American forces. All we can do is train and equip enough Iraqi security forces to take over the fight.

Yogi: So, it’s mission accomplished, right?

W: We’re working on an exit strategy that meets our objectives.

Yogi: McCain says that the day he can land at the airport in Baghdad and ride in an unarmed car down the highway to the Green Zone is the day that he’ll start considering withdrawals from Iraq. Is he right? And how can you win with troops there if everyone says the troops are the problem? How can you get those Sunni guys to go along if you plan to keep 50,000 troops there on a permanent basis?

W: I think you mean on permanent bases. McCain is running for president, so he has got to talk tough to win. I’m finished running so I can do what I have to do.

Yogi: So, you’ll meet with that lady whose standing outside your ranch?

W: Look, I’ve got to get on with my life.

Yogi: This sounds a little like cutting and running, if you don’t mind my saying so.

W: We’ve got 2006 mid-term elections coming up. Do you want to see a Democratic congress? How would you like to be bossed around by Nancy Pilosi?

Yogi: I’ve been a player and I’ve been a manager. I know what it’s like to be bossed and to boss. What matters is a winning team. I can’t really see that you’ve got one. What ever happened to all those guys you signed up to win the war with? You know, guys like Feith, Wolfowitz and Perle? I don’t hear anything from them now.

W: Well, they’ve all got other jobs.

Yogi: When guys messed up in my time, they got sent down or were traded. And the manager got fired. I know all about that.

W: It’s too late to fire me.

Yogi: Not so fast. You could get impeached.

W: No problem. My guys control the House and the Senate.

Yogi: What happens if the other guys take over in 2006? Couldn’t they impeach you, as sort of payback for what you guys did to Clinton because he hooked up with some broad? Messin’ up a war you sort of fibbed to get us into is a helluva lot worse. At least, that’s my way of lookin’ at it.

W: I’m not sure I appreciate this. I mean, I used to go to a lot of Yankee games and actually rooted for them until I bought the Texas Rangers.

Yogi: I’m told you did that with other people’s money and that you used imminent domain to clinch the deal to build a new stadium.

W: You mean eminent domain.

Yogi: Well, the whole thing was kinda imminent, wasn’t it?

W: That was then, this is now.

Yogi: So you sold out and made a cool thirteen million and never put up a penny of your own money. Pretty shrewd. Now, a bunch of your friends are raking in big bucks because of Iraq, like Riley Bechtel. Your uncle, too. Even Vice President Cheney. Frankly, I think the whole business stinks.

W: All this stuff makes people forget about the great economic news.

Yogi: If you look at that news, it’s kinda of contrived. The money isn’t worth anything. So, its phony good news. The good news is bad news. And as for Iraq, what you’re saying is that the bad news is good news. You won’t catch me saying stuff like that.

W: I’ve got to get back to the ranch. Laura is waiting for me.

Yogi: I’ve got news for you. We’re all waiting for you. You know, fish or cut bait. In or out. As for me, I’m for out. There’s no point putting bad money after good. And dollars are still money, but not for long.

W: Well, it’s still better than being French.

Yogi: I don’t get your meaning.

W: The French are chicken.

Yogi: I like French chicken. They call it poulet roti.

W: I’ve got to hand it to you, Yogi, you’re a great comedian.

Yogi: Hey, nothin’ like you.

Richard Cummings [send him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new book, The Road To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq. He is a contribution editor for The American Conservative.

Well, Adolf, when your people get discouraged, you’ve got to give them hope, even at the expense of the truth.

Herr Bush, or can I call you Georgie?

Sure, as long as I’m calling you Adolf.

Well, Georgie, I told everybody we were winning in Russia. It was a big mistake. When the Russians arrived in Berlin, everyone asked what was up.

So what did you tell them?

I kept telling them we were winning. What else? My basic strategy was to stall and then lie. I had Goering say we winning. Then Himmler. Then Goebels.

So what should I do now? What do I do when they all find out Rice was wrong?

Well, you can follow my example. Have Rumsfeld say you’re winning. Then, Cheney. Then Rove. Sooner or later everyone will believe you are winning, even if you are not.

All well and good for you to say now. But if the bombs keep going off, what next?

Put the reporters in jail for not naming their sources. Lock up enough of them and before you know it, no news. And as you Americans like to say, "No news is good news." But shut up that Rice person. She’s more trouble than she’s worth.

But everyone likes her. She can lie through here teeth and still get away with it. She’ll probably end up president.

O.K., Georgie, so she’s quick on her feet. But sooner or later, she will get nailed.

By whom?

Good question. Like all great liars, like me, for example, herself will nail her.

You mean….?

Exactly. At some point, she will say the insurgency remains a serious threat. Someone will ask her how that could be when she already said it was kaput. Then, she will be in big trouble.

What should I do?

Do what I did. Yell and scream, and pound on the table. Have lots of people waving flags. Play martial music and salute.

And then?

Proclaim victory. By then, your term will be up and you can go back to the ranch, out of harm’s way. That’s better than blowing your brains out in the bunker.

Adolf, you’re a genius.

Georgie, it takes one to know one.

Richard Cummings [send him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new book, The Road To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq. He is a contribution editor for The American Conservative.

Bush: Well, if you call me George, what do I call you, Arie?

Aristotle: Just call me The Philosopher. So what do I call you?

Bush: Just call me The Thinker.

Aristotle: O.K., Thinker. So you think "Intelligent Design" should be taught in the schools. But just what do you mean by that?

Bush: Well, smarty pants Philosopher, what I mean is that some Supreme Being makes sure that nothing happens without there being an intelligent design.

Aristotle: And just who would that be?

Bush: Actually, it’s Dick Cheney.

Aristotle: Then you think there was an intelligent design behind the war in Iraq?

Bush: Precisely. And I was present at the creation.

Aristotle: Well, in hindsight, wouldn’t you agree that this is more like "idiotic design"?

Bush: I take that personally. Intelligent design is faith based, and we have to take the invasion of Iraq on faith. It’s like my entire administration, all the result of "intelligent design" based on faith.

Aristotle: Your government is broke, penniless. You are hated throughout the world, you have messed up the war on terror and you have no ideas. Tell me, how this is intelligent design?

Bush: Remember how things were when I got in. There was a surplus and America had pulled its troops out of Bosnia. What a terrible state of affairs. Well, we all sat around and I asked, "What can we do about this?" and Cheney said, "Let’s pray."

Aristotle: So you prayed?

Bush: We prayed for an intelligent design to come down and put it all right, which it did. In no time, we had a gigantic deficit and several unmanageable wars. You gotta believe.

Aristotle: What are your plans now:

Bush: More intelligent design. We plan to nuke Iran, spend trillions on stupid projects and I have given Greenspan total freedom to destroy the economy.

Aristotle: And who is the Supreme Being behind all of this?

Bush: The ultimate one, the great power, the creator, the architect.

Aristotle: You mean….?

Bush: Exactly. Karl Rove.

Aristotle: So what you are advocating is that children in public schools accept that Karl Rove is the Supreme Being behind intelligent design.

Bush: He is omniscient. How else did he know who Valerie Plame was?

Aristotle: Maybe a little birdie told him.

Bush: O.K. a little humor never hurts. But I think it is really important to be exposed to differing ideas.

Aristotle: If that’s so, how come you and your entire team shut up everyone who said Saddam Hussein had no WMDs?

Bush: Well, I never said you should be exposed to ideas that contradicted the intelligent design. That would contradict the whole concept. If the design is intelligent, than all opposition to it is, by logic, stupid. People like that deserve to be trashed, or fired.

Aristotle: What if they are under cover for the C.I.A?

Bush: No problem. Intelligent design blows the cover of the untrustworthy. Get with the team or get lost.

Aristotle: You haven’t really discussed the role of the Almighty, apart from Cheney and Rove.

Bush: You’re looking at him.

Aristotle: You mean…

Bush: Take a good look, bub. You never heard of the Trinity?

Aristotle: Don’t you think this is stretching it a bit?

Bush: Hey, I didn’t put Tom DeLay in there. Consider yourself lucky.

Aristotle: But what about the theory of evolution?

Bush: No problem. I’m all for natural selection, as long as I do the selecting. And when I do it, it is by intelligent design, so the selection is natural.

Aristotle: So you’ve got it all figured out.

Bush: You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Richard
Cummings [send
him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University
and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the
Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal
work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
He is the author of a new novel, The
Immortalists, as well as
The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the
comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He
holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is
a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new
book, The Road
To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq.
He is a contribution editor for The
American Conservative.

Richard
Cummings Archives

Now that we know Karl Rove and Scooter Libby have been lying through their teeth, we have a "what did they know and when did the know it" scenario regarding Bush and Cheney and the outing of Valerie Plame. The coordinated war on Joseph Wilson was part of the hoax that was the basis for the invasion in the first place, so the abuse of power is just as bad as the lies. As the demands for Libby and Rove’s resignation reach a crescendo, these pawns will fall. Can Bush and Cheney be far behind?

The impeachment of Bush and Cheney will start to be become an inevitability. If Clinton was impeached over Monica Lewinski, how can the Beltway resist this cannibalism? This totem-like behavior is deeply rooted in all societies, as Freud taught. Devouring the leader is the mob’s favorite game. And, in this case, we have two of them to eat up.

That will leave the hapless Dennis Hastert, the speaker of the House as president. In a panic, he will appoint John McCain vice president. As the mob roars ever louder, Hastert resigns, making McCain president. O.K., he’s a warmonger, but at least he’s a smart warmonger. Like DeGaulle, who supported the Algerian war until he got to be president of France and then did an about face, because he saw the writing on the all, expect McCain to do this same. His vice president will be Lindsay Graham, an amiable cipher from South Carolina, who will go along with this. At least, as one listens to his current utterances, this sounds reasonable

But what, you might ask, will become of Iraq once the Americans are gone? The Bush-Cheney lie was that Saddam Hussein had ties to Al Queda. He didn’t. But now, Al Queda is in there and leading the insurgency. Won’t this leave America vulnerable to endless insurgencies around the globe? You can just imagine Murray Rothbard’s response to that question. So what? We have no business bossing around the rest of the world. It’s bad for business.

Now that the architects of the war bristle at the growing link between the Iraqi government and Iran, (What did they think would happen? They are all Shiites, except for a few Kurds), let the logical happen. The Iraqis will take care of Saddam and will then tell the American to leave. Then, they can invite the Iranians and the Syrians in to keep the peace. So much for Richard Perle’s empire of the east.

The Iranians and the Syrians will know how to take care of the insurgency. Just don’t ask how and look the other way. In no time, it will be over and silence will fall over Iraq. We can have a big ticker tape parade for the troops, who will, mercifully, all be coming home.

But why stop there? The endless parade of losers that have seized power through a system that is corrupt and undemocratic must be overhauled. The time has come for a constitutional convention to restore Jeffersonian democracy to America by spelling out the limits of the federal government in stark terms that give no opportunity for interpretation, including a check on the judiciary. Either a two-thirds vote by the House and Senate, or a two-thirds vote by the state legislatures should be able to override a Supreme Court decision. And never again will a president be able to con America into a war. With the War Powers Resolution, enacted after Vietnam having lapsed into desuetude, have a new constitutional provision requiring a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate to commit troops through a Joint Declaration of War. Further, should the president attempt to avoid this limitation on his power, this will be grounds for impeachment.

Agencies such as the C.I.A. and F.B.I. must never again be able to covertly usurp the rights of free Americans, through covert censorship, blacklisting and intimidation. Their job is to protect us, not persecute us. Violations of these restrictions should lead to criminal prosecutions and dismissal.

Lastly, the new constitution must restore the gold standard. Greenspan whispers in private that he still supports it, so call it the "Greenspan Amendment." Break out the champagne and put Murray Rothbard’s picture on the one hundred dollar bill backed by gold. It’s the least we could do.

Richard
Cummings [send
him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University
and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the
Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal
work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
He is the author of a new novel, The
Immortalists, as well as
The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the
comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He
holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is
a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new
book, The Road
To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq.
He is a contribution editor for The
American Conservative.

Richard
Cummings Archives

Isn’t
it neat?Does Congress approve?Cheney keeps tearing aroundRice cannot
move.Where are the clowns?Send in the clowns.

Just
when we thought we had learned about war,Finally knowing there was no just
cause,Here they are going at it once more,Sure of themselves, Just
like before.

Don’t
they love bombs?Their fault, I fear.They thought we’d want what they want,Sorry,
my dear.But where are the clowns?Quick, send in the clowns.Don’t bother,
they’re here.

Aren’t
they rich?Thriving on fear.Starting a war so very lateIn their careers?And
aren’t they clowns?We know they are clowns.Well, even next year.

June
18, 2005

Richard
Cummings [send
him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University
and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the
Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal
work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
He is the author of a new novel, The
Immortalists, as well as
The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the
comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He
holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is
a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new
book, The Road
To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq.
He is a contribution editor for The
American Conservative.

Richard
Cummings Archives

"Why not socks?" Huntley Witherspoon III of Greenville, South Carolina demanded to know. The scion of the Witherspoon Sock Company, Witherspoon added, "We’ve been making socks since before the civil war and now, we are faced with ruin. Heck, I voted for Bush and now I’m sunk. Why just pants, shirts and underwear?"

The answer to Witherspoon’s question can be found in a deep analysis of El Presidente’s mind and the way it functions. He knows that were it not for sales in China, G.M. would be going bankrupt, so a total trade war with China is out of the question. Whereas a Buick is a turkey in America, it is a status symbol in China. Go figure. But since the Lucky Stripe Pants Company, the White Collar Shirt Company and the Loot of the Froom Underwear Company, all kicked in a total of five million bucks to the Bush campaign in soft money, they get the nod. Too late for the Witherspoon Shirt Company. All Mr. Witherspoon did was write a check for $2,000 to eat rubber chicken with Dick Cheney, and that counts for beans.

Coming from South Carolina, Witherspoon might have learned something from John C. Calhoun about tariffs, but times change. Instead of demanding that all the tariffs be dropped, he has organized the "Why Not Socks" campaign, taking his cause national. His chief spokesperson, I. M. Autarky, has expressed the belief that this movement will grow, until socks have their day in the sun.

"We expect to see American tennis players out there in Witherspoon socks," he said. "We’ve signed up the Williams sisters, who have designed a new line of socks. Their motto is u2018Sock It To ‘Em.’"

Meanwhile, back in China, the manufacturers of shirts, pants and underwear, have started their own campaign. "Why Socks?" it is called, demanding that the government of China force El Presidente to back down or else China will impose a ban on the export of soy sauce to America. "Martin Yan disciples will go nuts," one Chinese businessman said. "That will teach them."

But China holds all the cards it needs without banning soy sauce. It makes the American debt possible by buying up all that paper. It could threaten to stop, but is holding off. If it does that, the American economy will sink, and then nobody in America will buy anything from China. China will go broke and there could be a Communist revolution. And none of this can possibly help Huntley Witherspoon, who has begun running TV ads with the Williams sisters beaming after running around a tennis court, holding up pairs of Witherspoon socks. The sole beneficiary of all this has been Michael Chang, whose career ended a few years ago after he won only one grand slam. He has been hired by the Won Ton Sock Company of Shanghai to appear in TV ads across America in which he steps off the tennis court, pointing to his Won Ton Socks.

"Won Ton Socks" will make you feel comfortable all through a five set match," he grins. "Even against Ivan Lendl." The trouble is no one remembers who Ivan Lendle is, so to remind everyone, Won Ton hired Lendle to appear in the ad, grinning like the Frankenstein monster, behind Chang and pointing to his Won Ton socks. "I wear them, too," he smiles. "Even on the golf course."

"We tried to get Tiger Woods," the Won Ton spokesperson said, "but he wasn’t getting involved. We offered him tons of money, but he said no dice. He’s already committed to Nikl."

Meanwhile, the White House has refused to comment on whether El Presidente wears Won Ton or Witherspoon socks. "We believe in fair trade and freedom of choice in the free market," said a White House spokesperson, "unless we believe otherwise. But we do see this as related to the price of gas at the pump. If the price keeps going up, which it will, people will have less money to spend. So they will want cheaper socks. It’s as simple as that."

"But won’t they want cheaper shirts, pants and underwear? " a reporter asked.

"Sure," Spokesperson answered. "But they will just have to wait. El Presidente can’t work miracles."

Richard Cummings [send him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new book, The Road To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq. He is a contribution editor for The American Conservative.

Duce: Il Duce, please.

Baba: Can I call you Duce for short?

Duce: Oh, sure. Duce. That’s a me.

Baba: Well, what I’d like to ask you, what I hoped you would comment on, is George W. Bush. You know who that is?

Duce: That’s a pipsqueak that a got himself into the White House by the back door. At least I marched on Rome.

Baba: Bush has attacked Iraq and you attacked Ethiopia. What’s the difference?

Duce: You gotta be kidding. Nobody gave a hoot about Ethiopia. They had nothing there. So I attacked.

Baba: But if they had nothing, why did you attack?

Duce: Because they beat us some years back and we wanted our manhood back. But America already beat Iraq. Why did you need to beat them again? This Bush, he confuses me. He doesn’t have a reason for the stuff he does.

Baba: He says he did it to bring democracy to Iraq and the rest of the Middle East.

Duce: So what’s the big deal? What’s a so hot about democracy? Does it make the trains run on time?

Baba: Well, you might have a point. Amtrak isn’t doing so hot. But Bush says that if everyone has democracy, it will end war and violence.

Duce: What a joke. How do you think I got into power? I got elected in a democracy. My buddy, Hitler, he got in through democratic means. Then, we started wars so we could stay in power forever. Who will oppose you when you are in a war? Keep having them and then you stay in forever.

Baba: But that’s what Bush is doing, isn’t it? So why don’t you understand him.

Duce: Because he doesn’t know how to do a war. To win a war you must have soldiers and he doesn’t have enough boots on the ground to win. To be a big-time dictator who wins wars, you need lots of boots. You’ve got to look like you mean business. These guys they call neo-cons are all a bunch of wimps. Softies. The Arabs, they’re not scared of them.

Baba: Is there a way out for Bush?

Duce: He better find one or he’s in trouble. If he stays, he loses and if he gets out, he loses. That’s a stupid way to be a dictator. And besides, he doesn’t have songs or parades. To be a big time Duce, you’ve got to have spectacles. This guy opens his mouth and you fall asleep.

Baba: America is broke. How can Bush fix that?

Duce: First, you must understand that Bush started out to have an empire, but he ended up making America a colony of China. That’s a getting it backwards. But then, he made America a colony of Israel. He at least should figure out that you can’t be a colony of two countries.

Baba: How does he pay off the debt?

Duce: Well, he’s got to print a lot of money. That’s the good old-fashioned way my buddy Peron did it.

Baba: And when the money isn’t worth anything, what does he do?

Duce: He does what he’s doing, give him credit for that. You go around giving lots a speeches. The more speeches you give, the more they forget that the money isn’t worth anything.

Baba: But what happens when they can’t buy anything and they get angry?

Duce: That’s a easy. You invade somebody. Somebody you can beat, like Ethiopia.

Baba: Are you saying….?

Duce: It’s staring Bush in the face but he doesn’t get it. He should invade Ethiopia and tell the United Nations to go buzz off. He can send all the unemployed over there to build roads. They always are building roads in Ethiopia, because grass grows over the old ones.

Baba: But Nixon invaded Ethiopia and it didn’t save him.

Duce: That’s because he kept it a secret. A secret war is a good way for a Duce to get thrown out. If you’re going to have a war, you gotta have it big time. Otherwise, you’re a wimp. A wimp can’t be Duce. Besides, Nixon’s war in Ethiopia was really stupid. He did it to keep Haile Sellassie in, when I invaded Ethiopia to throw him out.

Baba: So what about Iraq?

Duce: Bush has got it backwards. This guy, Saddam Hussein wanted to be Duce, so good for him. For ages, America said, Saddam Hussein wants to be Duce of Iraq. That’s fine with us. He attacks Iran. That’s fine with us. But he attacks Kuwait, a stupid country that never existed except in the mind of Winston Churchill, so Britain could control the oil, and Bush’s father says America has to fight him. When it’s over, Saddam Hussein says he is still Duce of Iraq. So Bush figures he must get rid of him after Al Queda attacked America. But what’s a the reason? He doesn’t have a reason. He just needs a war after Afghanistan, because that one ended too soon before the election. He knows his father lost because the first war ended too soon and everyone forgot he won it and they voted in Clinton because they forgot the war. So Clinton starts one in Serbia and he stays in for two terms. So Bush says, nobody’s gonna out war me.

Baba: How will it all end up?

Duce: They all loved me until I lost. Then, they hanged me upside down. Bush knows he can’t win. He must figure out how to get out and pretend he won.

Baba: How can he do that?

Duce: Not hard in a country where they a dumber even than in Italy.

Baba: Duce, thanks so much for sharing your thoughts.

Duce: It’s nothing.

Richard Cummings [send him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new book, The Road To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq. He is a contribution editor for The American Conservative.

"Congressman Claghorne, thanks for being with us tonight."

"Glad to be here, Tim. Now, I don’t expect to be sandbagged like you were Dan Rather, or somethin’ like that. Let me remind you that CBS just fired a whole bunch a liberals for their biased and unsupported allegations about President Bush’s military service during the Vietnam War."

"Don’t worry, Congressman. We seek balanced and unbiased news. You’re on to explain what you think we should do in Iraq now. Since you chair the Committee on Unlimited Aggressive War, we thought you were the best possible person to shed some light on this seemingly endless conflict."

"That’s right, Tim. It does seem endless now. When I voted for givin’ Bush the power to invade, I figured they had some kind a plan for what to do after they got there. My constituents were fully behind me in this, not like them traitorous blue states, which don’t do nothin’ but get bluer every day."

Well, Congressman Claghorne, what do the folks in your district think now?"

"Now? Now, they think we should get the hell out of there after they vote. They figure we got that snake, Saddam Hussein, so the Iraqis can clean up their own snake pit. They’re tired a hearin’ every day that a bunch of American soldiers have got themselves killed by a pack of terrorists."

"Is there any reason why you believed the Pentagon would have a plan? Don’t you remember Vietnam?"

"You bet I do. I voted for that war, too, but when it started to go sour, after fifty thousand of our guys got killed, I boldly stepped up to the plate and called for an immediate withdrawal."

"With a little hindsight, don’t you think you might have figured this out and warned the folks in y our district that this could be a big mistake."

"Listen, if I had a known that there was no plan, I would have said, u2018Hey, let’s keep our powder dry until we got one. That would a made sense."

"What stopped you from doing that in the first place?"

"Son, if I had said that, I would have lost my seat in Congress, no question. The folks in my district were all worked up about those WMDs and how Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were bosom buddies."

"But none of that was true."

"So what. They believed it anyway and there was no sense tryin’ to explain it all to them. Heck, that’s not my job."

"If you don’t mind my asking, what is your job?"

"Son, my job is to keep getting’ elected, so the folks in my district have someone representin’ them that they can trust."

"But if you knew it was all a pack of lies and they trusted you, why wouldn’t they have believed you?"

"Cause they believe the president. They figure if he’s the president he’s tellin’ the truth, or he wouldn’t be the president. Now, if I go out there and tell them what Bush is tellin’ them is a bunch of junk, they’d lynch me as fast as you can say Dick Cheney."

"I gather that you have been saying that withdrawal after the election is a serious option if the Iraqis can’t defend themselves. But how can there even be an election with all the violence?"

"Well, you know it’s only four provinces where they got all that violence, so I say, go ahead with the votin’. Give democracy a chance, that’s what I say."

"But those four provinces have half the population of Iraq. If they can’t vote, how can there be a fair election?"

"Son, where have you been? Most elections in America, you’re lucky to get half the voters to vote."

"Aren’t you afraid a Democrat could beat you, seeing as how you called it all wrong?"

"Hell, no, son. Those blue state guys are now sayin’ we have to stay the course, keep at it until we prevail. After Kerry got his butt whipped, they all ran for cover, thinkin’ most Americans really supported Bush and the war. But I got ‘em foxed. Get all those donkeys over on the pro-war side and pull the rug out from under ‘em."

"You mean…?"

"You git it son. The blue state guys are gonna all be for stayin’ there forever. And me and my buddies are gonna say, "Pull out! Not another American life. It ain’t worth it.’"

"But what about Bush? He’s still the president."

"Son, the day after the election, he was a lame duck and that duck is toast."

u2018You mean….?"

"You git it again, son. Long after Bush is gone, I’m gonna be here, red state or blue state. And that’s what matters, ain’t it?"

"Congressman Claghorne, I appreciate the straightforward way you dodge the issues."

"Any time. By the way, russet is some kind a apple, ain’t it? Just kiddin, son."

Richard Cummings [send him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new book, The Road To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq. He is a contribution editor for The American Conservative.

Listening to John Kerry and John Edwards attack W for misleading the nation and leading it into war under false pretenses, one is tempted to heave a sigh of relief that the truth has finally made its way into the mainstream. But guess again.

In this Sunday’s New York Times’ gigantic story about the flawed intelligence leading up to the war, there is a portion buried well into it that shows how Kerry and Edwards were both out to lunch, asleep at the switch, or however one wishes to describe dereliction of duty. That salute by Kerry as he proclaimed "Reporting for duty" was a farce. Some duty.

As the Times explains, Kerry never even read the National Intelligence Estimate before he voted to give Bush the authority to go to war against Iraq. "According to the CIA’s report, all U.S. intelligence experts agree that Iraq is seeking nuclear weapons," Kerry said just before he cast his infamous vote. "There is little question that Saddam Hussein wants to develop nuclear weapons."

Instead of doing his job by asking the "hard questions" he promises to ask after his election, he satisfied himself with a briefing by George Tenet. My urologist had to remind me that I had come to see him after I first heard Tenet speak at the Yale Club just after Clinton had appointed him. "You told me he was a complete jerk," he reminded me. But was he a bigger jerk than "Joe," the CIA engineer who got it all wrong about those aluminum tubes? Bob Graham who served as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and who read the report, voted against the war resolution. "It reinforced in my mind pre-existing questions I had about the unreliability of the intelligence community, especially the CIA," he affirmed. Graham’s candidacy for president lasted a couple of months, largely because he looks like a turtle and keeps a copious diary of his day’s activities, something Kerry would never do, lest the public find out how little he actually does.

Which brings to mind a statement made to me by Congressman Barney Frank, during the course of my interview with him for my biography of Allard Lowenstein, The Pied Piper. "This is a great job," he told me, smiling in his resplendent Congressional office. "I don’t have to do anything." Meaning, his staff does all the work and tells him how to vote.

Which brings us to John Edwards, one of the country’s most successful trial lawyers. As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Edwards had the chance to discuss the WMDs and the nuclear program in Iraq with Graham, but he didn’t. The evidence shows he didn’t bother to read the report either. Asking no hard questions, Edwards stated: "We know that he (Sadddam) is doing everything he can to build nuclear weapons." Never mind that the Department of Energy, alias the bomb factory, had concluded that "based on these tubes," no one could construct a centrifuge site capable of producing enriched uranium.

It is impossible to imagine that John Edwards would ever examine a witness in a multi-million dollar trial without familiarizing himself with the transcripts of the examination before trial and all the evidence. But he didn’t do his homework when a vote to go to war was at issue. Why not? For the same reason that George Tenet was constantly missing in action when his presence was called for and Colin Powell went along with the rods story, without questioning it. That reason is that almost no one in Washington does anything, not the president, not Kerry, not Edward, not Dick Cheney. They run around pretending to be busy, but they are not seriously involved in doing the people’s business. And we pay for this, with our money and with our lives.

And, if you think, things will be getting better at the CIA, think again. Porter Goss, a former Republican Congressman from Florida, who has just taken over as Director, has tapped an acknowledged shoplifter whom the police forced to resign from the CIA twenty years ago, as number three at the Agency (Executive Director), from which position, he will be in charge of the budget. It is surreal.

The political classes in America exist entirely separately from the citizenry, as a separate and distinct interest group responsible to no one. The end result of this is that the very existence of the state is inimical to the well-being of the people who inhabit it. The crowds cheering Kerry and Bush are fools, which leaves the rest of us in the same situation as the taxi driver in Groucho Marx’s famous skit. Groucho gets into the taxi and says to the driver, "Over a cliff. I’m committing suicide."

How to get out of the taxi? First, don’t be fooled that Kerry is any better than Bush, that the Democrats are better than the Republicans. Voting third party is appropriate in this election, as is telling your friends, neighbors and relatives that you are not fooled, that this entire political system must be restructured. But as Tom Brokaw said to Chris Matthews, "Those in power won’t do it because this is the system that got them where they are." Jump out of the doomed vehicle that is the two-party system and turn your back on the conspiracy of mediocrity that is destroying America. Voting for the bigger of two phonies will no longer do. In the immortal words of Nancy Reagan, "Just say no."

Richard Cummings [send him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new book, The Road To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq. He is a contribution editor for The American Conservative.

But wait a minute. The guys calling for the draft in Congress are all Democrats. In the Senate, Ernest Hollings, Democrat of South Carolina a hawk, has introduced the legislation, while Charles Rangel, the ultra-liberal black Democratic Congressman from Harlem, has introduced it in the House because he thinks more whites should be getting shot at, a matter of equal protection. So when John Edwards gets up and says to a hooting crowd, "There will be no draft in a Kerry administration," this has got to be chutzpah at its most extreme, since the Democratic legislation also requires Canada to return fleeing draft evaders.

In actuality, the Pentagon is opposing the draft, if you can imagine a building either opposing or supporting anything, because its bureaucratic managers know that a draft only dumbs down the military. But let’s suppose that it happens. What can a person do to avoid its consequences?

There was the story about the guy summoned for his physical and who, while sitting across the desk from examiners, starts picking up papers, saying, "This isn’t it. This isn’t it." After watching him do this for several minutes, they confer and hand him his deferment by reason of insanity. He looks at it and says, "This is it!" One way out, then, is insanity. Of course, the only ones who are insane are the ones starting the wars, but never mind. One good turn deserves another.

Another possibility is marriage. No, not straight marriage, but gay marriage. Since gays are officially banned from serving in the military, individuals with no desire to die for Bush or Kerry, could enter into same sex partnerships that could remain unconsummated without the Selective Service knowing it. Male and female alike, Americans from eighteen to twenty six could turn up for their examinations with their partners, preferably holding hands. That would leave the political establishment in a quandary, since the only way to draft these people would be to lift the ban on gays serving in the military. As no one is going to do this, for fear of ending up in the political graveyard, the coast is clear.

"Gay and nuts, they won’t get our butts!" the new resisters will shout as their ranks swell. You can bet that John Kerry will start supporting them. "I now lots of nutty gays, and let me tell you, they are as patriotic as anyone else, even more so. So when I am president, I will see to it that all of these great, nutty gays can do national service by performing good works for the needy in remote areas in poverty stricken rural America, or in the slums of Detroit and Philadelphia. They will be rewarded for their service with full tuition scholarships to the college of their choice."

Not to be outgunned, the Bush campaign will turn Dick Cheney lose in the heartland to argue, "Nutty gays should be treated with dignity and respect. I know some nutty gays personally who are dear to me and I would have it no other way, nor would any other American. They want democracy to succeed in Iraq as much as the rest of us, and recognize the great threat posed by terrorism. Kerry, who is only encouraging Osama bin Laden with his wishy-washy opposition to the Patriot Act, is unfit to serve as Commander in Chief because he doesn’t know a nutty gay from a straight guy."

At this point, Dan Rather announces on CBS that it has discovered Dick Cheney’s draft deferments and that they all claim that he was a nutty gay. When asked about the authenticity of these documents, Rather acknowledges that the fact that they were written in Hebrew caused him to hesitate briefly, but that he had them verified and authenticated by a qualified expert in Somalia.

Donald Rumsfeld, meanwhile, to make up for the needed manpower in Iraq, announces that he has begun recruiting in Mexico and that the official language of the Army will henceforth be Spanish. "This has definite benefits, because no one can call this an American occupation," he explains.

When questioned by a New York Times reporter on this new policy, Bush defends it. "We are winning," he asserts. "And with God’s help, this great nation will turn the tide against barbarism."

"But Mexican’s are not Americans. How can America take credit if the soldiers aren’t even Americans?"

"It’s true that they aren’t Americans yet. But because they will serve with valor, they will be granted automatic citizenship."

"You mean…?"

"Yes. They will all move to New Jersey, register Republican and deliver that blue state into the red."

"And what about the nutty gays?"

"Once they’re out of the draft, they won’t bother to vote. Or if they do, they will want their tax cut. Either way, it’s win, win."

Richard Cummings [send him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new book, The Road To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq. He is a contribution editor for The American Conservative.

Both Kerry and Edwards say that it was John F. Kennedy who inspired them to go into politics. Ted Kennedy knows this. And he also knows that his late brother was going to dump Lyndon Johnson and replace him with Terry Sanford, the governor of North Carolina, who was the shining light of what was called the "new south." Had this happened, the country might have avoided the Vietnam War and the backlash that led to the resurgence of Richard Nixon and, ultimately, the triumph of Ronald Reagan. Now, in the twilight of his own career, Ted Kennedy sees a similar situation. If Bush is reelected, preemptive war, unilateralism and hegemony will continue as the basic components of American foreign policy. "The only thing we have to fear is four more years of Bush, " Kennedy bellows.

Kennedy rightly sees John Kerry as the Kennedy surrogate (his initials are JFK) and Edwards, the rising star of the Democratic Party from North Carolina, as the Terry Sanford surrogate. And with Kennedy as the ranking Democrat on the Senate Labor Committee, which he is likely to chair again as control of the Senate could easily shift, Sweeny and the Union Leaders (they sound like a Seventies rock group) were not going to buck him and back Gephardt. They pulled the plug, and Gephardt, of the old Hubert Humphrey wing of the Democratic Party which had never accepted the Kennedy leadership of the Democratic party, was sunk. This was settling old scores with the Humphrey camp, going back to Humphrey’s challenge to Kennedy in 1960, and his role as Johnson’s vice president, a position Robert Kennedy had coveted.

Likewise, the pulling of the plug on Howard Dean settled old scores with the Eugene McCarthy wing of the Democratic Party that had rallied to the Vermont doctor. Had McCarthy not run, the coast would have been clear for Bobby Kennedy without the chaotic primary season that ended with his assassination.

In the general election, the final score to be settled is with Dick Cheney and the Neo-Cons, that cult group with the one big hit, "It’s the Same Old Song." Most of these characters are Scoop Jackson leftovers, bearing the old grudge dating from JFK’s rejection of Jackson for the vice presidential nomination in favor of Johnson. Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz are former Jackson acolytes who found a home in the neo-con movement, social democrats who favor military action before diplomacy and who accuse the Democrats of being soft on terrorism. They will tell you that Kennedy sold out Laos, making the Vietnam War inevitable. Back with them is that unforgettable act, The Committee on the Present Danger, starring Max Kampelman and Jeanne Kirkpatrick, last seen in public playing the Cold War Café.

The Kennedy argument is that JFK was right in Laos. And that Bush and the neo-con Jacksonite heretics are a threat to the entire western Imperium. Just as Kennedy waged the Cold War with an appeal to idealism, so Kerry and Edwards will wage the war against the Jihad insurrection by offering an inspirational vision of the future. Once more, the Peace Corps will be pushed to center stage as representing what America stands for, even as Kerry attempts to run to the right of Bush. The liberal façade of the empire, it is argued, is the best way to fight terror, as Paul Berman insists. In 1960, JFK and the Missile Gap, a liberal group, pretended to be to the right of Nixon, saying they, not the Republicans, knew how to fight Communism and the Soviets. Nixon was the guy they threw rotten eggs at in Venezuela. Bobby Kennedy was the guy African students cheered and hoisted on their shoulders when he spoke to them. Now, "W" is Nixon, who had his Michael Moore in Emile D’Antonio.

But what this is ultimately about is the America version of the War of the Roses, the House of Bush versus the House of Kennedy. Kennedy even compared Bush to King George III in his speech to the convention, so ingrained is the royal metaphor in his mind. That George W. Bush was able to succeed his father, with Bill Clinton, the ersatz Kennedy in between, has been too much to take for the last representative of a dynasty that was defeated not at the polls but through assassination. Kennedy’s own run against Jimmy Carter, propelled by what was perceived as Carter’s hostility towards Israel, made Ronald Reagan possible. But Carter had to go, just as Hillary Clinton, the heir to another potential dynasty, must be preempted from becoming president. No, before he steps down, Ted Kennedy is determined to see the new JFK in the White Housie and John Edwards safely installed as the next in line. This is the final battle, with Ohio set out as Bosworth Field ("A vote! A vote! My kingdom for a vote!) There, Kennedy will pull out all the stops in his last effort to see the Democratic Party in the Kennedy image back in power for the duration.

The vilified George W. Bush is set in the role of Richard III, an imposter and villain who will stop at nothing to gain and keep power. Michael Moore is the Shakespeare of the Democrats, compounding the myth that Bush is the personification of evil, much as Shakespeare portrayed Richard. The list of Republicans and military brass abandoning Bush is growing, just as Richard’s allies betrayed him. Even Kevin Phillips, the architect of Nixon’s southern strategy, now says Bush and his entire family are corrupt and must be banished. He has gone so far as to offer a new southern strategy for the Democrats to put the liberals in power. If Kennedy has his way in November, history will be reversed, with the liberals, led by the Kennedy wing of the Democratic Party, triumphant.

Panic has started to set in, as the GOP begins to realize that they are saddled with a ticket that could sink, leaving Karl Rove and the Hacks searching for gigs in the boondocks. All that patronage, gone. All the power, the perks, vanished, with the old nemesis back on top. This is the power struggle that characterizes all nation states and will continue long after these players have strutted and fretted their hour upon the stage. It has nothing to do with ideology, as Wordsworth knew. As he wrote in Rob Roy’s Grave, "For why. Because the good old rule sufficeth them, the simple plan,/That those should take who have the power,/And those should keep who can.

Richard Cummings [send him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new book, The Road To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq. He is a contribution editor for The American Conservative.

Judith Miller conducted Mr. Law’s interview with a new Iraqi newspaper, the Baghdad Times, edited by Howell Raines, who finally found a job after being fired by the parent company of the Baghdad Times, the New York Times.

Ms. Miller. Was your presence in Iraq inevitable?

Marshall Law: Not really. It took a lot of work to make this possible.

Ms. Miller: Such as?

Marshall Law: First, you had to alienate the entire population. That took some doing. But we had Paul Wolfowitz come over here first to get it going. Now the new poll, conducted by the Coalition itself, shows that America and Americans are not only distrusted but also detested. The average Iraqi says he would be safer if all foreign troops packed up and left.

Ms. Miller: Is it fair to say, then that Marshall Law has been imposed on Iraq.

Marshall Law: Everyone is saying that. It’s a nice little joke, but the fact is someone has to put his foot down and restore order.

Ms. Miller: But isn’t this kind of policy in direct contrast to the stated goal of creating democracy in Iraq so it could be a model for other Arab countries?

Marshall Law: Not really. How many people remember that this all started with Jeanne Kirkpatrick, when she wrote that there was a difference between authoritarian and totalitarian regimes? We could impose authoritarian regimes as a temporary measure, even if that meant it lasted for half a century, so a totalitarian regime, that is, one not favorable to the United States, could not come to power.

Ms. Miller: Are you saying that the democracy is going to have to wait in Iraq until it looks as if all opposition to America is crushed?

Marshall Law: That’s about it. Call a spade a spade, I always say. Once we have crushed all dissent, then maybe these jerks will be ready to consider governing themselves, at least as acceptable puppets. If they elect a government hostile to us, we’re just going to have to come in and overthrow it. What else is new?

Ms. Miller: I gather that there are terrorists at work in Iraq now, some of whom have ties to Al Queda.

Marshall Law: That’s true. They weren’t here before, but they are here now. So I have become an absolute necessity. What we are going to have to do is suspend the constitution before it is even written. Look, without order you simply can’t have self-government.

Ms. Miller: Let’s be honest. This is sounding more and more like Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Marshall Law: Well, in case you have forgotten, our guys at CIA hired Saddam Hussein and trained him to be an assassin to bump off Kassim the Commie. He messed up and made that famous swim to escape. Then our guys sat by (well, we gave a little nudge here and there) while he knocked off all his enemies and took power. Only then did the CIA find out that his role model was Joseph Stalin. You have to hand it to the Agency. It got the Batistas to flee Cuba so Castro could come down from the mountains and the sugar crop would get harvested. No one believed he was a Communist. He was some romantic figure who could be bought off like all the phony dictators of Latin America, at least that’s what they thought. Now, he acknowledges that his role model has always been Adolph Hitler. But stuff like this gives people like me a chance to have a career cleaning up the mess we made ourselves. It goes on forever. Hey, Osama bin Laden was one of our guys in Afghanistan, Bill Casey’s boy. What a mistake! We’ll be paying for that one for decades.

Ms. Miller: Lets cut to the chase. Was the war a mistake?

Marshall Law: What’s the point of living in the past? And who will ever really know? What we know now is that we are there and there is no getting out. Wolfowitz has just said our troops will be there "as long as necessary." You know as well as I do that this means they will be there until the next century.

Ms. Miller: Let me plead mea culpa and ask if you think the media played a role in all of this.

Marshall Law: Well, I think it’s fair to say that the stupidity had been spread around pretty equally. You believed all the nonsense and reported it because you wanted to believe it. That’s what is means to be part of the GARC, the Great American Ruling Class. The GARC doesn’t think; it just reacts. It’s a great amorphous mass of idiocy with almost total power. It’s like you puffed up Johnny Apple until he was as big as the moon, as though he were not big enough as it is. Then, you would have it, more or less. Ask the GARC to have a thought and it will sit there and pontificate without saying anything concrete. It has no ideas and cannot recognize facts. It huffs and puffs like Lyndon Johnson, or grins at your benignly like Ronald Reagan. And when the GARC has totally messed up in the outposts of the empire, it imposes me, Marshall Law. It’s Pinochet all over again.

Ms Miller: Would things get better with John Kerry?

Marshall Law: That turkey IS the GARC. Are you kidding? I’ll have lots of work with him.

Ms. Miller: Is there no hope, then?

Marshall Law: It all depends on who is getting paid. For Marshall Law, there is lots of hope. Otherwise to paraphrase Kafka, hope is infinite but not for you.

Richard Cummings [send him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new book, The Road To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq. He is a contribution editor for The American Conservative.

How far are we from the glory days of "Shlock and Gore" when America unleashed its attack of Iraq, covered in the field by American journalists "embedded" with the troops so America could witness triumphant colonialism in action. But where are the trumpeters of the American empire now, the Robert Kaplans, the David Brooks, the Richard Perles, and the William Kristols, who proclaimed "the new American century?" Well, we have seen how the new American century begins, and it is with the sado-masochistic photographs of Iraqi prisoners in total humiliation and degradation. But is Paul Wolfowitz chocking on any of this? No. Rather he has just presented the latest bill of $50 billion for the carnage in the name of "exporting democracy," as William Safire calls it. We can fully expect John Kerry to vote for it, unless he is too busy flying around the country denouncing the policies he has supported.

It is easy to call for Donald Rumsfeldu2018s resignation after he did what Kerry voted for him to do. The "tricky part," to use the title of a new play about sexual abuse, was to have voted against it in the first place. But that would have taken political courage and a willingness to stand for what one claims to believe.

Bush, looking at the polls and at Kerry coming at him fast, will undoubtedly attempt to reverse course while pretending he is not. Going from "Mission Accomplished" to "Mission Impossible" in so short a time should tell us something about this pathetic potentate, who throws away lives as though they were baseballs at a Texas Rangers game. The sight of Nick Berg’s father and brother weeping on the lawn in front of their house will be the photograph by which this administration will be remembered, just as the photograph of the young girl wailing over the dead student after the Kent State massacre came to symbolize the Nixon administration.

And when Donald Rumsfeld says that the investigations and coming court marshals show that we are civilized while the terrorists are evil thugs, he fails to mention the all but forgotten fact that the CIA hired Saddam Hussein as an assassin to murder the Iraqi ruler, Abdul Karrem Kassim, putting him up in an apartment in Cairo. But Saddam failed in his mission, making his famous "swim of escape." When he returned to take power by murdering everyone in his way, the CIA looked on in approval, only to learn after he was the dictator of Iraq, that his role model was Joseph Stalin.

From the beginning, America was never in Iraq with clean hands. And with profits falling at Bechtel, once headed by George Schultz, who remains a board member, and currently by Riley Bechtel, who is now a major advisor to Bush, and Halliburton on the verge of bankruptcy because of the acquisition of a company that was the target of asbestos law suits, all on Dick Cheney’s watch as CEO, what better way to revive their fortunes than a war with Iraq so they could clean up with the rebuilding contracts that would reverse their fortunes? Schultz even wrote an Op Ed piece in the Washington Post saying as much, when, arguing for war, he pointed out the opportunities of rebuilding a post-war Iraq. Throw Halliburton subsidiary, KBR, into the pot and you have the sumptuous meal of war profits that was the basis for this enterprise all along.

Nick Berg was the complete innocent in all of this. Once, on a bus, he lent his computer to an Al-Queda operative without knowing his identity. Then, traveling from Israel and then Jordan, he entered Iraq with the hope that he could make a contribution in rebuilding the country. With "Israel" stamped on his passport, he went around the country until his capture. The sight of him in his orange jump suit, saying his name and the names of the members of his family, will haunt us all forever. He was beheaded, the way the Mahdi had Gordon murdered in cold blood, the savage retribution for the mindless, self-righteousness of colonialism disguised as "the white man’s burden" or the "exporting of democracy." And with new Madhis springing up, you can count on more of this.

The least we can do is to export to Iraq that pack of phonies that lured Nick Berg to his bloody death in Iraq and who now say, "Oh, we told him to leave." Told him to leave? When they are telling all of America that we have to stay? Unless, of course, the Iraqis ask us to leave. And now Rumsfeld, paying a surprise visit to Iraq, has said, "It’s more fun here than in Washington. " More fun? Surely, he is joking. Or is he waiting for the second act? But there are no second acts in America. This war is over in one.

Richard Cummings [send him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new book, The Road To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq.

"Great to be here, Jay. What we’re gonna do tonight is decide who should go and who should stay in the U.S. government, across the boards, not just the Bush administration."

"So that would include members of Congress, also?"

"You bet. So let’s get it on. Let’s start with Paul Bremer. Paul, you shut down the newspaper of this militant Shiite cleric, al Sadr, I believe his name is, right?"

"That’s right Donald. Our position is we are for democracy as long as it goes our way."

"So you also looked the other way when a couple of his top aides were knocked off."

"Donald, this sort of thing is inevitable."

"Were you taken by surprise, then, when a whole bunch of his followers took up arms and attacked the American troops?"

"A little bit. It was more than we expected."

"You’re fired! Next. Hi, there, Donald Rumsfeld. Could you tell us if you think we need more troops on the ground in Iraq now?"

"That would be correct."

"Why didn’t you think so sooner?"

"Because sometimes, less is more."

"Don, I’m sorry to say you’re fired! Let’s move on to George Tenet. George, you went to Georgetown and Columbia Universities and you’ve been running the CIA for ages now. How did you miss everything? A memo said that Al Queda was going to use planes to attack targets in America, but there was no follow up, was there?"

"We had all kinds of information, but we didn’t put the dots together."

"What are we paying you to do? You’re fired! Let’s talk to Douglas Feith, the under secretary of defense. Doug, you gave the order to disband the entire Iraqi army, without keeping those who were never for Saddam Hussein, right? That left us basically alone to keep order."

"Don, I have to admit that it might have been a bit hasty."

"Bang! You’re fired! Now it’s time for Colin Powell. Colin, you made those dumb remarks at the United Nations about Iraq having all those weapons of mass destruction. Can you justify that now?"

"I can’t. It was all Dick Cheney’s fault. He made me do it."

"Get outa here. You’re fired! Hey, it’s Condi Rice. Nice to see you. Could you explain, how after getting all that information about terrorism, you devoted you’re attention to a missile defense system and not to Al Queda?"

"Donald, we all did our best. That’s all you can expect. We had no specific information about impending attacks."

"You’ve gotta be joking. Since you demoted Richard Clarke, we are going to demote you. You’re fired! Dick Cheney, so you finally turned up. What have you to say for yourself? Against all evidence, you still insisted that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were working together and that Iraq played a role in 9/11. On that basis, you pressed for the war. You got an excuse?"

"I still believe it."

"You are fired! Bring on your boss. George W. Bush, don’t you think your entire performance has been bush league, so to speak? During the entire month of August before 9/11, you didn’t meet with the head of the CIA once."

"Hey, everyone is entitled to a vacation."

"Take a permanent one. You’re fired!"

Jay: "Well, I guess that just about does it. There’s no one left."

The Donald: "Not so fast. Bring on John Kerry. O.K. John, you have served in the United States Senate for three terms. That comes to about eighteen years all told. Did you ever notice that nothing was working, that the intelligence agencies were out to lunch? You voted to confirm George Tenet. You voted to confirm Robert Mueller. You voted for the war in Iraq. Don’t you take any responsibility for any of this?"

"Well, Don, if you look at my record, you will find that at all times, I have ducked every single issue in a straightforward manner and have also managed to be on all sides of every issue. I think I am superbly qualified to be the next president. "

The Donald: "Well, I don’t. You’re fired!"

Jay: "Well, that’s really it. What do we do know, since no one is left standing?"

The Donald: "I’m left standing. I’m not gong to fire myself. You’ve got a better alternative?"

Richard Cummings [send him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new book, The Road To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq.

Richard Cummings Archives

"We intend to be fully integrated as a family," Mrs. Kerry observed. "We fully support the right of anyone to marry anyone they choose."

"This is about freedom of choice," Victoria Kennedy added. "If anyone even suggests that this is a marriage of convenience, let me tell you now that it’s a lie."

"You mean, " a reporter from the Boston Globe asked, "that this has nothing to do with politics, with Ted Kennedy getting into power through the back door, so he can tax and spend until there is nothing left to tax and spend?"

"I will answer that question," Senator Kerry fumed, standing up to the microphone. " I am my own man. My economic policies are entirely my own. George W. Bush has cost this country millions, tens of millions of jobs. I will put America back to work. And with Ted, Teresa, and Victoria by my side, we will change the course of the country back to the good old days when we were the government and we could tell everyone what was good for them."

"Then this is a marriage of liberalism to liberalism, isn’t that it?" Jason Blair, now working for The New Republic asked.

Ted Kennedy flashed his thousand-tooth smile.

"Let the wedding party begin. Gay or straight, we will take over the state."

"But how will this help the economy?" a Times reporter pressed.

Kerry gritted his teeth and jutted out his prodigious chin.

"More marriages mean more jobs. More catered dinners, more bands playing tedious music, more bridal gowns and tuxedos. None of these jobs will be out-sourced. I will put ten billions dollars in the budget to subsidize these events, and will insist that affirmative action be part of the overall plan. If anyone plans to get married on Bermuda, it will be a tax penalty, and I mean pronto."

"Let me elaborate, "Kennedy interjected. "As a group of four, we can reduce the costs of our medical premiums."

"But you get all your health care free," the Times reporter challenged.

"And I will see to it that everyone can sign up for those same benefits," Kerry boomed. "They will have to pay, of course, which we do not, even though we are collectively worth over two billion dollars."

"So where will you go for the honeymoon?" Liz Smith queried.

"The four of us will head off to Erehwon," Kennedy explained, "to plan the new society, which will be even greater than the Great Society, newer than the New Deal and freer than the Four Freedoms. We will make the world safe for democracy, we will see to it that the state will, once and for all, tell everyone what to do, everywhere in the world."

"Even Haiti? I used to vacation in Haiti. Can I go there again?"

"You bet," Teresa laughed. "This time the Marines will stay there forever."

"And how about a side trip to Baghdad?" Liz asked.

"No problem," Victoria smiled. "John and Ted will never cut and run."

"But I thought John was against the war."

"You’ve got that wrong," Teresa answered. "He voted for the war."

A visibly agitated Kerry grabbed the microphone from her and shouted:

"Teresa is confused. I voted yes because I thought the resolution asked if we supported freedom and democracy in Iraq. Everyone is for that. I had no intention of supporting military action. Had I known what Bush had planned, I would have been out front in my opposition to it, just as I am today, just as Ted is."

"But you won’t cut and run."

"Exactly. Just as I will never cut and run from Ted. This is one marriage that will never be dissolved. Count on it."

The cheering crowd began throwing flowers at the couple."

"One last question," another reporter asked. "What makes you so sure you will win?"

"Hey, " Kerry grinned. "Bush is married to Dick Cheney. How can we lose?"

Richard Cummings [send him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new book, The Road To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq.

Richard Cummings Archives

Bull and Scones had, at one time, two mascots called, respectively, Pompous John and Gorgeous George. Pompous John, who had been in a terrible scrape years before, said to everyone who would listen, that he would never fight again for anything. But Gorgeous George, who had managed to avoid getting into any scrapes except for minor traffic violations, told anyone who would listen that he would get into a fight with anybody, any time, over anything.

"Bow Wow!" went Pompous John, signaling that although he would not fight again, he was, nevertheless, very brave. "Yap Yap!" countered Gorgeous George, indicating that, although he looked and sounded like a wimp, he could bite you on the ankles and make your life pretty miserable, so you had better watch out for him. He attended stock car races and yap yapped to sound very tough and regular, while Pompous John liked going to fancy dinner parties, at which he would bow-wow until everyone was bored to tears.

One day, the members of Bull and Scones decided they could afford to have only one mascot, so they held a contest to see if it should be Pompous John or Gorgeous George. So they let Pompous John and Gorgeous George loose to run around the whole country bow wowing and yap yapping, so the people could decide which would win.

Pompous John bow wowed everywhere that although he was totally against fighting, he had been the bravest and fiercest of them all in the old days when lots of others, like Gorgeous George, had run away from the fight and didn’t even turn up for mascot duty. Gorgeous George produced lots of pages of records to show he had turned up and attacked Pompous John for palling around with Hanoi Jane, who had consorted not only with the enemy, but also with everyone else.

So the people could better make up their minds, they put Pompous John and Gorgeous George on television to participate in something called a "debate," in which a bunch of media types with fancy haircuts would ask them questions they had to answer in ten second sound bites.

"The first question is for Pompous John," announced the moderator, Dan Dither, who looked like an embalmed corpse in a snazzy suit.

"What is your favorite color and why?"

Pompous John took a deep breath and threw his shoulders back.

"Thanks for asking that Dan. It’s a really important question and everyone is entitled to know where I stand on that. There are lots of really nice colors, blue and green for example. White and yellow are good, also. I know a whole bunch of people who really like purple and sepia. Now, if you could say that plaid was a color, I might go for that, but I think there could be problems with that if you look at the side-bars describing how to make plaid out of which colors. I mean, this gets you into the entire question of the plural of color, which is colors. Black watch plaid for example, has a nice look to it. "

"Gorgeous George, you have ten seconds to respond."

"I appreciate the opportunity. Just look at the straightforward way Pompous John has dodged that question. My answer is clear as mud. Brown. It’s a color that everyone can relate to. No one who is not prejudiced in anyway cannot relate to brown. Brown covers all bases, if you know what I mean. If you stick to brown, you can avoid a lot of mistakes, like misjudging the color of your enemy’s socks. Say "brown" and you’re bound to be at least partially right."

"May I respond to that?" Pompous George, bow wowed. "Brown is an evasive answer, unworthy of anyone who could possibly be a mascot. It is exclusionary and unilateral. Before you select your favorite color, you should consult with your friends and get their input."

"Let’s move on," Dan Dither pressed. " Let’s get some questions from the panel. I’ll ask Jeter Pennings if he has a question.

"I do have a question," Pennings sneered. "This is for Gorgeous George. If you are selected mascot, what will be your first priority?"

"Excellent question, Jeter," Gorgeous George yapped toothsomely. "My first priority would be to bite everyone in the room and then, go out of the room and bite everyone there. That way, there will be no one who can bite me first. And I will bite them until they bleed."

Pompous John became agitated. He turned his large head towards Gorgeous George and bow wowed: "That would be one dangerous mascot. How would you know whom he would bite next? It could go on forever."

There was thunderous applause to this, and while no one was noticing, Pompous John got down on all fours, crawled over to Gorgeous George and bit him in the leg. And while Gorgeous George was yapping and limping around, Pompous John took a bite out of Dan Dither and Jeter Pennings. The entire audience fled out of fear of Pompous John, who was bow wowing at the top of his lungs, and Gorgeous George, who had bitten him back and was yapping around, looking for someone else to bite.

Back at Bull and Scones, the members were all watching this spectacle and decided that maybe they would be better off entirely without a mascot. They caught both Pompous John and Gorgeous George and put them in cages. They threw bones to them from time to time to shut them up and went about their business. And having decided, once and for all, that business was their business; they never again held a competition to see which nasty beast should be mascot.

Richard Cummings [send him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new book, The Road To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq.

Richard Cummings Archives

Saddam Hussein’s defense lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, has confirmed that the negotiations for the deal are under way. "I have no doubt," Dershowitz said at a press conference held at his office at Harvard Law School, where he is a professor, "that should my client go to trial, he will be acquitted. The evidence against him is flimsy and there are no witnesses prepared to testify. This deal will satisfy the interests of justice and the national security needs of the United States."

"Is this a tougher case than Klaus von Bulow?" a reporter asked.

"It’s not that it’s tougher. It’s just that it will be harder to cast Saddam Hussein in the movie than von Bulow. Jeremy Irons was perfect."

"How about Harrison Ford?"

"Could be. With some makeup and a false nose and moustache. You could be on to something there."

"Would it be called ‘Reversal of Fortune Two’?

Dershowitz smiled back at the reporter: "I like ‘All Is Forgiven.’ It has some compassion to it."

"Has your client discussed the WMDs with you?"

Dershowitz glared: "That’s a matter of attorney-client privilege. But if the deal goes through, he will provide all the information that he has available. Most of his files were destroyed in the bombings and he has been having serious memory problems related to the trauma. We have a team of neuropsychiatrists to testify to that."

Another reporter from The New York Times, a woman with large glasses questioned: "Have you spoken with Attorney General Ashcroft?"

"Yes. By phone."

"How would you characterize the conversation?"

"It was cordial. Quite cordial. The attorney general wants this case disposed of as quickly as possible."

"Why Gstadt?"

"For one thing, he would be comfortable there. There is good medical care, and lots of wealthy people, like himself."

"But they wouldn’t talk to him."

"He will have his entourage to keep him company. He plans on taking up skiing."

"How would the deal actually work?" a small reporter from the Washington Post asked.

"Saddam Hussein would sign the agreement to tell all he knows. Then he will be flown to Gestaadt, where he will be interrogated at his villa."

"We know about attorney-client privilege," the Post reporter pressed, " but what is Saddam Hussein likely to say about the WMDs?"

"To be honest, I’m not sure of that. As I said, his memory is faulty. But I think he will be honest. I think he will say, in all probability, that he destroyed all of them but that he doesn’t remember when. That’s the catch. By saying that, he makes it possible for Bush to say they existed up to and after the invasion."

"OK, OK," the Post guy continued. "Is that the basis for the deal? That it bales out Bush and shuts up Paul O’Neill?"

"That’s a question for Ashcroft. I’m Saddam Hussein’s lawyer. My job is to get him the best deal possible."

"You wrote a book called ‘The Case for Israel.’ Don’t you see a contradiction in representing Israel’s greatest enemy?"

"Not at all. Everyone is entitled to legal representation. If I paid attention to the character of my clients, I would be reduced to representing Mr. Rogers."

"But he’s dead."

"Exactly the point."

"And don’t you think it’s wrong to let this terrible dictator get off so easy?"

"Hey" Dershowitz grinned, "Bush is the guy who is getting off easy."

"You mean…"

"Exactly. If there were no WMDs and he lied, he could be impeached. This way, he will be reelected."

"And that doesn’t bother you?"

"I’m a liberal. Everyone knows that. But my main concern is for my client. That’s how it goes. That’s how it works. My role as a lawyer comes first."

"Even if it means that the worst dictator gets off and the worst president gets reelected?"

"Whoever said this was a perfect world?"

Richard Cummings [send him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new book, The Road To Baghdad — The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq.

Richard Cummings Archives