It has been amusing to watch the Democrats in the U.S. Senate suddenly posing as people of deep principles, taking that body into closed (i.e., secret) session to discuss the holding of hearings regarding the reliability of intelligence used to take America to war in Iraq. Perhaps the previous night’s Halloween spirits are to blame for their suddenly discovering their hind legs.
It is an appeal to public credulity for Sen. Reid and his cohorts to raise these concerns four years after 9/11, and many months after the Bush administration lied and deceived most Americans – including most members of Congress – into supporting a war that was, even then, being challenged by intelligent voices. Numerous Internet websites and non-establishment journalists daily made known to those who sought the truth the nature of the vicious scam being perpetrated upon the entire world. Republican leader, Sen. Bill Frist, charged the Democrats with engaging in a “stunt” today, but it was Republicans and Democrats alike who have been engaging in a bipartisan charade of the most morally egregious nature.
I suspect that Sen. Reid and his cohorts have come to the realization that, as corrupt and unprincipled as the Republicans are, the Democrats are regarded by increasing numbers of Americans as wholly irrelevant to any policies or decision-making processes in Washington. It is likely nothing more than their own self-preservation, in elections just twelve months away, that drives them to give the appearance of standing for something; anything. Apart from someone like Sen. Feingold – or, on the Republican side, Rep. Ron Paul – the entire House and Senate can be cast in the famous words of Gertrude Stein: “there’s no there, there.”The Democrats’ late-arriving response to White House duplicity has been to put on a show for C-SPAN and the cable news channels: go into closed session in which only senators – who are “sworn to secrecy” – can participate in a discussion whose content will remain unknown to the American people. Once again, the politicians will hide behind the screen of “national security” to play the same charade game that led the country into a wholly contrived war in the first place! Keeping the public ignorant of Leviathan’s underbelly is a cause for which there will always be bipartisan support!
As I watched the leaders of both parties descending upon banks of microphones to rant their respective moral outrages, my mind kept flashing back to that wonderful scene in the film “Casablanca,” in which Capt. Renault – after ordering Rick’s nightclub to be closed – declares “I am shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here,” and then being handed his winnings by the croupier. The game goes on and, as usual, behind closed doors.
3:23 pm on November 1, 2005
