Congressional oversight is so........Old America.

[democrank]

Remember Rumsfled`s comments about Old Europe? He was on to something, a say-goodbye-to-life-as-you-knew-it phenomenon that`s spreading like wildfire. It`s part of the Bush administration`s bridge to the twenty-first century project based on a simple premise....you don`t know what you don`t know. In laymen`s terms, don`t worry, be happy.

We`ve begun a new era where Congress is downsizing pesky housekeeping projects like time-consuming investigations. Why waste subpoena powers simply because some muckrakers invent a scandal? On the more sensitive stuff, why risk the C-Span cameras when most anything can be resolved in backroom discussions?

A few months back, a woman in a local grocery checkout line said, "We shouldn`t question our government. That`s why they`re the government." I thought about the stabilizing nature of her advice. Leave the important decisions to the big boys and don`t aid terrorists by publicly airing our dirty laundry. As the military higher-ups have shown in the torture story, they know how to root out the few bad apples and I`m certain the billions missing in Iraq reconstruction money will turn up when the authorities finish doing the math.

What citizens should concentrate on are the comforting messages written on backdrops during each of Bush`s speeches: Keeping America Safe. Investing in our Children. Clean Air and Blue Skies. If we miss one of the president`s speeches, we can always turn to Wolf Blitzer or Chris Matthews because the government sends out an information person to tell them what we need to know about what`s really going on.

[fasttense]

1. This is the dawning of the age of the unitary executive branch

WASHINGTON -- When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act's expanded police powers.

All bow to our Crazy King George.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/03/24/bush_shuns_patriot_act_requirement/

[greekspeak]

2. That lady at the checkout has the mindset of millions of Americans

I am in academia, and even there this mindset exists. I hear statements like: "I just don't care about politics" from colleagues. In fact, as far as I can tell, I am the only one in my area of the department's grad program that deeply cares about what our government is doing. I know most of the people are liberals. There are a few conservatives. Certainly, as grad students, we are not blessed with a lot of time to go play politics. But to what I refer is not simply political sniping. What I am talking about is the slow slide into fascist theocracy. People just do not seem to give two hoots in a rain barell.