RantsCounterRants:  Just how long does it take to cook a goose?

Who better than John Dean to say Bush is “cooked” if he used bogus information to lead us into war?  Dean knows quite a lot about the smell of roasted goose flesh after the debacle that brought Nixon to resign his presidency.

Sure, let’s all agree that if the President lied to Congress and the American public, that we can stick a fork in him, he’s done.  Toast.

But how long do we give this administration to flail away in Iraq looking for non-existent WMD before we demand Bush either pulls the plug on his own or we’ll do it for him?  The Watergate hearings were arduous and began within a year of Nixon’s reelection; will Bush be out of office by the time we get to Iraq War hearings, at which point it may be useless to attempt hearings?

Do we wait to see the same chain of events develop as they did more three decades ago:

As TIME noted in January 1974: "First there were blanket denials, lavish claims of executive privilege and invocations of national security. Then came repeated clarifications, previous statements declared 'inoperative,' and multiple promises of full disclosure. Subpoenas were resisted. The persistent Special Prosecutor was fired. Next a sudden yielding to the courts, followed by an Operation Candor that was far from candid, claims that crucial tapes were 'nonexistent' and the revelation of a mysterious flaw in one recording."  (allpolitics.com)

The blanket denials have already begun with the full-court press this weekend on the Sunday talk show circuit.  The next step will be the argument that questioning these denials jeopardizes troop actions in Iraq (in lieu of the national security defense used by Nixon’s administration).  Or perhaps that’s the argument Bush proponents will push anyhow, arguing that we’re prone to attack by terrorists if we spend too much time and energy seeking the truth behind Iraq? 

Maybe the Administration will play the plausible deniability card; some foot soldier farther down the food chain in Intelligence will take the fall for producing gross exaggeration (another Ollie North or Fawn Hall if the more recent Iran-Contra hearings are yet another example), breaking the chain that links bogus information to the office of the President.

We’re already seeing many clarifications and corrections, a promise to disclose the truth.  Hah!!  We’ve seen this all before; it has a very familiar smell.

How long before we put the oven on to cook this goose?

5:29:38 PM    comment []

DharmaSurfing:  The shakes

I’m just coming off a bad case of the shakes.  Jittery, tremors, weak in the knees, feeling almost like I do when my blood sugar’s plummeted – only far worse.

Was I drinking?  Hell, no.  I wish I had been.

I was on the phone with the property owner’s representative about the unit I want to lease for this new business opportunity I’ve been working.  I’ve now got a 30-page contract to review, along with an enormous pile of financial information to submit; there’s also the little thing of a Letter of Intent to sign and submit.

After grilling the rep on a list of items as long as my arm, I was whipped, worn out, shaking like a leaf.

The last time I felt this was when I went in for a scheduled C-Section.  I’d spent weeks researching the decision, waited a week between the final decision and the date of the delivery.  My blood pressure fell so low from stress that after three different people tried to start an IV, they had to call in the physician-anesthetist to start it – in the back of my hand after a mess of pokes in each arm.  Yes, I was a basket case.

The time before that?  Just before I said “I do”.

This is a biggie, a large commitment that could cost me the dream house I wanted to build next year.  It will cost me time with my family.  It will make me lose sleep and then some.

On the other hand, I don’t see where doing what I’ve been doing is going to get any easier, get us any farther ahead.  I could still work a lot of hours, separated from my family, only to have little to show for it.  (Been there, done that – working 80 hour weeks for a consultant that pays jack-squat for salary really, really sucked.  All the stress and no rewards.)  At a minimum, my husband and I will learn something more about ourselves; my kids will learn something about capitalism by helping out, as their father did as a child.  And maybe we’ll be able make a profit once this gets underway.

Assuming I find nothing to stop me in 30-pages and financial submissions, among other things.

1:57:41 PM    comment []

UPDATING FAILURE

Agh, the cosmos is rewarding me for my lack of attention to my blog yesterday.  Last night’s brief post never made it to the Recently Updated list, even after sitting here and patiently watching Radio Userland upstream the post to the server.

Wonder what harvest I’ll reap today from the cosmos?  I’m already behind schedule, working away on my business plan, on cleaning the house, on helping my neighbor with his lawn problem instead of blogging.

Blogs are such demanding task masters!  Who’da thunk?

11:14:33 AM    comment []