By all means, start the hearings. But given the lack of spine demonstrated by so many in Congress on virtually every matter of substance, something more is needed. Are there any provisions allowing the international court in the Hague to accept petitions from aggrieved citizens of a country that has been run by international criminals like Bush, Cheney and crew to initiate an international investigation of said criminals' international crimes? Maybe an international criminal investigation of these monsters would shame our own worthies into action, though I suspect I'm according them too much credit.

One can say that maybe Cheney really just frets so much over this issue that he is pissing his pants. Or in Colin Powell's words, the former has got the fever. *Maybe*.

But I don't believe any thinking person can seriously doubt that you are right at least about Limbaugh. He wouldn't be overjoyed to report on an attack during Obama's watch? Hell, it would be one of the best days of he misanthrope's life! And that, as you say, is really, really unpatriotic. I had friends in those buildings in 2001. They didn't die, but it was one black day. And he'd love to see it happen again, you are absolutely right.

Not that I necessarily disagree that a new terror attack would cause these guys to start chortling. We've seen how, unlike the Democrats after 9/11, who basically let Bush have whatever he wanted, the Republicans don't believe in supporting the president in a time of crisis.

But all this is less interesting than a more fundamental question: why hasn't there been a major terror attack in the US since 9/11? It can't be because the policies of the Bush Administration were so effective. It is simply too easy to mount an attack for ANY policy short of a totalitarian lockdown to have much of an effect. Just in the last few years there have been rampage shootings in Virginia Tech and more recently in Alabama. What is to stop an al Qaeda type from purchasing a machine gun, walking into a crowded place and gunning down 50 people? Nothing.

The only conclusion to draw from the lack of follow-on incidents after 9/11 is that there are simply not as many people willing to perpetrate terririst acts living in the US than we assumed. Some of that is almost certainly due to heightened immigration controls, so they don't get into this country. But a lot of it is due to the fact that there aren't that many people who do these things to begin with.

Cheney has done everything from authorizing the military to shoot down the 9-11 flight heading to D.C. (without authorization from Bush), to the torturing of prisoners (probably with authorization from Bush), to allegedly ordering foreign assignations (who knows). Here, I've been under the silly and obviously mistaken impression that the Constitution only grants the Vice President the power to break tie votes in the Senate.

The MSM is complicit in the Republican fifth column effort you state. John King, for example, didn't ask Cheney any tough questions and only served to provide Cheney a broadcast platform to spew more neocon propaganda. The news media is in need of strong anti-trust action, as is the financial industry. The consolidation which has taken place since Reagan (in both industries) has produced diseased inbred offspring. President Obama, break them down in to smaller more independent entities!

Watch Bush's Transportation Secretary inadvertently describe Cheney giving the stand down order to allow "Flight 77" to hit the Pentagon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTdAkhd6Dcw

It was never mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report, whose Chairman confessed was setup to fail.

The Commission was actually run behind the scenes by Philip Zelicow, a co-author of a book with Condi Rice, and an author of the Bush Doctrine before 9/11.

Accountability is non-existent in this country.

-- ARG

"virtually all our nation's problems"

Bush caused 'em all, huh? Man, whose Kool-Aid have YOU been drinking?

Dick Cheney speaks. Lynne Cheney faints.

Coinky dink?

Rumor has it that Goebbels also proudly said that there had been no further attacks on the Reichstag after Hitler was in office and responsible for the defense of the Fatherland.

Cheney likes his deceptive propaganda 'narratives' to be repeatedly drilled into peoples' heads like high powered advertising ---- but he doesn't want others to up-set his delusions with ‘counter-narratives’ that teach American's more accurate analogies.

The Dems have been playing a ‘Vichy’ government for so long on TV, and become so intimidated and gutless, that they generally won’t offer serious ‘counter-narratives’ to proto-fascist lies. But today, Gibbs and Hagle took “one small step for Democrats and (hopefully) one giant leap for mankind.”

Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine