Just a heads-up to be aware of the symptoms of Phony Outrage Exhaustion, or POX, a common malady that generally strikes anytime a deep cable pundit gets up on his/her high-horse and starts bellowing about non-issues in mock anger. And, as we know, in an election year "anytime" is "ALL the time." These early symptoms include feelings of deep frustration accompanied with listlessness - followed in short order by sweaty, spasmodic compulsions to kick in the front of your television set (i.e., the screen).

Untreated, this condition can advance to the sometimes fatal (to your sense of hygiene) SeanHannitis.

This year, there is a subtle strain of POX circulating in which this characteristic, embarrassingly fake anger is replaced with stealthy insinuation. Just this morning, John McCain was asked by "Today's" Meredith Viera whether his inability to quash that race-baiting anti-Obama ad in North Carolina indicated "weakness" on his part. Regardless of your opinions about McCain (my own: he'd make a nice county clerk, but what's with that bulgy JAW?), any sensible person would suggest an answer along the lines of: "No, Meredith, I've met with the North Carolina State Republican Committee and we all agree - your ASS IS TOO DAMN FAT!"

His actual, on-air answer, oddly, was more subdued and boot-licky.

At any rate: Be watchful.

Whew! Life ascended from reality-based humdrum is getting stranger and stranger.

According to The Washington Post this morning, Israel has revealed a four-year-old secret deal between President Bush and the now-inert Ariel Sharon that would allow West Bank settlements to expand unabated. That directly contradicts Washington's official peace plan, which froze construction of new settler shacks on that deeply contested swatch of real estate.

The U.S. State Department has fired back, contending there is no secret deal, and the building ban is still in effect and blah, blah, blah. After all, even our sock puppet in Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, calls the settlements the "greatest obstacle to peace"; Rice HAD to do something.

So... which is it? What's amazing about this kerfluffle is that it underlines how detached from transparence and honesty White House routine has become. Washington-watchers are reduced to arcane divination to deduce the truth - like old-time Kremlinologists who charted Soviet power-plays by noting which commissars got potty breaks at state ribbon cuttings.

And all this on top of a spy scandal that harkons back to the case of Jonathan Pollard, the U.S. Navy analyst who in the '80s became the golden retriever of Israeli intelligence. Antiwar.com is reporting this morning that - get this - doves in the Israeli government may have leaked the name of alleged spy Ben-Ami Kadish to harpoon a belligerent scheme aimed at Syria. The story quotes ex-CIA officer Philip Giraldi:

The leak of the information at the present time is believed to be linked to proposed closed congressional hearings at the end of this month in which the White House had planned to use several Israeli intelligence officers to provide evidence on the alleged Syrian nuclear program that was bombed on September 6, 2007. It is now unlikely that Israeli intelligence officers will allow themselves to be questioned because they would almost certainly be asked about Israeli spying on the US. Vice President Dick Cheney and Olmert had apparently planned on using the congressional briefings as a launch pad to intensify diplomatic and military pressure against both Syria and Iran. It is believed that the "doves" in the Olmert administration who leaked the information are seeking to make a military confrontation more difficult and are hoping that negotiations, particularly with Syria, will instead take place.

That's almost too much to swallow. Even the Bush Administration would be hesitant around that stinky "reactor bombing" tale, since the IEDA and other sources have pretty much debunked any credible idea the Israelis' target really was, in any regard, "nuclear." And, really, with or without secret letters-of-intent or embarrassing photo ops like that dog-and-pony "peace process" lampoon last fall, the Road Map is as incogitative as... well, Sharon himself.

But we never know for sure, do we?

Anyone noting the recent TPM article about Freedom's Watch casting about for a hook to mount its standard bushwhack campaign, and wondering where the ruthless deceit would begin need muse no more: The group is using Barack Obama's name to scorn the opposition. That's right! Everyone's favorite character assassins are going to sink political campaigns by linking them to Mr. Hope & Change.

Who thought that one up? With 80-plus percent of the country sold on the idea that we're on the wrong track, hope and change don't seem like such bad ideas. Although he seems to have trouble closing the primary deal and tubbing Clinton, Obama hasn't exactly become  Bob Ney-repellent - regardless of "bitter" missteps and that fulminating brother from another pulpit.

Nevertheless, this muy-rich front group of would-be swift boaters (headed up by the exceedingly shifty Ari Fleischer) is telling Louisiana voters a Democratic candidate "supports Barack Obama's radical agenda on health care." Radical? Hmmm. Like, affordable? Or... Trotsky!

Oooo...

If, as the TPM story earlier this week indicated, Freedom's Watch is looking for something to do, maybe it should put down some dough to cover their Big Guy this fall. He's too cozy with lobbyists, crackhead-dumb when it comes to commenting on the economy, and possessed of an Old Testament-style, bust-the-gaskets temper that's not a bright item on a nuclear-age resume. No matter who is McCain's opponent after July, you can bet the term "Keating Five" will crop up from time to time.

This year, guys, go defense.

The Pentagon practice of pimping out "military analysts" for on-air color commentary is one of the most extravagantly ignored news topics since Larry Craig's post-toilet troll Senate career, but with With Sen. Carl Levin thumping the table, maybe the story will finally hit the front pages and top the newscasts of mainstream American media.

Since the New York Times (not exactly an Iraq War foe) detailed the obvious over the weekend, the story has gotten zip coverage in the press. Searching for any mention online draws up entries from out-of-the-way news sites like Politics Today and dailies like... the Tampa Tribune, which reprint the story from the Times wire. Not exactly "hub journalism".

Few Americans with attention spans were surprised by revelations that top networks - including ABC, NBC and Fox - relied on Pentagon-provided experts. Even though Rumfeld junked his much-assailed Office of Strategic Influence in 2001, no one doubted the American War Community would abandon all hope of fully functional command-post PR. After all, Rumsfeld himself noted at the time, "...If you want to savage this thing fine I'll give you the corpse. There's the name. You can have the name, but I'm gonna keep doing every single thing that needs to be done and I have." So they wised up and dumped the name - but not the operation.

After all, they gotta do what they gotta-damn do.

And no one but Hagee and Lieberman think these military experts give objective opinions when they outline strategy for mousse-dependent newscasters and Fox bimbos. Under the pancake, they don't forget the mission: To a man, they have helped shovel dump for this Administration's Mideast Mandate - everything from assuring viewers yet another corner has been turned, to outlining the Iran's hand in booby-trapping Iraqi Mallomars. The awed, dumbstruck news teams underwrite this warped propaganda with their characteristic obsequiousness.

So, finally, Levin asks Defense Secretary Gates "what gives?" and that maybe... uh... someday... he might want to think about... if he's not too busy, y'understand... looking into this in-house flack operation.

Will this get ignored, too? As embarrassing as it is for the news giants to be revealed as Iraq War enablers, isn't it even more galling to pretend it never happened, that the past is just dross for the "reality-based" unwashed?