“We are all born mad. Some remain so.” - Samuel Beckett

Major league baseball is as American as apple pie. For the first time in the history of the storied Cincinnati Reds’ franchise, a sitting president, George W. Bush, threw out the “ceremonial” opening day pitch, on April 3, 2006. Comedian Jay Leno said on the “Tonight” show that evening, that the presidential toss at the National League game against the Chicago Cubs, like Bush’s politics, went off to the “far right.” Instead of walking to the pitcher’s mound by himself to toss the ball back to the catcher, Bush jaunted out with a number of returning Iraqi War veterans by his side. By using them for cover, he avoided the strong possibility of being booed by the crowd. Isn’t the swaggering cowboy from Crawford, TX, a clever buck-oh?

On the same day, April 3rd, nine more brave Americans died in Iraq-one for every inning that Bush was at that ball game. This brought the total of military dead in the unjust, immoral and illegal conflict to 2343. (1) Since the Liar-in-Chief, Bush uttered his infamous “mission accomplished” statement, on May 1, 2003, 2206 more American soldiers have been killed. (2) The latest U.S. war casualties made it to p. 12 A of the “Baltimore Sun. Its front page was reserved for perky Katie Couric, a news reader for NBC TV’s “Today” program. Reportedly, she will soon sign a contract for a $17 million-a-year gig with CBS to “read” the evening news. Her main claim of note to date as a journalist, (I’m not making this up), is that her own (yuk) colonoscopy was televised! She has also been a rabid cheerleader for the Iraqi War. The air-headed Couric, like Barbara Walters, signifies what is wrong with TV broadcast journalism. There is simply too much emphasis on its entertainment aspect and not enough on the hard news that the people need to hear.

How terribly absurd, too, all of this is. Bush is out enjoying himself at a professional baseball game, while the blood stained war he chose to start, based on a pack of rotten lies, continues to claim American and Iraqi lives and hundreds of billions of tax dollars to boot, with no end in sight. (3) Now, the U.S. troops’ mission in Iraq is not to find those phantom WMD, but to create “a stable government,” while a vicious civil war is also raging in that beleaguered land. In addition, “67 journalists and 24 media workers have been killed on duty in Iraq since March 2003.” (4) Nevertheless, it’s Couric, a pseudo-journalist, who reaps the monetary rewards in her profession. She will do so, too, from the safety of her plush Manhattan office. In my opinion, Couric wouldn’t make a pimple on the great Walter Cronkite’s you-know-what.

Meanwhile, the 9/11-related federal show trial of an obviously very sick, and deeply troubled man, Zacarias Moussaoui, continues in Alexandria, VA. What a spectacle this has been. It reads like a play by Samuel Beckett. The jury returned a verdict, on April 3rd, saying Moussaoui is eligible for execution. He screamed at prosecutors, ”You’ll never get my blood. God curse your souls!” At the next stage of the trial, the jury will have to decide if the defendant should be executed. According to the Feds, he was one of the 9/11 coconspirators, but arrested prior to that tragic day. Lucky for the government, Moussaoui, who some believe is suffering from schizophrenia, pleaded guilty to the charges. This trial has been a bungled farce from round one.

If the prosecution had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty, that 9/11 happened the way the White House said that it did, this criminal case may have collapsed on its face. (5) As it is now, it hangs on a very thin legal thread that asserts that “but for” Moussaoui's lies to FBI investigators, 9/11 could have been prevented. Testimony produced, however, by the government itself at the trial contradicts that dubious theory by showing the FBI ignored “ample warnings” about 9/11 from its own agents in the field. Counsel for the defense should have called Secretary of State, Condi Rice, to testify. She knew, when she was acting in the capacity of Bush’s National Security Advisor, more about potential hijacking of airplanes, prior to 9/11, and their use for terrorist purposes, then anybody else in the Bush-Cheney Gang. The grossly incompetent Rice ignored reliable warnings of such a distinct possibility, (6) and, many other higher ups in the FBI, the Secret Service, and the CIA, did so as well. (7)

On another offbeat front, one of the leading GOP War Hawks in the Congress, Rep. Tom DeLay, announced that he will not be seeking reelection. Like that crook, ex-Rep. Randy Cunningham (R-CA), DeLay was another phony law & order type. He had dumped the draconian USA Patriot law on the American people, without a public hearing. DeLay was aided and abetted in that foul deed by bogus Democrats, such as Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT).

DeLay has been feeding at the public trough for 11 terms on Capitol Hill. He is presently under indictment in Texas for laundering campaign funds. His former deputy chief of staff, Tony C. Rudy, recently copped a plea to federal conspiracy and corruption charges arising out of a lucrative scheme he was running right out of DeLay’s congressional office. Rudy, like DeLay, has close ties to the confessed felon, lobbyist and wheeler-dealer, the cunning Jack Abramoff. When Bush was advised of DeLay’s resignation, he told another bald faced lie. He said, the Republican Party would continue to succeed because, “We’re the party of ideas.” (8) Sure, it is a party of ideas all right, like what: a preempted U.S. attack on Iran? More tax cuts for the superrich? Adding another multibillion dollar subsidy for “Big Oil?” How about ignoring more warnings about global warming and/or that another Katrina-like hurricane could strike the Gulf Coast in late 06?

Finally, Bush’s visit to the Ohio town of Cincinnati wasn’t any help to the home team Reds. They were hammered by the Cubs by a score of 16-7. As for April 3, 2006, It was just another one of those surreal days in the Age of Bush.

Notes:

1. antiwar.com/casualties/
2. www.afterdowningstreet.org/
3. Video, “George Bush is a Liar,” at: homepage.mac.com/bhughes2/iMovieTheater138.html
4. Trudy Rubin’s “Journalists Do Dangerous Job in Unstable Iraq,” 04/04/06, Baltimore Sun.
5. video.google.com/videoplay. This video gives an alternate view of 9/11-America’s second “Pearl Harbor,” which you will never see on the “CBS’s Evening News with Katie Couric.” Were we set up by the Wire Pullers? If so, how did they do it? Here’s another site which is raising a lot of 9/11 related questions: www.911proof.com/index.html.
For me, the “Five Dancing Israelis” is one of the mysteries of 9/11. It has continued to intrigue. For background on that episode, see, www.whatreallyhappened.com/fiveisraelis.html. It was “Bawa Wawa” Walters, herself, who “whitewashed” that important, and relevant, story. Why? Who was she shilling for? Check out: www.antiwar.com/justin/j062402.html
6. www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/05/20020516-13.html
7. www.buzzflash.com/perspectives/911bush.html
8. “DeLay to Resign from Congress,” Washington Post, 04/04/06.

© William Hughes 2006.

William Hughes is the author of “Saying ‘’No’ to the War Party” (IUniverse, Inc.). He can be reached at liamhughes-AT-comcast.net.