July 10, 2006

Much has been made, by frantic Republicans, of “treason” by the New York Times in releasing material on U.S. surveillance of international banks. This had several days of excitement and then passed away, like so many of the recent “scare” reports. There is and has been concern about real leaks of genuinely sensitive material from various U.S. agencies such as the DoD, the CIA and the DHS. It is no secret that very unhappy professionals in these agencies are indeed leaking reams of material to the public, material that makes the Bush people look like the fascist thugs they are. Pete Hokstra, a fairly loyal Republican, comment acidly on the fact that the Bush people were deliberately hiding information from Congressional committees who had a legal right to know. Great was the fury in the White House and now the poor, browbeaten Hokstra is releasing information about a “plot” inside the CIA to ruin Bush. In that furious CIA staffers have indeed been outing the Bush people, the statement is true but believe me, there is no deep-seated plot on the part of Company senior leaders to thwart and damage Bush’s reputation: he no longer has one to damage. A recent, official but secret White House poll shows Bush with a 29% approval rating and the despised Cheney with only a 12% public approval rating. These figures will never be published in this country but they have been on the international news sites for two days now. Don’t look for them on MSNBC, CNN or most especially, FOX. There is a line from W.B. Yeats in his ‘Second Coming.’ ‘Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold…