THE SHELL GAME

“Ultimately, the buck stops here.” So said Speaker Hastert in a news conference outside his district office today. He was referring, of course, to the diddling of teenaged boys by his pal, Representative Foley, of Florida, and how he--Hastert--is now "handling the situation." Meanwhile, Kirk Fordham, Foley's former chief of staff, says he tipped off Hastert's chief aides three years ago about Foley's behavior with pages.

So the question is, what exactly did the buck do once it got dropped off at Hastert's office three years ago? Well, it certainly stopped, all right. In fact, it sounds like it flat out died. But did he actually "handle it"?--that's what I want to know. Or did he just use that buck for toilet paper?

Now, Hastert's new tactic is—what else? --BLAME THE DEMOCRATS! Well, why not? They're not doing anything, just sitting there minding their own business (whatever that is). Might as well use them for something! Hell, it's worked before. They're so broken and cowed, they probably won't even notice they're being blamed again, much less put up a defense. Actually, I'm surprised Hastert even noticed them.

Meanwhile, desperate to get our focus off this rancid domestic mess, Rice has flown off to Iraq on a little surprise junket, to try to get those squabbling Iraqi leaders to quit squabbling. “We need to stop all this killing--it's getting out of hand,” she tells them. “You need to shake hands and try to work together.” Jeez, that's an unusual approach. Wonder why she didn't try that in Israel?

And by the way, how is it a “surprise” visit when everybody in the world knows about it? And if a black Republican lady with a gap between her teeth and an oil tanker named after her can sneak up on our army, what does that say about how good our generals are? I heard her plane had to circle the Baghdad airport for thirty-five minutes because of a threat from rockets and mortar-fire in the airport area. Somebody must have got wind that she was coming.

Anyway, that Rove sure has his finger on the pulse of the American public. He knows we would lots rather have our focus drawn away from squabbling rabid Repugs and put right back on squabbling rabid Shiites and Sunnis in Baghdad. Yep, the quicker they can get our minds back on the war, the better off those good ol' boys will be. For if there's anything they know for sure, it's that Americans are far more comfortable with the wholesale slaughter of human beings than with congressmen diddling young boys.