It's the Bomb, Stupid

President Bushmill finally deigned to answer a question from the redoubtable Helen Thomas yesterday in his faux unscripted news conference, although some pundits thought she was maybe a little too hard on da poor widdle POTUS.

But with all these "unscripted" Bush events going on in the last week or so--

OK, we've got to stop the train right there. For all the Republican cheerleaders out there clapping Bushmill on the back for bravely facing the reporting menace head on and without scripting, hold up a second. Page A-26 has serious doubts about the POTUS' ability to do anything without cheating. Take for example, his much ballyhooed press conference earlier this week.

If you read the transcript from Tuesday's "unscripted" press conference, you can find at least two instances where Bushmill shows his lyin' eyes.

First, after rambling through an answer about the economy, Bushmill ends his fuzzy babbling with a telling slip, "Let's see here. They told me what to say."

Not enough for you? Maybe the jokester in chief was just showcasing some of that downhome folksiness? OK, we've got more. Later, after a painful parsing of the word timetable -- Bushmill doesn't and won't set a timetable for Iraq, he sets objectives -- he gets confused about which prescreened question from which preselected questioner he's going to take next. Confidently calling out "Cannon" (did he actually mean Gannon?) Bushmill is flummoxed when somebody other than who he thinks he's calling on starts to speak. Because this chickenshit administration is only comfortable playing rigged games, Bushmill has to stop the proceedings to make sure that he gets the right question from the right person in the right order.

"No, you're not Cannon. That's Cannon. You're Ken. Sorry, Ken. You thought I said Cannon. . . "

Not exactly a smoking gun like, say, no WMDs or videotape footage of presidential apathy in the face of a CAT-5 hurricane, but it's not like the POTUS doesn't have a long track record of staged spontaneity (and don't forget the bulge).

All the theatrics and playacting aside, will somebody please ask the most relevant question we can think of:

Why are we in Iraq now, on discredited intelligence about non-existent WMDs after deposing its sovereign leader with a military invasion, fighting a war that is virtually unwinnable almost by definition (you are never truly going to defeat an in-situ insurgency) while North Korea, who we know to have multiple nuclear warheads and missiles capable of reaching Alaska and Hawaii, is openly and publicly threatening us to our faces with nuclear attack and we won't even talk about the issue, let alone take military action?

The answer is simple. North Korea is far too great of a military foe for us to take on with our depleted and demoralized military, which is strung out after three years of senseless warfare in Iraq. Bushmill and his chickenhawk neo-con junta have no stomach for anything but a rigged game.

Axis of Evil anyone? That would be Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Two of these three countries have openly discussed their nuclear capabilities and ambitions, brazenly challenging and threatening the United States. So which one did we attack? Not the one with the nuclear weapons program.

Until Bushmill and his stooges actually show some kind of interest in the North Korean problem, they have absolutely no credibility on homeland security issues. North Korea can hit American soil right now with nuclear weapons and have threatened to do so, but the Bushmill Administration is doing everything it can to keep our attention focused on the Middle East because that is what the neo-cons have been focused on since 1992 with their sinister Project for the New American Century."

Why? There are three main reasons. One, Bush and his cronies are cowards who only want to engage in rigged games that they know they can win. And they will cheat, lie, and steal without conscience to the rig game. So of course, they have no stomach for facing a militaristic country that actually has the capability to fight. It's all about the low-hanging fruit.

Then there's the fact that in the global-political game of Risk, North Korea is irrelevant. It's already in China's pocket and has no military, diplomatic, or economic value. So there's no reason to engage this pesky nuclear gnat, unless of course you actually consider the security of the United States, the Korean Peninsula, and the world of critical importance.

Next reason? Three words: military-industrial complex. The amount of war profiteering that has gone in the last three years makes the Vietnam era look like a lemonade stand. The profit margin for companies like Halliburton, Dynacorp, Raytheon, Blackwater USA, Boeing, Northrup Gruman, and other usual suspects such as Bush family members is massive in a cushy conflict like the war in Iraq. In fact, it is in the best interest of these companies and their political sponsors to keep this low-grade conflict going in perpetuity.

You disagree? Compare the profits and stock prices of the companies listed above in 2002 to their current levels. No wonder Bushmill and Treasury Secretary John Snow are out there touting the health of the economy.

The final reason: what does the Middle East has that North Korea doesn't? Three letters, starts with O and ends with $. Yeah, you know what we're talking about.

In fact, the best our vaunted State Department can do is meekly "urge Pyongyang to stop making inflammatory statements"? What in the wild, wild west is freakin' going on here?

"Come on Kim, knock it off, stop it. UN, Kim's teasing us, make him stop."

Now, now, little Bushmill, just remember, nu-que-lawr warheads and real WMDs may make break your bones, but words can never hurt you. You damn ignorant, incompetent, corrupt ass!

And it's not just Bushmill that deserves chastisement. Yesterday, Lil' Kim (credit to Bill Maher on that one) made new threats about a pre-emptive nuclear strike for national security reasons (hey, what's good for the jackass is good for the asshole) on the United States and it was virtually ignored by everybody in the press and the government alike. Yeah, that's right, do a Google search, and other than an article by the LA Times, you'll find that it was first-tier US media orgs of record like the Wheeling Intelligencer and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette running this story (along with media outlets in South Korea and Indonesia). Whither the Washington Post or the New York Times or the USA Today?

So again we come back to one simple little question: why Iraq and not North Korea?

Until we get a straightforward answer on this -- which won't happen until somebody asks the straightforward question -- this Administration has absolutely zero credibility on any topic.