The team that gave us a war based on deception to grab oil and expand empire, the team that has given us Abu Grhraib, waterboarding, rendition and unlimited torture and detention without trial, all of which are egregious criminal offenses under the U.S. Constitution dares lecture the rest of America and the world about honor!

In this case we are talking about more than "honor among thieves."  It is not that this label does not apply in the wake of rushing to war after Dick Cheney and the New World Order corporate establishment divided up the profits of war even before the first Donald Rumsfeld "shock and awe" attack was perpetrated.

It is just that the massive excess of the Bush-Cheney international criminal enterprise has reached such suffocating lengths that the term "thieves" represents a classic understatement.

Scott McClellan has revealed no more than what any reasonably well informed willing to pay attention and face the ugly facts already knows.  The big news is that an insider on the Bush-Cheney team has chosen to tell the truth, the same Scott McClellan who once questioned the patriotism and honor of Helen Thomas, the dean of White House correspondents.

In any democracy theoretically parties and their candidates run on their records with the results determined by analyzing those results alongside alternatives presented by the opposition.  In the upcoming November 7 national election it is imperative to keep one's eyes on the ball, as a major league hitting instructor would implore, and avoid the many distractions hurled onto the paths of voters.

The Republican Party knows it cannot run on the most appalling record ever achieved in the United States extending from George Washington's first term of the presidency to the present.  So what are brain trust Karl Rove and his loyal troops of foot soldiers doing?  What is that final standby intended to produce eleventh hour magic when all else has failed, as, according to all respected measuring authorities has occurred?

If your response is "Scare the daylights out of voters!" you have kept your eyes on the ball.  It is no coincidence that America's best publicized fright night, Halloween, occurs less than three days before the nation's voters march to the polls to cast votes on the composition of the next U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

A Washington Post front-page story of October 20 by Dan Balz and Jim VanderHei revealed Republican strategy as America moves into the home stretch of the current campaign season.  Some of the most significant comments come at the end of the story, when Balz and VanderHei register the strategic sentiments of Mary Matalin, long-time Republican operative and recently one of Dick Cheney's majordomos.