(Note: This is the last column in the series.)

Pope Benedict XVI said in 2005, "Absolutizing what is not absolute but relative is called totalitarianism." To conclude this series of papers, I will say that Sean Hannity's political ideology unconsciously demonstrates a new form of totalitarianism which defines right and wrong in an artificially narrow sense; regards national security as the greatest good, elevating it above human rights and the law of God; accepts the coexistence of American big government, big business, and a swollen military to achieve the objective of national security; blends sin and sinners into a single homogeneous mass that must be defeated to preserve our national security; and intolerantly refuses to admit into its framework any clear facts that contradict its methods or call into question its objectives.

Notwithstanding testimony a week ago by James Knodell, Director of the White House Office of Security, evidence suggests that the White House did, actually, investigate the leak of classified information about Valerie Plame's covert CIA identity; but, only after President Bush revised security clearance laws in ways that would get leakers - and himself - off the hook. Rather than have Knodell investigate, it appears Bush tasked Joshua Bolten, then Director of the Office of Managment and Budget (OMB), to provide oversight of the process, per a little noticed Executive Order.

Overall, the evidence suggests a deliberate attempt by the President to legitimize staff leaks and to insulate the leakers from meaningful accountability.

[Alternate Title: Bush Weakness Empowers North Korea, Iran, and Russia to Action]

International leaders have begun to notice a widening crevice between the Bush Administration's persistent gunboat diplomacy and their realistic ability to follow through.

They see that President Bush has wedged the U.S. Military -- and thus U.S. national security -- between Iraq and a hard place.

As long as we're strapped to Iraq, they know that Bush's actions have impaled both the quality and quantity of America's diplomatic and military options.

And now they're taking advantage of that weakness.

Eliminating U.S. Options

When the Bush Administration first invaded Iraq, they believed the incursion would largely fit the template for which our current military was designed -- based on the belief that extended combat operations were an anachronism. More precisely they expected:

In case you missed my 14,000 word analysis yesterday, "How Bush Created a Nuclear North Korea", here's a special component of which everyone should be acutely aware as we head into the November elections -- heads spinning from the laughably FALSE claims that Republicans are even remotely more capable of protecting America than Democrats.

Indeed, Bush, through his continued embrace with nuclear dictator Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, has done more to compromise US National Security than practically any other entity on Earth.

When Bush & Co. allowed Osama Bin Laden to escape from Tora Bora, Osama scurried off to the Pakistani tribal lands -- a place he knew would be safe since Musharraf refused to enter, or allow others (i.e. the U.S.) to enter those tribal areas. Harboring public enemy #1 should be reason enough for the U.S. to blacklist Pakistan, but not for George "Dead or Alive" Bush. Months later, Bush, in an egregious act of appeasement, was allegedly able to 'cut a deal' with the dictator that allowed U.S. forces in those areas (more on that below the fold).

This is part three.  Part two is here.

Last week the Courtney campaign asked that inappropriate internet campaign attack ads be removed.  Last week, began a sequence of local and national school shootings and bomb threats that leave the nation grieving and searching for answers.

Inside the Washington beltway, America has learned the depths of depravity that Republicans have exercised while praising Jesus, waving the American flag, and systematically dismantling the Constitution, Geneva Conventions, and Habeas Corpus.

And yet, shocking as Representative Foley's cyber-stalking of young boys may be, following the trail of Representative Rob Simmons' supporters into the shadows of violent gaming sites is equally disturbing and disorienting.  As I write this, a CNN news story features a misguided crusader claiming that Harry Potter books are harmful to young people.

A 42-year-old Utah man was arrested today and charged with allowing an American flag attached to his house to completely burn up when his house burned to the ground. Allen Dickinson, the owner of the house, claims that the fire wasn't his fault and was due to an electrical wiring malfunction, and that he wasn't even at home at the time of the blaze.

FICTIONAL ASSASSINATION IN POOR TASTE

There is some British TV Drama coming out, which shows with digital effects, President Bush being assassinated. As much as I am in some disagreement with the Bush Administration, and Republicans in general, it would break my heart if our president were killed. These producers show really bad taste. How did they think our sitting president would react to this? This isn't showing much respect.

I'm sure the Republicans are disappointed.  Not only has the turmoil in the Middle East proved that Bush tipped the dominos in the wrong direction, it's taking the spotlight away from their series of staged events on "border security."

But then, maybe it's better that people don't look too closely.  After all, while the Republicans hint at it all the time, it may be they don't want to be seen saying straight out that it's really hard to tell an Middle Eastern terrorist from a Hispanic farmworker.  And that's just what's being said at these hearings.

If the media reported everything that's being said, most people would be astonished.  What the Republicans are proposing isn't immigration reform.  It's war.

"I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors."

-- President Bush's father, George Herbert Walker Bush, 1999

The most insidious of traitors!!

I wonder what H. W. Bush thinks of his son after these latest revelations.

At first, it seemed that George Junior was toeing his family's line on the Plame-leak issue -- assuming a staunchly intolerant stance, publicly proclaiming that he would fire anyone involved in the leaking of intelligence related to the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame.

But, after some consideration, and perhaps a bit of Rovial prodding, Bush jacked up the firing threshold from 'involved' to 'committed a crime' -- offering a significant buffer for those involved in the leak. President Bush on July 15, 2005, "If somebody committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration."

At that point it was clear that Bush knew something that we did not. Little did anyone fathom that Bush's original statement would have likely required him to fire... himself.

The Bush administration is continuing their sick and pathetic policy of torturing people in Iraq when they think that all the lights and cameras are off. This is the subject of a new report out of Iraq from Amnesty International. The Bush administration would like you to think that the Abu Girhab photos were just a matter of a few frat boys gotten out of control. But this new report shows that the Bush administration's torture plans are far broader than that. In their twisted logic, they thought that as soon as all the lights and cameras were off, they could go right back to doing whatever they wanted to.

From Egypt to Afghanistan, when terrorists and gangsters need a place to meet, to relax, maybe to invest, they head to Dubai...

[Dubai] serves as the region's criminal crossroads, a hub for smuggling, money laundering, and underground banking. There are Russian and Indian mobsters, Iranian arms traffickers, and Arab jihadists. Funds for the 9/11 hijackers and African embassy bombers were transferred through the city. It was the heart of Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan's black market in nuclear technology and other proliferation cases. Half of all applications to buy U.S. military equipment from Dubai are from bogus front companies, officials say. "Iran," adds one U.S. official, "is building a bomb through Dubai." Last year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents thwarted the shipment of 3,000 U.S. military night-vision goggles by an Iranian pair based in Dubai. Moving goods undetected is not hard.

 -- U.S. News & World Report (Dec 5, 2005)

President Bush has made it clear that he hadn't a clue about the events unfolding within his Administration surrounding the management takeover of 6 U.S. Ports by the United Arab Emirates.

We've also learned that very few others in the administration seemed to know anything about the transaction prior to the media blow-up -- certainly those who should have known about it were unaware. By their own admission, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Treasury Secretary John Snow, and Homeland Security Czar, Michael Chertoff were left completely in the dark.

Normally, that would be no big deal, but here we're talking about a post-911 world (as the administration feels constantly compelled to remind us) coupled with arguably the nation's most vulnerable points of entry.

Carl Levin was direct and to the point this morning when a few key Senators were allowed to be briefed by Bush Administration officials:

Sen. Carl Levin, the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, angrily accused the administration of ignoring the law by failing to launch more than a routine investigation.

Clashing with a Treasury Department official,  Levin said the law has language specifically requiring a longer review than the one that an interagency committee conducted, if a business deal could affect national security.

"Is there not one agency in this government that believes this takeover could affect the national security of the United States?" the Michigan Democrat asked. Chairman John Warner, R-Va., in a very unusual procedure on Capitol Hill, allowed reporters to question the administration witnesses.

As usual, those in authoritative positions were represented by their underlings in an apparent effort to shield higher-ups from interrogation, scrutiny, or accountability.

Representatives of key agencies that investigated the matter -- but not the heads of the departments involved -- sought to reassure senators just hours after President Bush declared that "people don't need to worry about security."

How much clearer can Levin make it?

"What is deeply troubling to me about this proposed sale is the combination of one of America's vulnerabilities to terrorist attack, our ports, with what appears to me to be a casual approach to reviewing the sale of US port facilities to a country with an uneven record of combating terrorism," Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, told the briefing.

Others objected as well, including John Warner.

This week we learned that Dick Cheney ordered the declassification of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq for the express purpose of sliming its political opponents.  What is so extraordinary about this story is its demonstration of the Cheney Administration's utter contempt for national security, and its subjugation of the national interest to political expediency.  Did it harm national security to declassify the National Intelligence Estimate?  Who cares, the Cheney Administration says, we need to declassify it so we can leak select portions that bolster the President's political fortunes.

Samuel Johnson was widely regarded as one of the wisest men in England even before Boswell's remarkable biography of his life.  He coined many witty sayings during his productive lifetime, but none more incisive or memorable than the one that fits the Cheney-Bush Junta so aptly:

"Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels."

Johnson's penetrating aphorism registered seismically a few weeks ago during another tense verbal fencing match between the Junta's deceitful propagandist Scott McClellan, who answers to the title of White House Press Secretary.  

The exchange began as Helen Thomas, dean of Washington correspondents, began interrogating McClellan about alleged White House involvement in long term detention and torture-interrogation of designated "enemy combatants" at Abu Ghraib Prison.

Update [2005-12-15 1:19:43 by PatsBard]: From WaPo Dec. 15, 2005

Just two days into an experimental program that would place undercover air marshals in train, bus, ferry and other mass transit stations, the Transportation Security Administration yesterday said its test has been scaled back, owing to confusion over the rollout.

*snip* Yesterday, local officials at some of the locations -- including Washington's Metro system -- said they were not participating in the program, and at least one other appeared not to have been informed.

*snip* The transit officials were "somewhat hostile to the idea of air marshals being in the transit system," said Rep. Allyson Y. Schwartz (D). "They said working in rapid transit or a passenger rail system is different than working in a closed system of the airport. My question I'm going to raise with the TSA is: Are they coordinating with [the] local transit authority?" TSA officials said they notified all local transit and transportation agencies that would be participating with the Viper teams.