Give Them Credit for Keeping a Straight Face

No one said, “Are you fucking KIDDING me?” No one said, “Let me get this straight...” No one said, “You did WHAT, you asshole?” Although Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) did say, regarding cash that Ambassador Paul Bremer shipped to Iraq during a 13-month period in 2003-2004, "Who in their right minds would send 360 tons of cash into a war zone? But that's exactly what [this government] did." Ambassador L. Paul Bremer was administrator for the U.S.-led occupation government in Iraq from May 6, 2003 until the handover of political power on June 28, 2004, at which point Bremer ran out of Iraq like his pants were on fire. Waxman’s committee questioned Bremer this past Tuesday. Bremer said the stacks of cash were flown to Iraq on wooden pallets aboard giant C-130 military cargo planes. Contractors were told to bring big plastic bags, which were then filled with shrink-wrapped bundles of 100-dollar bills. In some cases, Bremer said, the cash was dished out from the back of a pick-up truck. “We were in the middle of a war and there was no banking system and it would have been impossible to apply modern accounting standards in the midst of a war,” Bremer said. In defending his record, Bremer said the money was actually Iraqi money that was supposed to “jumpstart the economy after the invasion.” Representative Dan Burton (R-IN) said, “We are in a war against terrorists, to have a blame meeting isn't, in my opinion, constructive.” A blame meeting? Blame? How about having a sanity meeting? How about holding a hearing to determine if in fact anyone in the Bush administration (including Dan Burton and all NASA personnel) is in his/her right mind? On the same day that Bremer was queried about the wisdom of his shipping cash to Iraq and handing it out from the backs of pick-up trucks, and keeping no track whatsoever on where it went, Astronaut Lisa Nowak was arrested and charged with attempted first-degree murder. Her cross-country run from Houston, TX to Orlando, FL in a failed plot to kidnap and murder a romantic rival featured her wearing NASA diapers in the car so she wouldn’t have to stop to go to the bathroom. Astronauts wear diapers during launch and re-entry. Can she also be charged with theft of government property? Recently, psychiatrist Justin Frank who wrote, “Bush on the Couch”, suggested that George W. Bush submit to a psychiatric evaluation. How about every politician in Washington, DC submitting to a psychiatric evaluation? How about everyone who ever went about with “I intend to run for political office” on his lips submitting to a psychiatric evaluation? How about everyone who administers psychiatric evaluations to astronauts submitting to a psychiatric evaluation? No. I got it. How about using those C-130 military cargo planes again? This time, we bring all our troops home. Then we load the C-130 planes with the whole Bush administration and the geniuses who ran the Iraq operation from the get-go and we let them run Iraq in whatever way the Iraqis allow. And then the rest of us can get on with the business of running this country.