Drugs, money and terrorists: How Kerry helped bring down BCCI

Excellent story by David Sirota and Jonathan Baskin about Kerry's work on during his years in the Senate. I think we need to sex up his work on BCCI (The bank that was a front for terrorist funding and laundering drug money) so that people will notice and appreciate it. People on both sides of the fence didn't want him to go after them but he kept at it, yet another example of his courage. What was W doing around this time? He was doing some insider trading at Harken. You know, the same stuff that Martha Stewart did and got jail time for?

With help from their auditing firm (Arthur Andersen) Harken Energy pioneers the practice of hiding massive debts through shell companies, seller-financed loans, insider loans and other securities fraud that became common practice at companies like ImClone, Enron, WorldCom and Adelphia, which later result in bankruptcy and mass hemorrhaging of the stock market

Thanks for the link amberglow!

In Bush World 'dem dare drop outs don't count

This post is dedicated to my friend Karen, who got wound up into a wonderful swivit when she had to give a speech about Bush's bogus No Child Left Behind program, and to my friend Laura who lives in Texas and will have to send her kid to school in Texas. You were right to sound the trumpet about his program Karen! Good luck with school Laura!

In addition to funding concerns, some are questioning the research behind the policies enshrined in No Child Left Behind, reports CBS 60 Minutes II Correspondent Dan Rather.

Mr. Bush modeled the federal program after the system that Education Secretary Rod Paige implemented in Houston, where Paige was superintendent, in which principals worked on short contracts and received cash bonuses for meeting strict testing standards.

One of the indicators of the system's success, supporters said, was the low dropout rate in Houston schools. The school district reported a citywide dropout rate of 1.5 percent.

But educators and experts from 60 Minutes II checked with put Houston’s true dropout rate somewhere between 25 and 50 percent. Investigators found that almost 3,000 students should have been — but weren’t — coded as dropouts.

Bush used cooked figures to prove his "Texas Miracle". Do you suppose he will try and stand on his record in this area?

If you read the story note how everyone connected with this fraud dodges the camera. Do you suppose they learned this from the president.

CNN headline writer chooses to make Abu Ghraib torture sound like a Frat Party!

Report: Abu Ghraib was 'Animal House'at night

Remember folks, CNN CHOOSE to use the phrase "Animal House" in the headline. Why? To support the idea the torture wasn't that bad? To accurately represent the content of the article? Someone thought it was clever and cute? Play your cute headline games on some other tragedy please, or better yet don't.
Here's part of the letter I sent to CNN about this headline choice:

Gee, that makes it sound like fun! I imagine toga parties, hot co-eds, beer drinking and dancing.

Using that phrase keeps alive the idea that Abu Ghraib was like a Frat house party during pledge week, rather than the torture chamber it had become once again. If you finally started focusing on the DEATHS that resulted from the torture and the rapes of young boys it would NOT be possible to make it sound like any frat that I know about.

Compare what your headline says to this one that might be more accurate, "Abu Ghraib: Like Torture Chamber from Spanish Inquisition".

Sounds like a different place than the den in Animal House. They each bring up very different images in your mind, correct? Therefore, just because Schlesinger said it in the report is no excuse for you to use it as the headline. This PHRASE (Abu Ghraib was 'Animal House') choice by your headline writer describing the report totally mischaracterizes what went on in the prison (as the body of the story seems to say) and trivializes what happened there. Your headline is just shameful! I request that you change it and stop downplaying what really happened in Abu Ghraib.

---------------------------------------------------------
Report: Abu Ghraib was 'Animal House' at night
Commanders blamed for lack of supervision

Tuesday, August 24, 2004 Posted: 9:04 PM EDT (0104 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Abuses photographed at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq represented "deviant behavior and a failure of military leadership and discipline" at the facility, but direct and indirect responsibility for those acts and others elsewhere went higher up the chain of command, an independent panel reported Tuesday.

A hooded and wired Iraqi prisoner is seen at the Abu Ghraib prison in this undated file photo.

A robed and drunk John Belushi is seen at the Delta Tau Chi house in this R rated movie.

Update: 8-25-04 CNN Again runs another story about a report on torture in Abu Ghraib but doesn't use the Animal House quote as the headline. New head "General: Some Abu Ghraib abuse was torture"
How about using this bit of news from the story as the head:
"General: Five detainees died from abuse during interrogations"

Now that bit of news is in the LAST paragraph. Maybe that could have been further up? Or how about this one:

"General: At least 8 ghost detainees hidden from Red Cross. One dies in Abu Ghraib"

Or how about his headline taken from the first paragraph:
"General: "Serious misconduct at Abu Ghraib and a loss of moral values."

Once again the headline writer is downplaying the report and the situation at Abu Ghraib.

George W. Bush: The definition of moral cowardice

The stubborn refusal ever to change course, which the president tries to pass off as a sign of leadership or devotion to principle, is actually an example of his cowardice.

For the same reasons, he runs from soldiers' funerals like they were burying victims of the plague -- because it's the easy way out. If there's a problem, he denies it or finds someone else to take the fall for him.

From Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo

Great piece, a bit long, but who am I to talk!

George W. Bush in Front of his "Band of Brothers" (aka Rich White Guys)

Bush and Cheney: Ducking out of the War in the 60's. F**king up a war in the '00's

Why shouldn't the major media be doing comparisons of how Kerry, Bush, and Cheney passed those years? Why shouldn't The Washington Post be devoting 2,700 words to a comprehensive look at Cheney's deferments? Nichols identifies three young men from Casper who did die in Vietnam: Robert Cardenas, Walter Elmer Handy, and Douglas Tyrone Patrick. Did one of them die because Cheney had "other priorities"?

written by Michael Tomasky.

via CBSNews (Good on them for running it!)

The press in 2004 vs. The press in 1876

Still searching for an honest reporter, 128 years later.

Thomas Nast was a brilliant political cartoonist. I just read a bunch of his cartoons. They were filled with amazing detail in the woodcuts. The parallels in his cartoons to today's world is astounding. The cartoons cover:
-- Corrupt politicians
-- Voting shenanigans
-- The influence of religion in the schools and on politics.
-- The press' focus on gossip and trivial things.

Here are the names of the papers in the cartoons:
o The Daily Slanderer, The Daily Busybody
o The Tribulation: The (Mis)leading Paper in America
o The New York Hoax, Daily Canard
o The Chicago Daily Pernicious Gossip Times
o The Innuendo, The NY Moon Shine
o The Washington Hatchet, The Rumor and
o The Honest World Doomsday

I know there is nothing new under the sun, but maybe Nast's cartoons seem so current because George W. Bush keeps looking backward, to old energy solutions, old foreign policy, old views of human rights, and old views of the economy.

George W. Bush's Andover Prep School nickname: Tweed, as in Boss Tweed.

Imagine this question from the press:

"President Bush, according to the book "The Faith of George W. Bush", your nickname at the elite East Coast prep school was Tweed. What was that nickname based on?"

His two nicknames at Andover reveal much about him at the time. His friends called him "Lip" because of his insolence and "Tweed" because he started a stickball league and ruled it like the famous Boss Tweed of Tammany Hall a century before. When he did not qualify for the varsity sports teams, he became a cheerleader. The Andover yearbook for the time includes a photograph labeled "Bush and his gang."

-"The Faith of George W. Bush" Chapter Three "The Nomadic Years" Page 43

I think his friends at Andover had a real insight.
Just how much is George W. Bush like Boss Tweed?

o Gives special contracts to his friends at Kellogg Brown and Root
o Cost over runs and outragous overcharging have already been documented
o He knows who to pay off in his base
o He will be brought down by an cartoonist and spend time in jail(I wonder
if Jon Stewart is our Thomas Nast?)

Information about Tweed's corrupt activities were passed to Thomas Nast, a cartoonist working for Harper's Weekly. Nast now began a campaign to expose Tweed's corruption. Tweed was furious and told the editor: "I don't care a straw for your newspaper articles, my constituents don't know how to read, but they can't help seeing them damned pictures."

Doesn't that sound like something Karl Rove would say? He knows the power of visuals, both good and bad. That's why you never see Bush in any photos with dead soliders, no photos of him with any protesters and it is also why Abu Ghraib was such a disaster. You can tell people about abuse but seeing the image hits them in the gut. They triggered negative emotions and that is something the White House does NOT want to associate with the President.

It's all visuals," Karl Rove told campaign finance chief Don Evans. "You campaign as if America was watching TV with the sound turned down."

Thomas Nast, The Tammany Lords and Their Constituents, 1871

More hard evidence that the Swift Boat Vets are lying

I want to thank David Corn for finding this story to prove the lies of Swift Boat liars. This is the kind of work that our national media should be doing, not sitting around playing Suzi Stenopad for the “He said. She said” crowd.

These SBV Liars have no honor. I thought honor was part of the soldier’s code. Telling the truth about what was happening in Vietnam took courage and he was honoring the men who died. Lying to protect the men who took us to that war or any war that is not necessary, is the dishonorable thing to do.

George W. Bush has no sense of Honor. He puts politics before honoring the dead. What kind of people let him slide on this? I would think that even the most craven Republican would understand that attending their funerals (at least ONE for goodness sake) is the right thing to do, polling be damned. I’m sure if they wanted to they could spin it, but they don’t want to spend their “political capital” with something that hints of failure.

What kind of man asks another man to die to protect his country, but can’t be bothered to go to his funeral?

Is a photo of the president attending a fallen soldier’s funeral so shaming to him politically that he won’t put perceived politics aside and just do what’s right? He prances with live soldiers and plays it like he is "protecting their privacy" with the dead ones. If I died for this man, the least he could do would be to comfort my family in public. Maybe he could even send the VP. Does Cheney attend any funerals? Rumsfield? Rice? Does any one in that White House go, or are all they so cowed by what they think are the consequences that they hide in the shadows of the dead? How about Scott McClellen? Maybe it would be harder to lie for this guy when you have to talk to the families up close when they are crying over their dead husband, brother and son.

Bush should be shamed into attending. He puts politics before honoring the dead. That the military lets him get away with this must just gall them to no end. What kind of commander does this? Not one that should be trusted with running the country.

Swift Boat Cons. Do I have to draw you a picture? Okay, I will.

(Graphic from Aug 19 New York Times)

Stupid Poll Tricks by MSNBC

MSNBC runs a stupid lame poll titled:
Swift Boat Politics: Do you believe Sen. Kerry or the veterans behind the ad?

Here is my email to them. I'm sure that it will make a huge impact on them.

The slanderous claims in this ad and the people who paid for it have already been discredited.

That you would even think to run this kind of poll shows a lack of respect for the journalists within your organization. This is a stupid poll and a waste of your viewer’s time. Why don't you spend some time focusing on what is important in the news?

If you are so damn interested in War Records why don't you do some serious journalism and research George W. Bush's reason for not taking his flight medical? Why not talk to some of the vets that served with Bush in the Air National Guard during the period of time he went AWOL? Why, because they don't exist! Not one credible person has come forward to say they saw him there during the disputed time. There should be at least a dozen!

Do the Democrats need to fund a commercial in order for you to do some journalism? Or are you afraid that you might lose some money from the ads that the candidates run?

Where are the stories behind Bush's work with community service in 1973 (working for a minority children's program in Houston, PULL?) Doesn't this sound to anyone else like a community service job assigned by the court? Did he do something wrong at 26 that was expunged from his police record? That charge was published in two books, should you do a poll on that?

Oh, and by the way, I'm SICK of unscientific polls run on "news" websites. Do a scientific poll for goodness sake! This fake polling diminishes your credibility in the minds of all thinking people.

Friday CAT blogging

I'm new to this blogging stuff, but from what I understand all the really cool kids post pictures of their cats on Friday's. Here's mine.

She is not the enemy. Why are we there again?

Mays, an Iraqi Shi'ite girl, cries after a mortar shell which landed outside the family's home in a Najaf residential area and injured her uncle, August 18, 2004. The leader of a Shi'ite uprising in Iraq (news - web sites) agreed to leave a holy shrine encircled by U.S. Marines in Najaf, hours after the interim government threatened to storm it and drive out his fighters. (Ali Jasim/Reuters)

Republicans: Using the Lord's Name in Vain.

Religion Experts Ask How Jesus Would Vote

The real issue is not Jesus' voting record. The issue is, how did this UNHOLY alliance of "Christians" and people who are pro-Tycoon, anti-human rights, anti-woman, pro-death penalty come about?

I really wanted to read about a few Republicans who would say, "Yes, Jesus would have voted Republican." Luckily for them Jesus would probably forgive them for their lying, misleading ways. But I'm not so forgiving. In fact I'm pissed.

Can you imagine Jesus' endorsements?

"Jesus Christ does NOT support George W. Bush and he reminds anyone who believes in Jesus Christ NOT to vote for Bush."
When asked what he thought of people for voted for Bush last time Jesus said, "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do." This year you have no excuse. Do not Vote for George W. Bush. The Power of Christ compels you. The Power of Christ compels you."

This message paid for by Good Samaritans for Peace and Local 392, Fisherman's Union.

This would be the Bush campaign smear response:
SCOTT McCLELLAN: "This 'Jesus' person is simply trying to sell more copies of his book, The New Testament. He didn't even write it himself, it's a liberal Jew's revision of the classic Holy Bible. We expect 'the Son of God' to look for a position in the Kerry administration such as Secretary of Health and Human Welfare or prehaps the 'Prince of Peace' will want to be the Secretary of Defense. I'm sure he will stop a lot of terrorists by turning the other cheek."



"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." - Mahatma Gandhi

Girl's (not Women's) Gymnastics. Sick and Wrong.

From King Kaufman on Salon:

Instead, gymnastics tries to reconfigure women's bodies, to keep them childlike. It's sick and wrong. And when so much emphasis is placed on how cute and pretty they are -- the full make-up, the glitter, the cutesy dance moves -- it's off-the-chart sick and wrong.

I read a great book on this topic a while ago.
Little Girls in Pretty Boxes: Making and Breaking of Elite Gymnasts and Figure Skaters by Joan Ryan

I always think about this book and the horror that these little girls endure whenever I see these poor girls exploited by the gymnastics and skating industry. There are NEVER any stories about the abuses these girls go through when they appear on the TV shows every 4 years. Journalists focus on steroids, but not on abusive training practices.

Beware Ford Explorers bearing Liars

When Barry W. McCahill (president of SUV Owners of America (www.suvoa.com)) gets an OP-ED piece printed in the San Francisco Chronicle it would be nice to have some of that truth in advertising language. At least they should say, "SUV Owners of America is funded by the Automobile Industry".

Instead they are allowed to call themselves this, "a nonprofit consumer organization" and Barry can talk about his background as "a former official with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration." Not his more recent work as a shill for the auto industry and owner of his own communications firm.

I'm frankly surprised he didn't take a page from the Bush administration and call the organization: "Non-polluting, great mileage, super safe, never flip over, SUV Owners of America"

The Faith of George W. Bush

He was arrogant, aggressive, fast, and sarcastic. But he did not mind showing tenderness. Once when the mother driving the cheerleaders to a football game got lost and the cheerleading squad was missing for much of the game, George W. noticed. When the girls arrived, he told them he'd been worried and asked if they were Ok. In the world of West Texas football, cheerleaders are eye candy to be ignored during the game by any self-respecting player. George W. was breaking code, but he did not care. It seems that compassion could at times overcome cool

p. 34 "The Faith of George W. Bush" Chapter two "And Manfully to Fight" by Stephen Mansfield

Wow! This was the best they could find of his compassion as a teen? Oooh, he pays attention to a carload of cheerleaders! He's practically Mother Theresa working with the untouchables in Calcutta.

George W. Bush: Crappy Christian

How can Christians support George W. Bush?
What Christ like thing has he done?
When he talks about god, it is an Old Testament god he invokes. Not the New Testament God of love and understanding. The God who loves us like a father loves his children. The God Jesus talks about doesn't seek revenge, lie, kill, and steal from the poor to give to the rich.

I'd like to hear Christians support what George Bush does without evoking the Old Testament. I'd like them to pull quotes from the bible that were not put there by the early church trying to win converts. No fair using Paul quotes either. Where do we see George Bush as a Christian in the story of the Good Samaritan? The prodigal son? The Sermon on the Mount?

That Christians support him shows me just how far off the Christian faith has come from what Jesus teaches. Frankly, I can not see how Bush could ever call for the death of a single human and still call himself a real Christian.

He is a Christian in only the hollowest way, never really following the teaching of Christ, just using accepting Christ as his personal savior as his Get out of Hell free card. A gift with no obligations, like all the other gifts he has received all his life.

Christ asked his followers to do radical stuff. And those acts don't involve killing innocents, or even killing your enemy. How dare he call himself a Christian! He is the blood-thirsty Roman Emperor calling for the death of his enemy simply to please his court and satify his feeling of weakness.

I'm sick of Google bashing before their IPO

I'm getting tired of Google bashing in the news.

Am I the only one who sees this? The people who want the stock cheaper are quoted. The people who want the investment bankers to continue their corrupt ways are quoted, (I'm talking to you Mr. James Cramer).

The point of an IPO is to raise capital for a company. Not to fill the pockets of insider bankers and people who hope to time the market based on the bankers under pricing the stock. Corporations left billions of dollars on the table so that the insider investment bankers could have their "pop" on the early trading.
Now I'm sure nobody is crying tears for the soon to be multi-millionaires at Google. But for goodness sake, at least acknowledge that these stories aren't fair.
Google has their mouth taped shut. They can't defend themselves, nobody is standing up for them because they figure it isn't necessary or they are part of the insiders.

Google has done a tremendous service to the internet community and the world at large. Yes they are a corporation out to make money, but they are also a BETTER corporation (with specific values and ideas) than some others. Do you really want Microsoft to own search? Do you really want Overture running the show with their embedded links that are paid for by the sponsor?

Google went the Dutch auction route so that they could help wring some of the excess out of the system and they were in the position to do it. The bankers grudgingly went along, but they aren't helping the company now. They should be keeping them positioned well within the investment community, but since they were stiffed they are just letting the company twist in the wind and they are contributing to stories that are going to drive the stock down.
On the press side they are running the lame old "Are they too good to be true? Are they too big for their britches?" crap. It is lazy journalism and they are being lead around by their nose by the competitors and the pissed of investors who aren't going to get fat off of the inside payoffs of old.
The only story that I saw that noticed all this was a single reporter for the San Jose Mercury news, but this was after several other stories about "Google has problems with the IPO." had already run.

8-year-old's first Holy Communion invalidated by Church

Stupid rules from the Catholic Church. Boy, if ever there was a case of the need to follow the Spirit of the law, vs. the letter of the law, this is it.

Why don't record prices of oil per barrel translate to the record prices at the pump?

Have you noticed that whenever the price of oil goes up by two bits a barrel the price of gas is instantly raised at the pump? Even though the actual gas refined from that oil was months away from the pump? But when the price per barrel drops, the drop in gas prices NEVER instantly translates to the pump? The oil people always made a point to tell us, "The price drop won't be reflected at the pump until the oil is refined, months from now." They shouldn't be able to have it both ways, either it jumps on the news and drops on the news or the drop should take months and the increase should take months.

Why is this possible? The oil industry has figured out how to use this asymmetric pricing story to get away with gouging at a macro level. People hear the price per barrel is going up, so they have been trained to expect it to go up at the pump. When it drops, they have been trained to expect that it won't be reflected right away, (while the oil industry wrings some more profit out of the public.)

“But Spocko”, you say, "This is the invisible hand of the market. Classic supply and demand." Well how about I demand that when there is an announcement that price per barrel drops, then the price at the pump should drop as well. That might be just as valid as story as theirs.

They KNOW that the public attention span is short, so they jump up the price at the pump when they know the public will remember, "Oh yeah, I remember something about the price going up per barrel." On the other hand, price drops don't make the news as much, but if they do, there is not the same response, "Hey, I just read that the price per barrel dropped. Why isn't it cheaper at the pump?" If they do ask then the oil industry spin starts. You get some lame consumer reporter on TV talking to oil experts spewing the same old lines.

But with the recent LACK of a parallel increase in prices at the pump to match the record price per barrel, I wonder, are the oil companies purposely holding back with prices at the pump now? Is this some strategic thinking going on? Do they want Bush to win because they know he is the best friend the extraction industry has ever had?

Following their usual model shouldn't the record high prices per barrel be reflected by the highest prices ever at the pump? There are few indicators for greater supply, just greater demand.

1) It is the summer
2) There are distribution problems in Iraq
3) The public are trained to expect an increase
4) There isn't a drop in demand, SUVs are still humming along

They have figured out if they don't forgo record profits they might lose their boy in the White House.

It's not conspiracy. It is not collusion. They have all come to the same conclusion separately.

That conclusion is, “Don't go too crazy at the pump until after November. This president has shown that he won't release the strategic reserves, he won't issue caps. He might beg Bandar for more oil and push for drilling in Alaska, so if we keep prices down until November, (or like Prince Bandar promises we get more supply) we will have four more years of record profits.

Karl Rove's Motto, "Be prepared!"

Nice post of the politicializing of the "national preparedness month". By Bob Harris on "This Modern World" blog.

Ever since the duct tape debacle the Dept. of HLand security (I hate the term Homeland, what are we Nazis?) should have developed guidelines like this. To be doing this now right before the election is transparently political. They at least need to admit it.

No laptops or cell phones at the polling places?

Is this a weakness that the public should know about? (From CBS Evening News)

"We won't allow the technology to be used unless these things are met: Poll worker training. No wireless communication. Parallel monitoring. Option of voting on paper. Basic security measures," says Maryland's Secretary of State Shelley

Could Bush be elected President if he was under arrest?

Or Cheney for that matter? What if this current probe on Valerie Plame leads to an actual arrest? What are the rules for traitors being elected? I think I'll dig up some info on that to prep for when the indictments come out.

The Chattering Classes of al Qaeda

Slowdown in 'chatter' worries officials

It's the Goldie Locks' view of terrorist chatter:

"This chatter is too much. This chatter is too little. I want my chatter to be JUST right."

Diminished communication prompted the concern because the counterterror experts don't know why suspected terrorists would be talking less.

Maybe they stopped talking because now they know which chattering channels Homeland security is listening to!

The article hints that maybe the chatter slowed down because they arrested the source of chatter.

Some could ask, "Did Tom Ridge, by making the data about the buildings in New York and DC available, alert terriorists about homeland security's 'sources and methods'?"

In this case maybe not. Ridge was getting heat for being too vague. But if he was specific, then the terrorist would 1) Know that their communications method had been comprised and stop using them and 2) Abort the attack.

So, by coming out with a specific attack out lined by Esa al-Hindi and stored on Muhammed Naeem Noor Khan's computer, Ridge could point to an intelligence triumph that is specific but doesn't reveal that they know the chattering al Qaeda operatives methods and codes.

In WWII when the allies had cracked the German's code, they had to let the Germans destroy some small villages instead of saving them because otherwise the German's would know that their code had been cracked. A real moral dilemma, I don't envy Ridge his job.

I wonder how deep they thought this announcement through, they might have picked this specific threat to throw to the American people to deal with their vagueness complaints because it was 'safe' (i.e. not going to happen). It also might have thrown the terrorists off guard, so they would underestimate HLand Security. But on the other hand the terriorsts might just think, "We have to be more careful with our communications, they obviously can crack whatever we got." This might drive them to using more one-time pads, low-level note passing and other methods that aren't easily sucked up into the NSA net.

Update 8-14-2004 : Gee, I was right. They DID blow some source to run this orange alert. Thanks to rorschach at No Capital for the link.
Idiots.

Refute lies? "Not my job" says the media

But beyond that, the principal blame for this culture of lying rests with the zombified mainstream press—a group of people who simply refuse to challenge or clarify fake, bogus tales. John Kerry is the most liberal senator! Surely, every major professional news org knows that statement is being recited as a piece of RNC strategy. And surely, every major professional news org knows that this statement is, in a word, false. But given the shape of our modern press culture, journalists would rather eat live worms than clarify fake spin-points like this one.

From the Daily Howler

"The Corporation" The Motion Picture

Wonderful movie. It clearly has a point of view and draws you into its logic of the world.

Today's corporations are doing just what they were designed to do, the question is, where is the control over these corporations?

The corporations use media, the law, people's own greedy self interest and a network of ideologues to promote the myth of a world in which "the market will correct all problems"

Here is the transcript from part of the film that talks about how Monsanto crushed a story that was critical of BGH, the Bovine Growth Hormone. The phrase that pays when thinking about BGH is Pus In Your Milk

Tony Kushner's new work

From Salon:
Written in the days leading up to the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the unfinished "Only We Who Guard the Mystery ..." had already garnered a lot of attention. Its premise is that literacy-enthusiast Laura has come to read to three dead Iraqi schoolchildren

An increasingly discomfited Laura Bush tells the bodiless kids,

"It isn't right that you should have had to die because your country is run by an evil man who is accumulating weapons of mass destruction. But he is, you see, he really is ... So it was um, necessary for you to die, sweetie, how awful to say that, but it was, precious."

Great story, and some funny stuff in the second act.