Wall Street Frets Over Losing Rubber ... Stamp

The lead editorial in the June 11, 2007 edition of the Wall Street Journal more or less confirms the little ditty of common sense I wrote a while back... If You're a Whore, Then You NEED War.

The Journal — well beyond fashionably late — voiced a growing fear that the Bush White House is coming unglued. Citing the recent decision to replace both the Chairman and the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ostensibly in response to Senate Democrats' threats of a contentious reconfirmation hearing over the Iraq debacle, the Journal's editors accused the President of losing his nerve and betraying his friends:

"General Pace's fate is one more example of Mr. Bush's recent habit of abandoning those most closely identified with his Iraq policy. Paul Wolfowitz received only tepid support from Treasury while he was besieged at the World Bank, while I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby may soon go to jail because the President has refused to pardon him."

(Pardon Scooter? I thought this was a serious newspaper! Since when did they add a comics section?)

"There's a rumor going around," the Journal editors wrote, "that Robert Gates is the Secretary of Defense. We'd like to request official confirmation, because based on recent evidence the man running the Pentagon is Democratic Senator Carl Levin of Michigan. For that matter, is George W. Bush still President?"

Friends, let me be frank. Such is the language used when death threats are made.

But beyond this we ought remind the Journal, elections are not just some fashionably democratic, social event, to be reported and then forgotten. Indeed, the American political process might be characterized, historically, as answering the question, "How do we bring fresh water into the stale, stagnant pond that's choking with scum?"

Yet the Journal's editors maintain their grip on a slippery rock...