Some stories in the news say more about the times we live in than others.  And a story doesn't have to be large in scope to be large in significance in revealing priorities, character, problems, and outlook.

Here are seven recent news stories, and one letter to the editor, from relatively small papers that struck me as symbolic of life in America, in 2006.

On the 2-12-06 Meet the Press devoted to the NSA domestic spying controversy, Senator Pat Roberts stammered, spoke in sentence snippets, and changed directions more often than a dog chasing a butterfly.  He was especially unintelligible in attempting to answer Russert's question of why the President shouldn't simply go to congress to get any needed amendments to FISA that would allow the NSA domestic spying program to be conducted under the terms of that statute.

Check out these Roberts responses from the transcript, below.

I don't like this one bit. Raw Story has a killer piece on yet another angle over the outing of Valerie Plame.

What would you say of a man who goes public in the NY Times with an opinion that those more concerned with free speech than the content of speech--such as the Danish editors who published the cartoons that have set the Muslim world afire--exhibit:

"the morality of a withdrawal from morality in any strong, insistent form.  It is certainly different from the morality of those for whom the Danish cartoons are blasphemy and monstrously evil.  And the difference, I think, is to the credit of the Muslim protesters, and to the discredit of the liberal editors."

Yup, he likes the Muslim protesters who are burning and threatening better than he likes the Danish editors who are....publishing.

What can you say about the insanity of sheriff's deputies having sex with prostitutes on tax-payer dollars? Don't worry. It's all in the name of law enforcement, as reported by the Washington Post. Really.

For those who may still think that comparisons of modern America to totalitarian regimes is hysterical overstatement, we have this.  On Saturday, Editor & Publisher reported that a VA nurse had been investigated for sedition, based on a letter she had written to a local paper criticizing various aspects of George Bush's presidency.

Seems that the Bureau of Labor Statistics performed a little task last week that they cleverly call "re-benchmarking" of the jobs data going back to the year 2000.

I don't want to give the story away too early, but lets say that, after reading the description on Counterpunch you may want to resurrect the concept of a "Y2k crisis."

So the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) met the other day, with Ken Mehlman and Bill Frist reported to be prominent speakers, as was "the wan and ownly" Ann Coulter.  As Jane Smiley said far better than I could:

I understand that all the folks at the Conservative Political Action Conference this weekend are busy celebrating their accomplishments. Since they live in the same overextended, widely hated, and increasingly impoverished nation that I do, where the "president" and the "vice-president" think they can break the law with impunity, where the bureaucracy has been eviscerated of everyone who actually knows anything, and in a world where, in some circles, "US" is a byword for "torture" (did you notice that no one wanted to sit with Laura Bush at the Winter Olympics?), I can only assume that what I see and lament is the same thing they see and celebrate.

Name the last sitting VP to shoot a person.

Sometimes it helps to take a step back from the flurry of news items that spring on you with each and every new day.  Sometimes you need to take a slow and deliberate look at the collection of those items that have sped past you over a period of time.

Which I did this morning. And the only word, short of profanity, that comes close to capturing the spirit, character, and competence of our current government is:

D I S H O N O R A B L E  Defined by the Free Dictionary as:


Characterized by or causing dishonor or discredit.
Lacking integrity; unprincipled.

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