Seeing Things, Hearing Things, That Only He Can See and Hear
Keith Olbermann nailed it. He is perhaps the only TV commentator with either the courage, the independence or the vocabulary to point out the difference between what this president hears and says against the reality of what has been heard and said.

Keith Olbermann nailed it. He is perhaps the only TV commentator with either the courage, the independence or the vocabulary to point out the difference between what this president hears and says against the reality of what has been heard and said.
It’s absolutely scary to see our elected president stand up and put words—any words he chooses—in the mouths of Democrats.
Here’s Olbermann
"The president doesn't just hear what he wants. He hears things that only he can hear.
"It defies belief that this president and his administration could continue to find new unexplored political gutters into which they could wallow. Yet they do.
"It is startling enough that such things could be said out loud by any president of this nation. Rhetorically, it is about an inch short of Mr. Bush accusing Democratic leaders, Democrats, the majority of Americans who disagree with his policies, of treason.
As is becoming more apparent with each passing day, those ‘who disagree’ include an ever increasing majority of Americans, along with
Most of the military, both active and retired
An increasingly vociferous portion of the scientific community
Ambassadors and cabinet members from the last four presidencies
Nearly the entirety of the international community
Nearly all environmentalists
Nearly all constitutional scholars
A necessarily silent majority within the CIA, FBI and other national security organizations

A national mmajority that now includes almost everyone but Exxon and Henry Kissinger. Oh yes, Henry is back, haunting the aisles of a formerly Nixon White House.
Now I have been pulling for this president, hoping he would do something right. But he damned well refuses to do it, no matter the provocation or opportunity. Like a recalcitrant mule, standing defiantly in the traces, neither whip nor carrot elicits a single (even if halting) step forward.
I look for a scrap of progress, some success on any front in the past six years. The lone achievement seems to be the lack (so far) of 2nd attack on American soil. Yet even that is not attributable. We simply do not know and will not know as all information, both supportive and critical, falls into the secretive black hole of a secretive administration.
Stamp it secret and it literally disappears.
Congress does not know, nor do the courts, as George Bush and Dick Cheney have surgically removed the checks and balances of constitutional government—all in the name of homeland security. It matters not that every hailed and heralded prosecution by either Ashcroft or successor Gonzales has turned into a sad comedy of mismanagement, civil rights violations and false accusation.
Meanwhile, Bush has beggared the nation—soon (and I mean very soon) the interest on debt will outstrip even the ballooning costs of medical care in a more and more impoverished America. The military under Rumsfeld is a shambles, an outsourced, subcontracted shadow of its former self, unable to respond to even the most shallow second-threat in an increasingly threatening world.
Partisanship all but disallowes representative government, replaced by a new elitist freedom--winner-take-all and the minority be damned. Business is doing okay, even fine, even better than fine in certain sectors. Having shed itself of worker benefits, stripped its balance sheets of health care and pensions, relieved of all previous environmental controls and handily profiteering in a non-declared, non-financed war, it's advancing in most market indicators.
Returning for a moment to Olbermann
"No Democrat, sir, has ever said anything approaching the suggestion that the best means of self-defense is to 'wait until we're attacked again.'
"No critic, no commentator, no reluctant Republican in the Senate has ever said anything that any responsible person could even have exaggerated into the slander you spoke in Nevada on Monday night, nor the slander you spoke in California on Tuesday, nor the slander you spoke in Arizona on Wednesday . . . nor whatever is next. . . .
"But tonight the stark question we must face is -- why? Why has the ferocity of your venom against the Democrats now exceeded the ferocity of your venom against the terrorists? Why have you chosen to go down in history as the president who made things up?"
The ‘why’ is four weeks away. Bush has a bold and arrogant plan to go where no president has dared go before. That plan is to stand up at every opportunity and lie in our faces until November 7th. After that, he will
Turn his back on us should Republicans lose control of the Congress
Turn his back on us should they win
The most worrisome thing is that we are in for a very bad and very long struggle no matter who carries the congress in the coming elections. There are no apparent fixes to the multiple disasters within which we find ourselves. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, if I remember him correctly,
“We are not at the end. We are not even at the beginning of the end. But we are at the end of the beginning.”
Which will have to suffice.
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Comment out there in the media world;