The crucial vote on Hans von Spakovsky's FEC term.

Regarding "Tally Ho!: The GOP's Hounding of Voters" (September 27), which focused on GOP anti-Democratic, anti-democratic operative Hans von Spakovsky, the lawyers at NYU's Brennan Center for Justice gave me a heads-up on their mass mailing to senators about today's scheduled vote on von Spakovsky's confirmation for another FEC term. The letter, signed by Executive Director Michael Waldman, pulls no punches:

Read the whole letter (PDF), but forget about counting on today's hearing if you're planning on learning all about von Spakovsky's sordid history of partisan sabotage of voting rights when he worked for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and since his recess appointment by which George W. Bush's handlers sneaked him in at FEC headquarters. Members of the club known as the U.S. Senate have agreed to conduct only two hours of hearings about von Spakovsky before putting his name to a vote on the Senate floor. The Hill explains:

Will today's scheduled vote on the former GOP county chairman from Georgia rest on a simple majority in a Senate where the Democrats have a razor-thin handle on power? At this very minute, there's probably some pretty intense lobbying going on in the Senate cloakroom.

Too bad the hearing on von Spakovsky is being limited to two hours. That's not enough time for Americans to fully learn about his shenanigans in keeping citizens from voting. OK, so, unlike William Rehnquist, he hasn't personally stopped black people from voting on Election Day in 1964 before becoming chief justice of the United States. Von Spakovsky is more of a behind-the-scenes operative.

But leaving this guy on the FEC is absurd, not only for Democrats but for all voters. If he survives, our 2008 elections automatically become less democratic, and you'll have to rewrite your kids' civics textbooks.

Bad karma: Pitcher's wife gave cash to Bush campaign.

After the worst performance of his career personally guaranteed the worst collapse by a team in baseball history, New York Mets pitcher Tom Glavine was practically blasé — he talked about "we" this and "we" that.

Glavine told the Bergen (N.J.) Record's Steve Popper:

His refusal to stand up and personally take at least some of the blame is reminiscent of George W. Bush's well-known refusal to personally admit mistakes, even in light of the Iraq debacle.

Why be so oxymoronic as to bring up Bush? Back in 2004, Glavine's wife, Christine, gave $500 to the Bush-Cheney campaign. Federal records show that it's the couple's only contribution to any candidate.

That's nothing but bad karma.

Yankee fans had better beware. Alex Rodriguez is another Bush supporter. Records show that star third-baseman A-Rod gave the Bush-Cheney campaign $2,000 in August 2003.

We'll see whether A-Rod comes through in the playoffs and, if not, whether he'll take the heat.

We already know that Glavine, like Bush, is not a stand-up guy. As the Record's Bob Klapisch wrote:

Contrast Glavine's reaction to that of San Diego Padres relief pitcher Trevor Hoffman, also a sure-fire Hall of Famer, whose miserable performance Monday night gave a playoff spot to the Colorado Rockies. Hoffman was all over the news this morning, saying:

Mets manager Willie Randolph, whose job is now in jeopardy, had no problem standing up, as the Record's Popper noted:

Glavine, though, had already cleaned out his locker on Sunday night and was headed home to his mansion in Alpharetta, Georgia — Atlanta's most exclusive suburb — where he's protected in the gated community of Country Club of the South. (His celeb neighbors in Alpharetta have included Jeff Foxworthy, Usher, Morris Day, Greg Maddux, and Damon Stoudamire.)

Glavine won his historic 300th game this season. Mission accomplished. An avid golfer, he'll stroke himself all winter and then possibly return to the Braves, with whom he spent his entire career before joining the Mets a few seasons ago as an aging baseball mercenary.

But it's up to Glavine. He was paid $7.5 million this season and has an option to return to the Mets for $9 million in 2008 — yes, that's a 20 percent raise after pitching the worst inning of his career in the biggest game of the season.

We New Yorkers have probably seen the last of Glavine's TV commercials on behalf of union workers. A leader of baseball's players union last decade, Glavine has earned lavish praise by the AFL-CIO for standing up for his union brothers in other, less glamorous, trades.

At some point, at least, Glavine was a stand-up millionaire guy.

Rehnquist is dead, but his spirit lives. The Supreme Court and Rove's man at the FEC pump life into "voter fraud" scheme.

A snapshot of current American electoral politics is one of the ugliest pictures of the year, now that the increasingly conservative Supreme Court has decided to hear a major voter-fraud/national photo ID case before next year's elections.

The GOP-engineered presidential-vote debacle in 2000 has developed into what may become a major scandal involving the use of photo IDs, which the GOP has been trying to engineer in time for next year.

"Voter fraud" — a purported invasion of polling places by illegitimate voters — is the battle cry of Republican officials hoping to stem turnout by likely Democratic voters in battleground states.

And "voter fraud" is right: The requirement that voters present photo IDs is their scheme, and Hans von Spakovsky is their standard-bearer at the Federal Election Commission. That uncomfortable sensation felt by small-d democrats is their cherished poll being shoved up a place where the sun don't shine.

Who said Karl Rove left the building? Coupled with the appointment of Michael Mukasey to oversee the Justice Department and its Civil Rights Division, the GOP is setting itself up well for '08, fighting a winnable war against U.S. voters while it fights an impossible war overseas. Rove's fingerprints are all over this, whether or not he's still using his White House keyboard.

Iraq has left the Republicans flaccid, but their "voter fraud" canard and accompanying strategy threaten to give the GOP yet another election.

Shades of Bill Rehnquist! Before he was chief justice of the U.S., Rehnquist personally blocked black people from voting in Phoenix in 1964, using "voter fraud" as his excuse. I wrote about that in September 2005 ("Rehnquist Death Gives Bush Chance to Deepen American Crisis"), recalling Dennis Roddy's riveting column in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that itself recalled Rehnquist's totalitarian behavior in Arizona as a GOP operative.

Rehnquist died in September 2005, but that didn't help because John Roberts, who favors corporate citizens over human citizens, took his place. An event that may turn out to be equally vital to the GOP occurred three months later, when Bush made a recess appointment to the FEC of von Spakovsky, a former Republican county chairman in Georgia. Before his FEC appointment, von Spakovsky was the chief civil-rights violator in the Justice Department's civil-rights division, leading the move to suppress minority and poor voters.

Von Spakovsky is up for confirmation to another FEC term. And the Roberts Supreme Court announced yesterday that it will hear the issue involving national photo IDs and voting — just in time for next year's election. This is dangerous, because it will likely bollix up '08 voting in key states.

There's plenty to read on this topic. From Paul Kiel at Talking Points Memo this past June:

Kiel refers to a 2004 piece by Jeffrey Toobin in the New Yorker whose headline says it all: "Poll Position: Is the Justice Department poised to stop voter fraud — or to keep voters from voting?"

See Lou Dubose's 2006 account of how von Spakovsky collaborated with Rove to scheme Tom Delay's crooked redistricting in Texas earlier this century. More to the current point, Dubose noted at the time:

Dahlia Lithwick's piece two days ago in Slate is also vital for understanding the back story on von Spakovsky.

Legal beagles can parse Bob Bauer's analysis yesterday of the politics swirling around the vote case the Supreme Court has now agreed to hear.

For a very recent story hinting at the bad smell emanating from the Justice Department, see "The Stooge," by David Martin of Kansas City's The Pitch.

As for following this issue, though, nothing beats wonk lawyer Rick Hasen's Election Law site, though Hasen is perhaps too hopeful that the high court will protect the rights of voters.

As I've pointed out before, in a September 2004 piece about dubious electronic-voting machines, Hasen is always a captivating and current legal-news live wire.

Those who can't live without the New York Times can learn some things from an April 12 story, "In 5-Year Effort, Scant Evidence of Voter Fraud," co-bylined by Ian Urbina, whose copy I used to have the pleasure of editing.

But you must keep clicking on the excellent McClatchy home page (formerly the Knight-Ridder D.C. Bureau), and definitely read Greg Gordon's story last April, "Administration pursued aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout." Gordon noted:

Next year those of you who can vote might want to vote early and vote often.

This oily business of dealing with evil foreign leaders.

New York's tabloids and assorted pols came unglued yesterday about the very idea of Iran's crackpot hardliner Mahmoud Ahmedinejad wanting to visit Ground Zero.

Where were they when Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov, whose regime boils people to death, was courted by George W. Bush and Mayor Mike Bloomberg?

Don't let your own blood boil at the thought of a bad guy visiting our sacralized 9/11 site. Condemn it, if you want, but Ahmedinejad was just trying to score political points, as our own pols do all the time at Ground Zero. He got what he wanted: The angry U.S. reaction will play well back home in Tehran, especially with the radical mullahs who really run Iran and like to stir up hatred for the "Great Satan."

Do we even have to say that in international politics, enemies today are pals tomorrow, and vice versa, and that the reasons almost always have to do with greed for money and natural resources?

On the other hand, it would be nice if our press at least reported these events. The Uzbek despot Karimov laid a wreath at Ground Zero in 2002, and there was literally not one word in the U.S. press about it at the time — I'm not talking about criticism or praise but any words at all. Nothing.

So Karimov is not a bad enough guy to get you worked up? Saddam Hussein was brown-nosed by Don Rumsfeld in December 1983. There's no reason to condemn Rumsfeld for that; it was just oil politics — just like the oil politics that Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney played when they seized upon the 9/11 attacks to justify invading Iraq.

After all, when Texas oil execs questioned Cheney in 1998, when he was still at Halliburton, about the physical dangers of pursuing oil in turbulent parts of Asia, the future vice president and de facto commander in chief told them:

Saddam is gone, but we still don't really have Iraq's oil. We do, however, have such evil people as the Taliban to deal with, right? Well, the Taliban were hailed as Afghan freedom fighters by Ronald Reagan during their triumphant visit to the White House on March 21, 1983. Reagan said at the time:

That's ancient history, huh? In fact, they were still our pals 14 years later. In late 1997, the Taliban were wined and dined at the homes of Bush's pals, the Houston oil execs, during Dubya's reign as the hangingest governor in U.S. history.

The oil schnooks were buttering up the Taliban for pipelines and other bidness, of course. See Wayne Madsen's "Afghanistan, the Taliban, and the Bush Oil Team" for details.

At least that courting of the Taliban less than 10 years ago was reported at the time. Of the many words in the mainstream press, my favorites are from a December 14, 1997, story by Caroline Lees in the Telegraph (U.K.), in which she describes the Taliban officials' visit to Unocal vice president Martin Miller's palatial Houston home:

At least someone out there has a strong enough constitution to face down the government's spying.

"Patriot Act" and "war on terrorism" were merely agitprop catchphrases crafted by the Bush regime to bamboozle Americans in the wake of 9/11.

Federal judge Victor Marrero, on the other hand, writes words to keep living by. Just as he did in 2004, the New York judge issued a ruling yesterday that struck down key provisions of the ill-named Patriot Act, halting — at least temporarily — the regime's attempt to broaden its spying on Americans by using the "war on terrorism" pretext.

Your best chance of understanding Marrero's decision in the aptly named Doe v. Gonzales case is to read Dan Eggen's story in the Washington Post. Unlike the Los Angeles Times version, for instance, Eggen's account steers clear of agitprop phrases:

The L.A. Times story, on the other hand, blindly uses the familiar agitprop phrases — "war on terrorism" instead of the better, more accurate word "counterterrorism." And the story is written from the angle of a "setback" for the government:

Oh, the poor government.

If you have the time, read Marrero's opinion or at least the ACLU press release about it.

For a good account of Marrero's earlier decision, see my colleague Nat Hentoff's November 2004 account, "Cuffing Bush and the FBI."

This may hurt.

A new GAO report stops the White House spin on Iraq in its tracks. Golly, why couldn't the Washington Post wait until the White House massages General David Petraeus's info into a suitable "progress report" to be released on 9/11?

Iraq is still unreasonably hot, and the White House is still blustery. I know, you don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows, but getting your hands on a GAO report draft helps. Here's this morning's story by Karen DeYoung and Thomas E. Ricks:

And how's that "surge" working for you?

The best news is that the number of whistleblowers in D.C. is increasing. That may slow the Bush regime's spin enough that we can see what's actually going on in Iraq. The story notes:

Get ready for a mid-August rain of propaganda.

The noose has tightened around Iraq's beleaguered people — at least those who haven't already taken sides in the uncivil war between Sunnis and Shi'ites. Those who are fleeing are being denied asylum — even those Iraqis who have helped the "coalition." Those who haven't fled can't get aid.

The latest news today from IRIN, the U.N.'s dogged news service:

Hell, in the triple-digit heat they can't even get electricity. Yesterday, IRIN reported:

The only real surge is an ominously increasing polarization of Iraqis, as today's IRIN story points out:

As if mad bombers weren't enough of a threat, it's Iraqi vs. Iraqi, Muslim vs. Muslim. Here's more:

Even the reviled U.S. presence in Iraq is no longer unifying Iraqis. Unplug your iPod and imagine yourself in Baghdad.

Americans breathe sigh of relief.

If one picture is worth a thousand words, then a 1994 video of Dick Cheney that's zooming around the Internet is priceless.

Actually, Cheney makes the point in less than 300 words that an invasion of Iraq wouldn't be worth it. Remember, this is back in 1994, and Cheney is being questioned about the first Gulf War.

Here's the video on YouTube. And here's the transcript, thanks to the people at Associated Content:

This video is definitely worth 300 words, and though it's deadly funny, it's not worth 3,000 dead Americans.

Toppling Saddam was one thing. But Associated Content also has an intriguing 2006 piece about Cheney topping his wife.

Under the unimaginative headline "Did Dick Cheney Have Sex with His Wife One Night in October of 1965 Simply to Get Out of Vietnam?" Timothy Sexton notes this:

At the time, Cheney was classified 1-A, eligible to be drafted. If he had children, he'd be reclassified 3-A.

Sexton counts backward from the birth of Cheney's daughter Liz on July 28, 1966. Whadda you know: There's almost exactly nine months' difference. Sexton, in his mean-spirited piece, figures that Dick impregnated wife Lynne in late October 1965, right when he learned that married men without children were going to be drafted.

And Sexton points out that Cheney was re-classified from 1-A to 3-A in January 1966. That would be shortly after it was confirmed that Lynne was pregnant.

That spared Dick Cheney from Vietnam. I was a psychiatric 4-F during that war, and I'm still nuts, but that doesn't mean I was crazy enough to have sex with Lynne Cheney in 1965 or invade Iraq in 2003.

The most devastating appraisal yet of the war of terror in Iraq passed unnoticed last week in the U.S. press.

The dedicated journalists of the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) — some of whom have been killed or imprisoned in psychiatric hospitals for simply doing their jobs in hots spots around the globe — published "Special Report: Security in Iraq," an explosive cluster of stories.

You might want to read it if you can get past the big news here that Tommy Thompson has dropped out of the presidential race. A headline from the introduction to IWPR's August 7 package sums drives home the point that Iraq is in even worse shape than we thought:

That would be bloody funny if it weren't so bloody true.

London-based IWPR is a serious operation, despite the fact that Sean Penn is apparently flashing an IWPR business card as he traipses through Venezuela with Hugo Chávez.

More relevant is the devastating summary of mad Iraq by IWPR's real reporters Christoph Reuter and Susanne Fischer. Because you haven't seen it, I'll quote it at length:

The details are even worse. See the stories in the package:

Introduction

Mosul Christian Community Dwindles

Battling for Power in Basra

Kirkuk Tensions Rise as Fateful Ballot Nears

Unholy War in Karbala

Iraqi Kurdistan Faces Trouble on Two Fronts

Checkpoints: Baghdad's Russian Roulette

Did I say this package passed unnoticed in the U.S. press? Actually, a segment of the introduction ran on the website of one American paper: the Times Herald-Record in Middletown, New York.

George W. Bush nicknamed Karl Rove "The Architect," but the POTUS isn't much of a reader, so we need a better definition of the guy who always relished his role as Rasputin.

My dictionary says "rove" is the past tense of "rive":

(Yes, I know that "My dictionary says …" is a hackneyed device, but my dictionary is the OED on CD-ROM, and Rove himself is a hackneyed device, so do me a favor and keep reading.)

The fact is that Rove is definitely not past tense on Capitol Hill, as I noted early yesterday. Later in the day, New York senator Chuck Schumer spoke the obligatory words:

That ship has sailed. As a verb by its intransitive lonesome, "rove" takes on another meaning:

Unfortunately, this political plunderer's shredder is probably overheating right now. We already know that thousands of juicy e-mails describing his plots are out there. But shredding is Rove's name, if you believe the OED, and I do:

For the sake of history, though, Rove is "rove" in a broader sense:

What's the use. Rove's already in transit out of D.C. If issues make you reach for tissues, this definition (of "rive" and thus "rove") is for you:

Whether or not he's ever called back from Texas to testify — and it would probably take a stint at Gitmo to get him to do it — Rove could very well end up as a memorable, if improper, noun. This 15th century usage fits, but it's obsolete:

No, forget "architect," scabs, and all other nouns. To me, Rove will always be a verb, especially in this sense:

Kind of a Robin Hood, except that Rove, as I pointed out yesterday, robs the poor to give to the rich.

What a con he pulled on us marks. Yes, that is true "roving." The OED elaborates:

Picking up Rove's pieces.

Now that Karl Rove is leaving, who's going to whisper instructions in George W. Bush's ear?

Rove's string-pulling of the puppet POTUS was never summed up better than in an episode revealed by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who resigned in early 2003 and dumped a truckload of notes on Ron Suskind, who produced the invaluable book The Price of Loyalty.

As I noted in July 2005, O'Neill recalled an instance in which Bush actually displayed compassion toward the middle class, at the expense of the wealthy, but was talked out of it by Rove.

A book-promotion conversation between Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes and Suskind in early 2004 tells the tale. Here's the transcript, posted by the excellent Canadian site Centre for Research on Globalization:

Notice that Rove sealed O'Neill's fate and Dick Cheney fired O'Neill. Further evidence that Bush is no more than a front man. As if we didn't already know that.

Bush's Rasputin gives two weeks' notice, will flee to Texas.

Karl Rove is leaving George W. Bush's White House. The president's Edgar Bergen tells the Wall Street Journal in an interview published this morning, quoted by the New York Times:

Yeah, these people are always leaving for the "sake" of their families. This is for Rove's own sake, judging by the 24th, 25th, and 26th paragraphs of an April 20 Washington Post story, "Senators Chastise Gonzales at Hearing," which starts out like this:

Way down in the story are the three paragraphs crucial to understanding the gripes of wrath that are causing Rove to hitch up the wagons for a westward trek:

Rove says "there's always something that keeps you here," referring to D.C. In this case, it's the flood of requests that he come to Capitol Hill to answer questions about the U.S. attorney firings.

Moving to Texas will make serving him with subpoenas more difficult. Don't think for a minute that he'll stop doing at least some of Bush's thinking.

But Rove's usefulness to Dick Cheney's Bush regime is really over. He miraculously brought the regime a second term, but he couldn't pull off the 2006 mid-term elections, and the big problem is the Iraq war.

Thirty-five years ago, when he was a College Republicans operative being interviewed by Dan Rather, Rove proudly showed off his "Generation of Peace" bumper sticker brainstorm while working for Richard Nixon's re-election.

Shades of 2004, when Rove helped the Bush regime pull off a miracle.

But Iraq is too much of a debacle, and the time for bumper stickers is past. The only thing Rove could do in this war would be to don a uniform, fly to Baghdead, and lead a surge. That's unlikely.

If you build it, they will come be shanghaied.

Shanghaied to build to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Working on the construction site without safety equipment — or even shoes. The story of the alleged kidnapping of Filipino workers who thought they were going to Dubai but instead were flown to Baghdad to help build the $500 million embassy is stunning.

But it's likely to be all for naught. Congressman Henry Waxman should haul Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney before the House Oversight Committee to explain.

Waxman exposed the embassy scandal on July 26, but a full-fledged investigation of this particular Cheney regime scandal probably won't happen. And even if it does, the final result of our having built this super-expensive supermax embassy will be reminiscent of Saigon in 1975: civilians fleeing a U.S. embassy by helicopter.

In case you've forgotten about the little-publicized new embassy in Baghdad, it's already officially insane. As I noted in September 2004:

Great. Americans already had to have counseling just to work in the old embassy in Baghdad. Because the Green Zone gets bombed so often, the new one will be much more of a prison. Think of the shrink work that will entail. Just building it can cause one to freak out. Here's yesterday's story in the Times (U.K.):

Mayberry's full statement, courtesy of the hard work of Waxman's House Oversight Committee, is riveting. Here's an excerpt:

How's that construction going? You need a telephoto lens (see the AP pic below).

You won't see photos of it on the websites of the White House or the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

But Martin Kemp of the Guardian (U.K.) wrote in May:

Whoever will rule Iraq, or that part of Iraq, or that strip of land in Baghdead, will be able to use the embassy as a supermax because it already is one.

If Mike Bloomberg winds up running for president (only if Rudy Giuliani doesn't win the GOP nomination), all the money in the world won't save the billionaire New York mayor from the glare of bad publicity.

Unless he stops people from shooting pictures, video, or film. That's exactly what Bloomberg (a one-person Green Party) is trying to do. One of his latest stunts would stunt others' ability to shoot film or video or even pictures on New York's streets.

Of course, in his own case, he likes to choose what pictures to show. For example, Bloomberg's official website showed no photographic evidence back in 2002 that Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov, whose underlings have been known to boil people to death, had not only visited New York; the torturer had chatted with Bloomberg in the mayor's office while the two posed for photos (see above). You could find the pictures only on Karimov's Uzbekistan website.

Now, in a city full of film-and-video students armed with digital equipment, Bloomberg's film office has a plan to stop crews as small as two people from taking pictures of anything on city streets. Here's the New York Times's Colin Moynihan the other day in a story about protesters protesting Bloomberg's clampdown:

Yeah, free. Not free to shoot, but free of charge, except for purchasing the insurance. And no hassle, except for having to register with the government before you take pictures on the street.

Bloomberg did a fine job protecting the GOP from the public during the 2004 Republican National Convention. Central Park, the natural spot for half a million protesters, was off-limits, and demonstrators were herded like cattle in a feedlot.

A group called Picture New York is fighting the new restrictions. Sorry, don't have any pictures of them.

On January 6, 2005, Texas senator John Cornyn kicked off the confirmation hearings for attorney general wannabe Alberto Gonzales by introducing him as "an inspiration to anyone." Well, Gonzales certainly inspired Chuck Schumer yesterday. The New York senator brought out the perspiration in Gonzales.

Call me Ishmael, but Spencer Ackerman and Paul Kiel did a whale of a job on tpmmuckracker.com, quickly posting commentary and clips of Schumer and Arlen Specter lobbing spears at the AG's blowhole.

At one point, Gonzales said he "clarified" a previous statement by calling Washington Post reporter Dan Eggen and retracting it. A few minutes later, Gonzales was forced to admit that one of his aides actually contacted Eggen and that Gonzales himself didn't know what was said.

Eggen was more charitable in his front-page story this morning, but his nut graf was this:

What a tough job it is to be one of the handlers of Gonzales or Bush. You got to watch those two like a hawk. And what the hell do you do when either of them is nakedly grilled? (See the full transcript of yesterday's hearing for an answer.)

In unrehearsed moments, their performances are staggering. Death-penalty foe Sister Helen Prejean (Dead Man Walking) recalls an anecdote by Tucker Carlson that left even that Bush fan astonished at the president's callousness and stupidity while the two discussed one of the people Bush had killed, Karla Faye Tucker.

Has there ever been a lawyer who's worse at thinking on his feet? Not much of a shock that Gonzales looked stupid yesterday. Sometimes pols intentionally act that way, of course. It may be difficult to tell whether Gonzales is lying or just plain dumb as a post, but the probable answer: both. He was grossly unqualified in the first place to be attorney general, as the confirmation hearings a year and a half ago showed. See my "Torture in Real Time" coverage of Gonzales trying to answer questions about the then-fresh Abu Ghraib scandal. (The full transcript of the January 6, 2005, session is here.)

Ted Kennedy was apoplectic during the confirmation hearings as he questioned Gonzales on the "techniques" of "live burial."

Yesterday's hearing showed how that's actually carried out.

Nobody should be surprised at Gonzales's performance. Russ Feingold noted back in January 2005 that, during Gonzales's term as counsel to Governor George W. Bush — when Bush became the hangingest governor in U.S. history — Gonzo didn't prepare memos on each case until the day of the execution.

Gonzales insisted that the memos merely "summarized discussions," what he called a "rolling series of discussions" with Bush "about every execution."

That was a lie. Alan Berlow's masterful "The Hanging Governor," way, way back in May 2000 in Salon, noted:

A lot shorter, in other words, than yesterday's strangling.

Iraqi children who haven't been blown up or burned alive by car bombs may not be the lucky ones. Millions — yes, millions — of Iraqi kids have fled their homes, and many of those youngsters are now parentless.

Those who do manage to avoid "incorporeity" and grow up have a good chance at becoming terrorists — if they can only maintain their sanity.

The good news is that practically all of the hundreds of corpses routinely fished out of the Tigris River downstream from Baghdad are those of young men, not children.

For the bad news, Monday's report from Baghdead by IRIN, the U.N.'s news service, noted:

Yes, millions of kids.

It's terrible that nearly 4,000 Americans have died because of the unjustified invasion of Iraq. Aside from the publicized rape of a 14-year-old girl by U.S. soldiers and the murders of her and her family, here's some of what is happening to Iraqi kids:

• Twenty starving, mentally handicapped boys were discovered naked and tied to their beds in a Baghdad orphanage last month. Food was in the next room, along with the people who were supposed to take care of the boys.

• Mentally handicapped boys who aren't tied to their beds are sometimes used as decoys by rebels during terror attacks. Says one: "They fight people who are occupying Iraq and they said that if I do my work well, God will protect me and make me be a healthy boy."

• Thousands of homeless children throughout Iraq survive by begging, stealing, or scavenging in garbage for food.

• The number of orphans is steadily rising, and many of them are now illegally working. "I have no choice," says 12-year-old Iyad Abdel-Salim. "Life in Iraq has turned into hell. It is dangerous to work in the streets. Twice men tried to rape me. God protected me and I was saved, but maybe one day I will be abused."

As convicted financiopath Conrad Black fights to keep his manor, this is the perfect time to thank him for inspiring one of the greatest pieces of investigative journalism on corporate America.

But the Hollinger Report is not just about business. Searing, embarrassing details on the behavior of such Hollinger International directors as Richard Perle give insight into the delusions and pretensions of those who led us into the Iraq debacle, like Perle, and those who are profiting from the war, like ex-journalist (and Judy Miller pal) Richard Burt.

Former CIA director George Tenet has pretty much established himself as a monumental liar about the war and his role in it, but one part of his 60 Minutes back-pedaling, book-peddling interview rings true: Perle's role in the warmongering. Here's what Tenet had to say about that, according to CBS:

In the public sector, Perle has blood on his hands. In the business world, Perle's performance as a Hollinger director was a remarkable study in greed. The report is typically blunt about it:

That the Hollinger Chronicles, which has a section titled "Corporate Kleptocracy," was produced by corporate America itself makes it even more remarkable. Read the 524-page PDF here, an annotated version courtesy of the Committee of Concerned Shareholders.

Prepared under the direction of former SEC commissioner Richard Breeden, the Hollinger report makes for great beach reading, as Slate's Daniel Gross noted in September 2004.

It's the best story about sharks since Jaws, and it's just about as scary.