So Many Problems, So Little Time

The last couple of weeks have brought a cornucopia of problems to the Chimp - so many, in fact, that it's hard to keep up and comment on them all. But there are a number of better sources for commentary than this humble blog. And I trust you're all pulling up a chair, rubbing your hands together, having a good read, and chuckling every bit as much as I am.

IMHO, the best places to keep up are: Raw Story(for daily news), Talking Points Memo (particularly focused on the forged Italian documents related to Niger) and Crooks and Liars (for the latest video outrages or compliments). I check them religiously, and I suspect all of you do as well.

This piece caught my eye today, and I must say it's not surprising. The International Herald Tribune has a story that blames Cheney for the mistreatment of prisoners In Iraq and Afghanistan. (Apparently Lawrence Wilkerson's good and pissed off, eh?)

Here's an excerpt:

"Vice President Dick Cheney's office was responsible for directives that led to U.S. soldiers' abusing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, a former top State Department official said Thursday.

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, then the secretary of state, told National Public Radio he had traced a trail of memos and directives authorizing questionable detention practices up through Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's office directly to Cheney's staff.

"The secretary of defense under cover of the vice president's office," Wilkerson said, "regardless of the president having put out this memo" - "they began to authorize procedures within the armed forces that led to what we've seen."

He said the directives contradicted a 2002 order by President George W. Bush for the U.S. military to abide by the Geneva conventions against torture."

Apparently, Dick's also been recently going around to various members of the Senate urging them to stick with the Administration versus John McCain's bill outlawing torture of prisons. OK, what kind of nutjob is pro-torture? I guess the Dick is - and he's trying to bring others along with him. But, I guess he hasn't read the polls lately and found out that the Administration is going down the drain.