What do they know that we don't? What are they afraid of? What do they have to hide?

When it comes to actions this week, you can't call the Republicans inconsistent. While they spent three days telling Judge John G. Roberts, Jr., "Don't answer questions," they employed the same strategy regarding the Katrina aftermath, telling Democrats, "Don't ask questions." When the Democrats insisted, the Republicans said, "Can't make me! Nyah nyah nyah!"

We'll see about that, because it's not just Democrats who want to know. Everyone who's not in power wants to know. The sad fact is that the evidence of failure of government on all levels -- especially the federal level -- is out there in plain sight, in the hundreds of thousands of homeless, in the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dead, in the utterly devastated towns in Louisiana and Mississippi.

What are they thinking, these Republicans? Do they really believe that they can just spin their way out of responsibility for their dismantling of government programs that would have saved lives?

Tonight, President Bush is going to spin for the nation how he's really on top of things, and how he supposedly really wants to find out what went wrong? His plan? You won't believe it:

Throw a whole lotta money at the problem.

Yes, you heard it right, folks. All Republican pretense at fiscal responsibility is gone now, and our Republican President, who has run up the biggest deficits in the history of human civilization, is doing what Republicans accused Democrats of doing for decades: Throwing money at the problem.

Now of course we need some major investment in our infrastructure, and it's going to cost us big time. But for fuck's sake, we also have to be fiscally responsible. If we run the economy into the toilet, what good is that going to do? Maybe it's time we faced facts and did some real draw-downs from Iraq, the boondoggle that is killing Iraqis in record numbers, getting our young and brave soldiers and Marines killed and maimed, and generating on a daily basis a whole lotta ill will towards the United States. What's that costing us? $7.4 million an hour? It sure seems like that kind of money would come in pretty handy right now.

Once upon a time, the United States was the biggest creditor in the world. Now we're the biggest debtor in history. Once upon a time, the United States was respected and admired around the world. Only 4 years ago, we had the entire world, even our historical enemies, at our side, sharing in our mourning of 9/11. Our president managed to fuck that up pretty good, and now our historical allies view us with mistrust.

And are we any safer? With our military tapped out in a vaguely-defined peacekeeping role in Iraq? With our federal deficit leaping up like a firestorm? With our infrastructure crumbling thanks to anti-government-politics-inspired neglect and dismantling? With our Homeland Security unable to deal with a predicted natural disaster, let alone an unpredicted terror attack? One really wonders.

And now the Republicans don't want an investigation they don't do themselves. To them, priority number one isn't making America safer and stronger, it's doing something about those awful poll numbers. They're dropping every day! Alarm! Alarm! Political emergency!

What do they have to hide? What are they afraid of? What do they know that we don't?

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