I Guess Outrage Takes Too Much Effort

I'm amazed at how quickly the latest Bush Administration scandal is falling off the radar screen. Searching for a summary of the domestic spying controversy, I was saddened but I guess not all that surprised to find that it was much, much easier to find stories on the baby penguin stolen from a zoo in London or the annulment in the Zellweger-Chesney marriage. The Bush Administration may not be able to do much right, but they sure know how to spin scandals.

It's frightening that the Administration feels that it can circumvent the law and the Constitution to achieve their ends. It's even more frightening how many people obediently accept the Administration and their surrogate's defenses of "trust us, this is for your own good" and "anyone who questions this is a traitor", and if that doesn't quite do it, the old faithful "Terrorists and Bill Clinton's penis will kill you unless you stop asking questions." This is unacceptable. The Executive branch of the federal government is spying on Americans in America with absolutely no judicial oversight. Is no one bothered that this sounds a lot like the actions of a police state? Heck, they've even admitted that they're doing it and that they plan to continue doing it!

It would seem self-explanatory to me that neither George Bush nor anyone else gets to pick and chose which laws he obeys. And yet, so far out here in Northern Nevada the response to this latest revelation of wrongdoing is essentially nil. I never cease to be amazed at how good the people that run this country, people incapable of accomplishing almost anything else that they set out to do (besides, I guess, continuing to convice the public to act against their own interests and re-elect them), are so damn good at managing to keep public outrage at practically non-existent levels. How they do it is something of a mystery to me, but Peter Daou makes a pretty good attempt at explaining the process here.