The REAL News

Elliot Spitzer is a huge boon to the Bush administration. Why? Because the story of his scandal blanketed the news and knocked the real news out of center stage so most Americans will never know of it. The first one is all about KBR, an off-shoot of Halliburton, who has been supplying water to our troops that make the sick:

A report obtained by The Associated Press said Soldiers experienced skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses after using discolored, smelly water for personal hygiene and laundry at five U.S. military sites in Iraq.

The Pentagon's inspector general found water quality problems between March 2004 and February 2006 at three sites run by contractor KBR Inc., and between January 2004 and December 2006 at two military-operated locations.

Just imagine how bad things could be if the right wingers in power weren't patriots who support our troops!!!

Then there is this one about Bush vetoing legislation that would make torture illegal. He says the US doesn't torture but then why would he veto this law? The obvious and clear answer is that the US does torture and Bush is afraid if it's made illegal he could be held accountable:

'We do not torture," President Bush insists, yet that assurance is accompanied by an unspoken "but." In vetoing legislation,1,218858.story that would require CIA interrogators to abide by the same humanitarian standards imposed on their counterparts in the U.S. military, Bush again has drowned out his denials with an ominous silence about just what "enhanced" interrogation tactics he considers appropriate.

"because the manual is publicly available and easily accessible on the Internet." So, of course, are the Geneva Convention In a shameful Saturday radio address justifying his veto, Bush argued that CIA interrogators can't be confined to techniques allowed by the Army Field Manualand the Detainee Treatment Act, which prohibit "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment." By the president's logic, acceptance of the humanitarian standards included in those documents also deprives the United States of the element of surprise.

He pretty much says that the CIA has been torturing people and will continue to do so. I remember one survivor of the Hanoi Hilton saying that one of the things that gave them strength was the knowledge that the US would never do what the Vietnamese were doing to them. No longer true, thanks to Bush.