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Revealed: Janet "pasty" Jackson and Saddam "Danielle Steele" Hussein
2004-02-04 10:54 a.m.

One thing that you might consider a flaw in my personality is that I LOVE IT when I'm right about a political argument. I do that sort of obnoxious happy dance sometimes, though I've been learning how to be a better winner. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

So you can imagine my glee in hearing about the controversy surrounding the boob/bra rippage incident at the superbowl. Though admittedly I'm just as sick of hearing about it as everyone else, it has provided some really nice support to my argument: that CBS has one helluva double standard. More importantly, everyone from commentators on MSNBC to the CW writers at Newsweek have chided CBS for accepting that kind of performance but rejecting Moveon.org's anti-Bush commercial on the basis of "morality" and "appropriateness".

CBS of course is passing the buck, claiming their own state of "outrage", and blaming MTV/Viacom, though MTV/Viacom insist that CBS was well aware of the routine. Additionally, the incident is now being cited as a "mistake" - one that was never meant to happen. Yeah right, say most of us, especially considering Justin Timberlake's tongue in cheek "apology" for the "wardrobe malfunction". That Timberlake boy is snarky; I like him.

Most of us are wondering what the big deal is - why we have such issues with boobage remains to be seen. We pretend to be so conservative, all the while viewing "gratuitous sexual images" as part of our daily routine in everything from videos to fast food commercials.

Yet, since most of us do associate "morality" with "conservatism", CBS playing the same card, it is HYSTERICAL to me that all of this happened and has blown up in their faces. Or did I mean that I was hysterical over it?

I'm all mixed up today!

It might be because I've recently heard about the romance novel/musical Saddam Hussein penned while the Dec., 1998 Military strikes were ordered in after he refused to allow weapons inspectors into presidential sites.

Far out, yo! Wasn't he sitting in an underground bunker making WMD and hiding them from the UN? Wasn't he scrambling around, the madman he is, plotting world domination? Or is that plotting...a...romance novel?

Like a true dictator/despot, I'm sure it was a move to keep everyone guessing, to further ideas about his irrationality, and to keep people in fear of what crazy move he would pull next. Like a true maniacal, totalitarian egotistical freak, I'm sure he's just that crazy. But we, being a super-power, would never be duped - whether intentionally or because of erratic psychosis. Right?

"We were all wrong," David Kay (the former US Weapons Inspector) publicly announced, and then promptly resigned.

Whoopsie!

The motivating thought was that Saddam must be hiding something; otherwise, he wouldn't put his people through all of the trauma of air strikes and threats of war. Or would he? We all know now the man's penchant for romance novel-writing doesn't exactly jive with his other penchant: torturing "infidels" and killing people slowly. So why try to rationalize his moves and his motives? Why try to get into his head? If the gov’t knows and knew he wasn’t a rational man, why try to use that rationality as a means and justification for war?

One reason might also have been Ahmad Chalabi's press releases stating that weapons programs were, in fact, in operation. While looking here will actually provide more in-depth coverage of Chalabi's accusations and statements, a representative press release goes something like this:

Saddam is getting more money. He is developing weapons of mass destruction, and he is oppressing the Iraqi people. When do you get the wake-up call--when Saddam perpetrates something really horrible? And what is the response of the United States?.

Worth thinking about for our government, true. But, isn't it a wonderful coincidence for Chalabi that he was unofficially slated to become Iraq's "next president" if and when Saddam were to get ousted? Might someone in that position have a tendency to expand on, fabricate or "make more exciting", as they say, any claims about WMD?

And again, since when do we take the word of a Chalabi, or the actions of an erratic, totalitarian dictator so seriously that we throw billions of dollars and thousands of "expendable" lives into action?

So the war was nearly groundless, it turns out. We tried to analyze the actions of a nutjob and the claims of an opportunist. Sad but true: that was the solid proof that our admin. based much of their actions on. So much loss over such impulsive and reckless moves. And it’s still not over! I'm embarrassed and ashamed, just like that Dixie Chick said.

I now think it's time for an introduction. I present to you the U.S. Iraq Intelligence coalition who cried wolf. Ooooh, Condi. Oh Colin. Oh Donald. Oh Tony. Oh Dick. Oh Bill. Oh W (if, in fact, they ever let you sit with the grown ups and make decisions at all). Shame on you! GO TO YOUR ROOMS. And no TV for a week!

How do you spell a-c-c-o-u-n-t-a-b-i-l-i-t-y in this country, anyway?

Don't look at me.

xoxox,

P.S. Shameless plug: But you CAN look at a travel piece of mine that's getting published by a British on-line journal called Traveller's Impressions. It should be up in a day or two - horray! I'll link to it here asap.