Silent Aria

Why is nobody asking the obvious questions? If the administration knew about the 'troubles' at Abu Ghraib and has had investigations ongoing for months, and then asked CBS to sit on the story for two weeks during which time the Supreme Court heard arguments for & against detainee rights...isn't that obstruction of justice, or at least suppression of evidence? The litany of grounds for impeachment grows. With a list like this, it kinda makes the Watergate break-in look naive, doesn't it?

Bush is basing his insulation on not having heard about the pictures. But hey -- flash: the pictures are just unfortunate evidence for the rest of us, like comics for the illiterate. What was it Boss Tweed said?

"I don't care so much what the papers write about -- my constituents can't read. But damn it, they can see pictures."

Nobody's talking about Ashcroft. HIS people stood in front of the Supreme Court three weeks ago and argued that prisoners didn't have rights, while HIS people were already six months into investigations of prisoner abuses and had these photos. Christ, HIS PEOPLE were interrogating the prisoners. Conflict of interest? Spin the wheel, pick a statute.

And Mr. Ashcroft, please. Do not presume to tell the rest of us that torture is OK, that the conditions and procedures in Guantanamo, Diego Garcia, and Kyrgyzstan are correct and humane. Your camp has John McCain. Send Senator McCain down there, and let me hear him tell the Supreme Court, "Gentlemen, I have lived in a cage, and these are nice cages."