Rutland Herald: Rutland Vermont News & Information

• Six of the eight recently fired United States Attorneys told Congressional committees that they believed they lost their jobs because they wouldn't play partisan politics in their handling of high profile political corruption cases. Some also claimed they'd been threatened by the Justice Department not to go public with their complaints.
• Nine American servicemen were killed in action Iraq.
• More than 100 Iraqi Shiites making a religious pilgrimage were killed by suicide bombers. At least 200 were injured.
• Seriously wounded soldiers told Congress about the neglect, bad housing and bureaucratic nightmares they suffered as outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington while two top army generals accepted responsibility and apologized to the soldiers and their families.
• According to a new USA Today/Gallup Poll, six in 10 Americans want Congress to set a time table to withdraw all American troops from Iraq by the end of 2008.
• And, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney and a national security aide to President George W. Bush, was found guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice in the case of the leak of the identity of a CIA operative in the summer of 2003. Any one of these stories would have been bad news for the Bush White House.

As a group they represent a devastating political "perfect storm" because they paint a vivid picture of corruption, neglect and incompetence even while things continue to go badly in a war that a significant majority of Americans no longer supports and wants to end. It was enough to make the White House spokesman want to hide from the press, which Tony Snow tried to do by taking the day off. But neither he nor his boss can hide from the reality that Bush administration policies have created at home and abroad – a reality that seems about as bad as it can be but promises to get worse.

 And naturally, this perfect storm will pass over unnoticed by many – except for us reality-based life-forms, that is. 

[tags]US Attorneys, Iraq, Casualties, Time Table, Scooter Libby[/tags]