To: rrufff who wrote (3167 ) 9/29/2003 7:19:58 PM From: MSI Respond to of 20039 This Wilson thing is an example that our system works. It may very well take down the White House if they don't get to the bottom of it and fast There is a long history of character assassination that isn't responded to, except with the standard "deny, deny". I expect some fireworks. There are ways to not get to the bottom of it. We'll see if they succeed."never, never land" theories actually hurt by turning the average person away from the people claiming corruption. These are the same "never never land" theories behind Enron, Global Crossing, WorldCom, etc. All you have to do is open the books, and add up the $$ going in vs $$ going out. The numbers speak for themselves. The other thing all adults quickly learn is this: anything not able to be audited is guaranteed to be subject to (a)incompetent loss, (b)outright thievery, or (c)both. The Founding Fathers did not depend on the good character of officeholders, and assumed the worst would eventually happen w/o checks and balances. What we have is a lack of such balance. Even if the crew in charge were not criminals to begin with, their actions would be reprehensible and demanding of full investigation for obvious profiteering before, during, and after the Iraq war. This would be true even if there weren't a single party in charge of the entire political apparatus, able to protect such crimes. The connections with Bush Sr. and VP Cheney contractors are something that would not be allowed under normal conditions. Only with a cowed and spineless minority party and dominant and tightly controlled majority party is it even possible to reach this point. The malfactors cannot help themselves, and will continue until they reach a tipping point, at which whistleblowers and investigators will have more than enough to throw them out. Their only hope is to destroy all evidence and control both public opinion and the judiciary. They can only do this by winning the '04 election, so the heat is on. It should be an interesting race. If they fail, a lot will go to jail. Of course like Nixon's term, they may even if they win.