I wrote previously about the whacky conspiracy theories that the 9/11 inquiry, and the Bush administration in general, engender. I had another thought along these lines today.

With a budget of $3 million (compared to, what, $110 million spent on Whitewater?), it seems clear the Bush administration doesn’t want the inquiry to get ambitious. With Kissinger as the first appointee to lead the commission, it seemed all the clearer that Bush didn’t want to hear any unwelcome news.

Kissinger’s appointment became an issue largely because of an outcry from the blogosphere. This was reported in the traditional news media. Now we are seeing Kean, his replacement, generating some outcry in the blogosphere as well. Is it possible that the president is gaming the system?

The commission has an 18-month lifespan. Two months have already been shot. Could the administration effectively negate the commission by appointing a succession of controversial chairmen to it and exploiting the resulting outcry? Running down the clock? I know, crazy talk. I don’t quite believe it myself. But still…

Meanwhile, in related news, the Slacktivist has pointed to a brilliant, and disturbingly prescient passage in a satirical book about George I and Gulf War, Episode I.

A big part of the problem is that, since even before he took office, Bush has shown a contempt for the openness and accountability that allow a democracy to function. And why not? His entire life has been a finger in the eye of meritocracy. He has always traded on his name and gotten preferential backroom deals from backslapping buddies. Shoot, he didn’t even win the presidential race, exactly. So it’s no surprise he should be contemptuous. But his predilection for secrecy, old-boy networking, etc, apart from the damage it does to democracy, makes it impossible to resist seeing conspiracies.

Patrick Nielsen Hayden tells us it’s time to put on the tinfoil hat, connecting the dots between the new chairmain of the committee investigating 9/11 to Osama bin Laden.

In the wake of 9/11, The Onion observed that American life had turned into a bad Jerry Bruckheimer movie. It might actually be a bad Richard Donner movie.

[Later]: More on this story here.

We (as in “We the people”) have lost the Eldred v Ashcroft case before the Supreme Court. This fought the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of ’98, which was passed at Disney’s behest so that Mickey Mouse would not fall into the public domain.

I think the Economist is a great magazine, but man, when they’re wrong, they’re wrong

Or look at the looming war with Iraq. Mr Bush’s critics could not get it more wrong when they charge him with exploiting Iraq for domestic reasons; in fact, the easiest way to secure his popularity would have been to ignore Iraq and concentrate on al-Qaeda. If Mr Bush is right, and Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction, then America risks huge casualties; if he is wrong, and Pandora’s box is empty, then he risks looking like a fool.

In no particular order: Bush risks looking like a fool every time he opens his mouth (whether to speak, or merely to eat a pretzel), so there’s nothing new there. I have written before that winning the war on al Qaeda is not a good way to make political points, since A) it wasn’t going very well, and B) success in this “war” is defined by an absence of news. It isn’t very impressive to report “no buildings blown up today.” In a war against Iraq, you can show clear results — which the military can completely stage-manage. Part of the problem here is that the “war on terror” is not a real war. If Iraq possesses WMDs, they still lack the delivery system to reach the USA, and so would have to use them on their own soil (which they’ve done before, admittedly). If they don’t, Bush will simply say they’re well hidden.

Burningbird writes about a series of public-service announcements (available for download):

All the ads are intended to ‘inform’ the American public about what will happen if we don’t continue to support the war on Terror. All horrifyingly demonstrating the reality of what is happening to this country because of the war on terror.

Ouch. One ad illustrates “freedom”: a shopping cart rolling through a grocery store aisle, with 10 kinds of bread, 50 kinds of breakfast cereal, etc. This is an unintended tribute to George Carlin’s observation that “freedom” in this country means we’ve got 37 different kinds of mustard, but no real political options. Another shows a guy asking for a banned book at a library and immediately being grabbed by the cops–too close to what’s already happening at libraries.

This article in the Washington Post details a startling bit of American history that I had been unaware of: during WW2, the U.S. government kidnapped Latin Americans of Japanese, German, and Italian descent and held them in detention centers, in some cases as late as 1949.

A cautionary tale for our times. I have no trouble imagining the current lot doing the same thing.

When I studied ethics in college, one of the big issues was the question of whether motives or actions were of greater importance. If I remember correctly, Kant said “both.”

The impending war with Iraq demonstrates that Kant was right. It may be the case that making war on Iraq is the right thing to do, if done for the right reasons. I am convinced that the USA’s reasons for a war are not the right ones.

What would be a good reason for war? That Saddam is a threat to American interests and to his own people. Both of these are true.

Why is the USA so intent on war against Iraq? The reason given by the Bush administration is pretty much what I just wrote above. What are the real reasons?

My guess is that the Bush administration is using war on Iraq as a proxy or distraction for the war on terror (I’ve always objected to that term — it’s not a war any more than LBJ’s “war on poverty” or Nixon’s “war on cancer” were wars), which doesn’t seem to be offering any positive results. Indeed, success in a war on terror is defined by an absence of news: no structures blown up, no suicide bombers, etc. Hard to make the case that you’re doing a good job. Not as marketable as a good old-fashioned war.

Another analysis — which I don’t quite buy — is that it is being done at the behest of the Israel lobby. While I’m sure Israeli politicians will be delighted to see Iraq get a good smiting by the USA, I don’t get the impression that they had been agitating for it before the Bush administration made it a priority. And, although the Israel lobby probably does have disproportionate influence (especially given the unholy alliance between Israel and American fundamentalist Christians these days), I’m not convinced that it’s influential enough to push America into a war.

And there’s the old standby, oil. I’ve read reports that representatives of major oil interests from the USA, Britain, Russia, etc, have already met to decide on how they will carve up a postwar Iraq. This is plausible. And while a war will probably be hard on the economy overall, it will be great for certain sectors — obviously the military-industrial complex, but also oil, which will be much more expensive while the war is going on.

And I do believe that Saddam’s threat to American interests is on the list, but pretty low on it. It’s not a credible justification. He’s not significantly more of a threat now than he was before Bush started making all this noise about him.

So if we do go to war against Iraq, it will be mostly for the wrong reasons. This will lead to doing the wrong things, such as shortchanging higher priorities (like that war on terror) and prosecuting the war in a way that might not lead to the best outcome in terms of American security overall, but might be best in terms of oil interests. And almost inevitably, the rebuilding of postwar Iraq will be cursed by American short-termism and by American appeasement of Saudi Arabia. (Institute a real democracy? Don’t count on it.) And so on.

Well, now that he has apologized all over the place and lost his lofty perch, Trent Lott has essentially retracted his recent contrition for his veiled racist remarks, saying

There are people in Washington who have been trying to nail me for a long time,” Lott said in the AP report. “When you’re from Mississippi and you’re a conservative and you’re a Christian, there are a lot of people that don’t like that. I fell into their trap and so I have only myself to blame.

Saying, in effect, “Sure I’m sorry — I’m sorry I was naive enough to walk into the trap laid by those mean old unspecified people who have it in for conservative Christian Mississipians.” So, to review, he still doesn’t think he said anything wrong (or expressed any indefensible ideas), he just thinks the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy finally nailed him. The cluephone is going to ring for a long time before he picks it up.

As an American, but not a deeply, blindly conservative one, I find it difficult to avoid being cynical and resigned. Despite a Bush administration that makes Nixon’s look like a Boy Scout jamboree, the average citizen seems indifferent to what’s going on in Washington. So my schadenfreude at finding this story is mixed with a feeling of futility.