Mickey Kaus, 26 November:

What? Was Robert McNamara Busy? Henry Kissinger? The head of the 9/11 inquiry needs to be trustworthy and credible, so his or her report isn’t suspected of being a whitewash. Kissinger may be many things, but trustworthy and credible aren’t the virtues that leap immediately to mind. This is a man whose recent op-ed on the Iraq war was such a jumble of hidden agendas and Machiavellian bargains that nobody could figure out if he was dissenting from the Administration’s policy or supporting it….Even if Bush wanted a whitewash, he could’ve picked a better whitewasher than Kissinger—at least if Bush wanted a whitewash that’s actually believed….McNamara might have been a better choice! He’s repeatedly been arrogant and wrong, with calamitous consequences for the nation and the world. But he’s at least (compared with Kissinger) been transparently and straightforwardly arrogant and wrong.

[He] was certainly not on the short list we were hoping for. Is there anyone who is not tainted?

They’re just doing this to mess with our heads, right?

Meanwhile, in the “I guess Hitler is dead and we can’t seem to FIND bin Laden department”, the President named “Ten Most Evil Men of Twentieth CenturyTM” member Henry Kissinger as head of the commission to study the events surrounding the September 11th terror attacks. I have nothing to add. Which is ALSO what we can expect from this commission.

Even I can’t believe some of the stuff that comes out of this administration. The only reason they haven’t got all of their convicted criminals and unindicted co-conspirators in this administration is because some are too busy doing talk radio or, in Nixon’s case, in Hell, to join them.

Henry Kissinger’s appointment to the 9/11 commission is the equivalent of an “in your face, you impotent little nothings, we can do whatever we want and get away with it!” to those who pay attention to the news and to history. It’s a grotesque triumphant dance of the currently-powerful, designed largely to make the opposition feel marginalized and disheartened. It’s almost working on me.

Who did you think he was going to appoint when it has been manifestly obvious all along that the last thing Bush wants is an investigation of 9/11? Or didn’t you notice? How the hell can you not notice?

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows