Posted 11:08 AM by Robert

Abu Ghraib II

What if you gave an OUTRAGE! party and nobody came?

Worse, what if you were part of most of the mainstream liberal media, you grossly overplayed and sensationalized a pedestrian story about some prisoner abuse in Iraq that you admit (but bury the admission) is pretty much like what is going on all the time in US prisons every day - and then the Administration and Republicans generally right away figured out how to neutralize the political effect of all your hard work and your guy sinks like a stone in the polls in comparison to the Republican President you're trying to hold "responsible" for the OUTRAGES? And suppose on top of all that, Rumsfeld basically tells you to get stuffed.

Well, if you're the New York Times you'd be hopping mad and run an absurd tantrum-cum-editorial like this one:

The administration and its Republican allies appear to have settled on a way to deflect attention from the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib: accuse Democrats and the news media of overreacting, then pile all of the remaining responsibility onto officers in the battlefield, far away from President Bush and his political team. That cynical approach was on display yesterday morning in the second Abu Ghraib hearing in the Senate, a body that finally seemed to be assuming its responsibility for overseeing the executive branch after a year of silently watching the bungled Iraq occupation.

Translation from the Newyorktimesese:

The domestic economy and war on terror are both pulling away from us and our candidate and party strongly - and now this Iraq thing doesn't look like it's going to do us any good, either. We're so mad we could spit - and here it is!

MORE: More OUTRAGE! I'm OUTRAGED! Express your OUTRAGE!

Hmmm.. sex between consenting US soldiers? No doubt enquiring minds will want to know: What kind?

UPDATE: And now those enquiring minds will have additional reason to watch for the pics!