[Excerpt]:

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Bush administration officials said they had been caught by surprise when they were told on Tuesday, Aug. 30, that a levee had broken, allowing floodwaters to engulf New Orleans.

"But Congressional investigators have now learned that an eyewitness account of the flooding from a federal emergency official reached the Homeland Security Department's headquarters starting at 9:27 p.m. the day before, and the White House itself at midnight….

"Given this chain of events, investigators have repeatedly questioned why Mr. Bush and Mr. Chertoff stated in the days after the storm that the levee break did not happen until Tuesday, as they made an effort to explain why they initially thought the storm had passed without the catastrophe that some had feared." [END excerpt]

Why did they say this? It's obvious: they wanted to cover up their own blithering incompetence and their criminal, callous disregard for the worthless darkies and dumb crackers who drowned in New Orleans. They lied – as they lied about Iraq, as they lied about the poisoned air at Ground Zero after September 11, as they lied about Pat Tillman, as they lied about Jessica Lynch, as they lied about their ties to Jack Abramoff, as they lied about outing Valerie Plame, as they lied about their election-fixing, as they lied about their domestic spying, as they lied about their torture program, and so on and on and on.

They lied because they are not interested in governing, in carrying out the responsibilities of public office; they are interested only in wielding power – untrammeled, unrestrained, unaccountable power, put to the service of their own radical agenda of ideological extremism and crony profiteering. This agenda is immensely unpopular among the American people at large, and so it must be disguised at every turn – with lies, spin, half-truths, distortions, ludicrous excuses. It doesn't really matter how implausible it is; the content doesn't matter, that's not the point: the point is to keep throwing dust in the public's eyes, battering them with one lie after another, relentlessly, on all fronts, overwhelming the ability of anyone to keep track of it all, to think through it, to see reality before the next load of dust comes flying our way.

Reality is the Bush Faction's deadliest foe, because it exposes the bloodsoaked sham of their public pronouncements and lays bare the naked, bestial power-lust beneath. This is the real war they are fighting – the War on Reality – and this is where they are putting all their energy, resources and intellect. This is what they really care about. In this war, they are very competent. They let hundreds die needlessly in New Orleans, they've let tens of thousands die needlessly in Iraq (including every single American soldier killed there), they've exacerbated terrorism at every turn, they've bankrupted the country – because they don't care about any of that. What matters is wielding power, imposing your will, raking in loot; the consequences of these actions – mass death, mass destruction, economic ruin, global chaos – are meaningless. Those consequences happen to other people, to those outside the circle of the power-mongers and their sycophants. These brutal elites float high above the murderous reality they create – but the rest of us are drowning in it.