Ever since the pictures broke from Abu Ghraib, the consistent unanswered question has been "who was in charge"? Who where these "kids" getting their orders from? Who told them to do what they did? Who gave those orders from "military intelligence". And ever since, the silence has been deafening on those questions.

As Josh Marshall likes to say, the wheels are now officially off this cart.

Seymour Hersh, who last week broke the news on the Taguba Report, cracks it wide open again in this week's New Yorker.

Game over.

I'll not bore you with the details as I suspect you will be getting them ad nauseum all week from here on out. But here's the deal. Even if, as some of the Administration "dead enders" will undoubtedly try to argue this week, that important information was needed and was indeed gained from this operation, it's still too late. All week, the Bushies have been referring to those pictures as "horrendous" and they have been claiming that "those responsible will be prosecuted". Well, they're gonna have a hell of a time crawling out of the corner they're in now.

By the way, the "few bad apples" cover they've been using was devised in January when the Pentagon first found out about the monster they'd unleashed. Hersh reports on a "senior intelligence officials" account:

Sound familiar?

You'll get much more of all of this soon. But suffice to say, my guess is that this is the straw that breaks Rummy's back. If he survives another week color me amazed. Or color George W. Bush really a fool.

That Bush has only two issues left on which he is leading Kerry, must be sending Rove to the edge of a cliff right about now.

That Kerry has closed the gaps --- virtually to margin of error numbers --on what had previously been runaway "trademark" Bush issues like "Terrorism" and "Moral Values" (for example, in March, Bush lead Kerry on "Terrorism" %60 to %33) is likely pushing Rove right over the cliff right about now.

Worse still for the Bushies there is a fair number of "Undecideds" in the poll graphed above. With "Undecideds" historically breaking to the challenger (and doing so in enormous numbers right now), Rove better be wearing a pretty big parachute!

The Freeway Blogger strikes again!...

'WAR IS OVER' UPDATE: Maureen Dowd puts it all smartly into perspective. Thanks to BRAD BLOG commentor Jaime for the catch!

I don't have much to add here, but with everything else going on, somehow this AP story seems to have gotten overlooked today. And yet it's quite notable, so here it is...

At least something is still going right in this country and even the Supremes didn't screw this one up! Yet.

Hopefully the usual Bush Bashers and Kerry Haters will pardon a brief pause for my continuing flight of fancy over this Andy Kaufman thing. It should all be over one way or another by Sunday (theoretically). So feel free to scroll past this long item if you're looking for the red meat!

I've been kicking myself all day for waiting so long to decide to buy tickets to the "event" around the corner at House of Blues this Sunday to mark the 20th Anniversary of Andy's Death (and possible re-appearance?), as there is now no more $50 SRO tickets. So it looks like I'm SOL instead.

So in lieu of it all, and noticing an alarming number of "Andy Kaufman" searches that have hit this blog in the last day or two, I went about a bit of armchair detetive work on the whole thing, and found a tidbit or two along the way.

If you're lost at this point, please see my "Andy Kaufman Returns?!" piece from last week for background, and then feel free to return.

Anyway, here's a few items of note as Sunday nears...a website called AndyKaufmanLives.com was begun last September 2003 by a guy known only as "Enrique". It's one no-frills continuous page where "Enrique" muses on his belief that Andy could have faked his death. He does so by periodically posting skeptical questions that folks may have and then goes about answering them. For example...

Good enough...then suddenly the 9/16/03 entry is in a different font and color:

Okey doke...Odd enough. But then as I was highlighting the above text to copy it here, I discovered that hidden throughout the page, which has only a plain white background, there is text in a white font so that it can't be seen. Frequently just "Andy Kaufman," or sometimes more elaborately: "Andy Kaufman, Latka, Andy Kaufman lives, Taxi, Andy Kaufman Lives, Andy Kaufman, Andy Kaufman Lives, Latka, Andy Kaufman, Taxi, Andy Kaufman Lives"

That's a trick frequently used by websites that hope to get their page listed high on the various search engines when people might be searching for example, for "Andy Kaufman Lives". Search Engine "'bots" see that text - and add it to their index - even while normal humans don't. But if the above message from "Steve" is to be believed, and he was only suppose to transcribe "Enrique's" typed faxes verbatim, there would be no invisible text to be retyped.

So either "Steve" is lying to "Enrique" about simply retyping what he's sent (in order to up the hit rates for the page - which doesn't carry any ads in any case) or the whole thing is a swell sham and "Enrique" actually is "Steve" since supposedly "Enrique" claims that he doesn't know enough about HTML to do it himself, and therefore, would be unlikely to use the old "hidden keyword trick".

For the record, searches on both Google and Yahoo find no such company as "JetElectro Productions". However a "Stephen Maddox" of Greenwood, IN, is the owner of AndyKaufmanLives.com according to a WHOIS search.

But let's move on...In February of 2004 "Enrique" makes his last post for many months. In that post, he points to a message board, (which he had also pointed to and posted on some months earlier). The message board is ostensibly dedicated to the hardcore Andy fans, and of late is all about the 20th Anniversary "re-emergence" stuff.

More on that message board in a moment.

No more posts from "Enrique" on AndyKaufmanLives.com since that February 28, 2004 post, until today - a post from "Steve" again:

And then this final post on the page, today, again from "Enrique":

"Enrique" is starting to sound more and more like Andy's Co-Writer and current inhabitant of Andy's "Tony Clifton" character Bob Zmuda if you ask me.

Now back to the message board I mentioned previously...An hour or two ago, a new post there from "Anonymous" (which is what "Enrique" seems to go by when he posts on this board, apparently...though he hasn't posted for months...until today):

There is, of course, a "Link to Enriques' Site" at the top of this message board.

An alert poster there, also noticed the following from a 10/30/03 post on "Enrique's" site:

The reference to "Aruba" is notable, given this exchange from last week's LA Weekly article on this whole affair:

So there you have it...Just about all I've gleaned in the last hour or two while avoiding the mess that is Iraq, the Whitehouse, and everything else.

Oh, except for this last piece of business found by one of the message boarders in the "fine print" at the bottom of the Comic Relief page (Bob Zmuda is one of the founders of Comic Relief) advertising the event:

Hmmm...Odds are the joke is on me for having even paid it all this much attention (And you! For having read this far!) But that was, after all, largely the point of whatever the hell it was that Andy did. We were the show. And so I'm glad to play my part yet again for Andy...20 years later.

We'll see what --- if anything --- happens on Sunday. But, as the song says, "If you believed they put a man on the moon..."

In re: my earlier pieces (here and then here) on Bill Kristol and the other NeoCons and their policy break from Bush as seen in his recent Weekly Standard piece. Is it just me? Or did Kristol appear truly dejected on last night's Daily Show? While, as he said, he was "trying to put on [his] game face" during the interview with Jon Stewart, his slumping body language suggested that he's truly been up against it, as he referred to "a really tough week, and a really tough last six weeks".

He's has been up against it, I'd imagine. And it showed. He was one of the original NeoCon architects (along with Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle etc.) behind this whole Iraqi Misadventure. One that far pre-dates 9/11. Even the most militant of Hawks should by now be able to see that these guys got their fair shot at it, and --- frankly --- have just blown it all in one single Mesopotamian Misjudgement. Now can we move on to Plan B already?

In re: my previous rant (or rants) at Sean Hannity. Even the NY Post has picked up now on the outrageously politicized, remarkably hypocritcal and astroundingy poor taste airings of the full "uncut" audio of the Nick Berg beheading. What I had forgotten to mention, as an ironic sidebar, is that his flagship station in NY (WABC), his station out here in LA (KABC) and many other stations in between, are owned and operated by a little company known as Disney. You remember them...the ones who opted against distributing Academy Award winner Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11 because it was too political and they "don't wish to alienate" the "families of many political stripes" that they cater too. I guess that only applies to films and not radio for Disney? (Films like Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction mind you!)

In related unsurprising news, there's still no word on how the FCC feels about a "live" beheading being played over the public airwaves in the middle of the afternoon.

In re: Andy Kaufman's imminent return to life this Sunday. After hemming and hawing about it for a week or so, we finally decided to fork out the $50/per SRO tickets to the big show on Sunday at the House of Blues being put on by Andy's co-writer, Bob Zmuda, and girlfriend Lynn Margulies. Sadly, though, by the time we finally got around to trying to purchase tickets, all the $50 SRO tickets were gone. Next available ticket: $99.95. To rich for my blood, I'm sorry to say.

I do believe though, it's virtually assured now that Andy is indeed alive and well and will be making his glorious re-appearance from the dead this Sunday --- since we won't be able to be there to witness it.

"The POWs I expect to be treated humanely, just like we're treating the prisoners that we have captured humanely. If not, the people who mistreat the prisoners will be treated as war criminals."
- George W. Bush, as the US was invading Iraq, March 23, 2003

"That's a violation of the Geneva Convention, those pictures you show, if, in fact, those are our soldiers."
- Donald Rumsfeld, on Face the Nation, March 23, 2003

Source: Reuters, "Bush warns Iraq over Prisoners"

The gospel according to Reuters...

After endlessly criticizing Democrats for "politicizing this war" and more specifically the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Sean Hannity --- as I railed on Tuesday --- has been pointing folks to his website where he's proudly featured links to the Nick Berg beheading.

As if that's not both hypocritical and horrendous enough, he's been playing the audio from the beheading on his radio show - over the public airwaves! (FCC are you listening?) - for the last two days.

Does this guy have any self-respect left? Or entirely too much of it?

"Let Freedom Ring" indeed...

Following up my "With Friends Like These..." article from Tuesday (which is, incidentally, now being run at DemocraticUnderground.com - the third such article of mine they've run in as many weeks, I'm proud to say) wherein I described how even the NeoCons at The Weekly Standard are falling away from Bush, a lot more evidence is emerging that Conservative support for Bush is rapidly evaporating.

The Washington Post on Monday ran a piece about exactly that, citing - among others - two Hard Right Commentators who have been very critical lately of Bush:

But it's not just the War where Bush is losing what should be his core support:

While all the polls continue to trend away from Bush support, showing his Job Approval Ratings at an all-time low, falling now well below the crucial %50 mark, I'll take a counter-position from Conventional Wisdom to say that dumping Rumsfeld (and a few other folks) would put Bush in better stead with the public than he will otherwise be, running up the down escalator for the next 6 months.

Conventional Wisdom also had it that Presidential Apologies would be bad for Public Opinion and Good for the Opposition, but that was proven wrong with Clinton, and seems to have been proven wrong with Bush as well, as his Almost-Apologies last week didn't seem to directly add to his woes, and may in fact have briefly shored him up.

Add to it all, Mark Mellman's piece at The Hill, bolstering John Zogby's article by pointing out that, contrary to the lazy through-line being echoed throughout the supposedly "Liberal Media", Kerry's current position is "better than any challenger in modern times has ever been doing at this point in this race" and you know that Team Bush must be pulling out whatever's left of Karl Rove's hair just about now.

Either that, or they're still in the same Bubble of Denial that kept Bush's Daddy from reading the writing on the wall before it was far to late to change the fates.

So Democrats (and people who care about America) should take heart...Even with Kerry leading the ticket, all signs seem to be heading your way.

(Thanks to KJO for the pointer to the WaPo article!)

I see both pros and cons in releasing all of the Iraqi Prisoner Abuse photos to the public. Yet for a week, I've been having trouble coming up with an opinion on this matter one way or another. Do you have one? Would really appreciate hearing any of your thoughts, if you have them, on this matter...

Either Bush/Rumsfeld is lying or Colin Powell is. I'll let you decide.