SHIELD SHENANIGANS

There’s no better service I could provide my many, many, many readers than to point them to Waterbones today, where they’ll find a typically well-written piece about our bullying, blustering pursuit of a missile shield. It has that level of sputtering outraged disbelief I try to achieve so frequently on this page.

Well, I don’t try very hard to achieve it. It just comes to me.

Years ago I stumbled across an article, citing Congressional testimony from a high-ranking and knowledgeable member of the military, showing that our missile shield tests were rigged -- that the targets held beacons that drew missiles toward them. I lost the article and could not find it again, no matter how hard I looked, as reports flew about new, supposedly successful tests supposedly adding to previous supposedly successful tests. It was very frustrating.

Waterbones has found a Salon article, though, that shows that the shenanigans continue. While the White House boasts that the shield will be in place this year, even the most recent missile tests are -- there’s no getting around it -- faked.

It’s a delicious encapsulation of the Bush administration in general, in terms of misplaced priorities and disturbingly unflinching deception. But it’s difficult to savor the perfection when there’s so much at stake.