Business as Usual in the Barbecue Republic

It didn't take long after Karl Rove's "blame game" mantra hit the echo chamber for Mister Bush to announce that he intends to "...lead an investigation to find out what went right and what went wrong."

That should give comfort to everyone actually responsible for the Katrina debacle. We've already seen how the administration investigates itself in the Abu Ghraib and GITMO probes--it sends the wolves to find out who ate the sheep.

Congress plans to conduct its own investigations, but we've seen how those have gone too.

Hillary Clinton suggests an independent investigation similar to the 9-11 committee, which is the best evidence to date that she's secretly changed parties.

The Pentagon may conduct an investigation of Northern Command, but that will go through Joint Chiefs chairman Richard Myers, and he's already made his assessment: "Not only was there no delay, I think we anticipated, in most cases--not in all cases-- but in most cases, the support that was required, we were pushing support before we were formally asked for it."

My sense is that Myers is telling the truth, at least from the perspective of the actions of Admiral Tim Keating's Northern Command. But no Pentagon investigation would be likely to point fingers at high-ranking civilian leaders for mismanaging military assets.

Any investigation by the Office of the Secretary of Defense would have to go through Donald Rumsfeld. (Insert your own comment here.)

The Justice Department doesn't have time to investigate Katrina-gate. Roberto Sanchez and his gang have enough on their hands trying to contain Dennis Fitzgerald's investigation of Traitor-gate.

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Stand by for the crowning achievement of Karl Rove's political career: Operation Overload, a coordinated, two pronged counter offensive.

Congress and the cabinet are already so burdened by probes of the administration's frauds and felonies that another set of investigations will bring the entire machinery of government to an Iraq-class bog down. Like we've seen before, the administration will drag its feet providing information to outside investigative bodies, and internal investigations will drag on inconclusively for as long as they need to.

On the medial front, the Rovewellians will once again turn to their allies in the Big Brother Broadcasting Conglomerate to deflect the outrage of the populace toward the investigators and whistle blowers. Rush, Sean, Bill, and Ann will be the first to scream about "hand-wringing obstructionists" who are keeping Katrina victims from getting the relief they need.

Conservative columnists like Thomas Sowell, George Will, and Cal Thomas will parrot the party talking points, and a good portion of the public will buy them as objective, independent opinion.

The cable news networks will trot out the standard string of neocons disguised as "news analysts" and let them spin the story in the White House's favor, much in the way MSNBC allowed Dan Goure do during last Friday's presidential photo opportunity.

The Judith Miller clones who are still undercover and not in jail yet will gather innuendo and rumor from their inside sources and present it as "fact" in once respected news outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post.

The public, already saturated by bad news, will lose interest.

Sadly for our country, Operation Overload will probably work, and responsibility for the Katrina fiasco will fall on a "handful of bad apples" at the state and local levels.