Requiem for America

The tragic opera “Requiem for America” being written by the Bush administration and the Republican Party reached a new crescendo yesterday.

The latest issue of Rolling Stone hit the streets with a detailed, well-documented analysis by Robert Kennedy Jr. of how the 2004 election was stolen by Republican operatives. Even though much of what Kennedy wrote has been drifting around the blogosphere since shortly after the election, one would think this article might push the story out from the realm of conspiracy theory into the mainstream consciousness. However, a perusal of this morning’s headlines finds no mention of the piece or its shocking conclusions. The American media fails once again to follow up on what is possibly the most significant story in the past fifty years: the theft of a presidential election.

In the second movement, we find the administration brazenly playing politics with Homeland Security funds. The funds have been “redistributed” based on some mystical formula that reduces money for cities like New York and Washington, D.C. and increases funding for Kansas City and St. Louis. New York City and Washington, D.C. are now classified as “low risk” cities. Baghdad Bob must be working in the Homeland Security communications department, for who else would have the audacity to make the unbelievable claim that “New York City does not have sufficient national landmarks and targets to justify full funding”? The upshot? Funds for Red States (with a Rovian eye on the upcoming elections) increased, while Blue State cities got hosed.

The cacophony continues under the direction of Maestro Bush, the tin ear, tin horn presidential impersonator. Will the music critics who have been silent finally give this travesty the lashing it deserves?

Now that would be music to our ears.