I was fortunate enough to have been in a mostly-news-free western PA location for much of this week's terror-warning shitstorm; however I was not fortunate enough to miss the Woodruff-skull chattering out its death-gabber on Monday afternoon.

(Incidentally, did you know that when Lieberman made his comments about "fairness," being in one's "right mind," and the impossibility of the president or the secretary of Homeland Security raising an alert level to " scare people for political reasons," he had actually just returned from Georgia, where Zell Miller (D-Ga.) had personally baptized Lieberman in the name of Jesus Christ, Savior of the Jews?)

Yes, it was painful to watch Pataki, Head Bus Boy to the Corpsophagics-in-Chief (Giuliani being the Maitre d') being interviewed by Woodruff, who was sensually basking in the poisonous air being blown out of his asshole-mouth. But the most disturbing thing about the interview was that Pataki was given free reign to slander Howard Dean and John Kerry and to campaign for Bush, without any response from the other side. Of course, every time a "partisan" Democrat is interviewed, "equal time" is always given to a "partisan" Republican (e.g. campaign spokespersons going back and forth trading barbs while Woodruff masturbates). But of course Pataki wasn't speaking as a campaign spokesperson--he was speaking as "the Governor of New York."

Except that he wasn't. He was speaking only as a Bush campaign spokesperson. In fact, as far as he's concerned, that is his only role from now until the election. And the same goes for Michael Bloomberg and Rudolph Giuliani and John McCain, not to mention Tom Ridge. This isn't surprising--and it's not news--but it is truly frightening to realize that the people in charge of actual homeland security--protecting us from being killed by terrorists--at the levels of city, state, and national government--now have no other function than being spokespeople for the Bush campaign. Whether or not they are actually engaged in any activity meant to protect us from being killed (and that is doubtful), every word that comes out of their mouths from here on out is pure propaganda. (If it happens to coincide with truth, so be it.) And these people can go on any television program they want, and be given as much airtime as they want, and all without a "balancing" viewpoint--because by definition whatever they say is a priori "balanced."

Can this really be--that the mayor of New York City and the governor of New York, the chief officials responsible for the personal protection of New Yorkers (especially as we move closer to the RNC), will be continually appearing on TV, for no other reason than to deliver Bush campaign ads out of their face holes?

Are we really this fucked? Should we have seen this coming? Not only all the corpse-eating and profane ash-worshipping to be done on the hollowed grounds of our city, but for the city to be methodically built up as the site of the next huge potential attack--the terrorists all keening to have a go at the Convention of Freedom Itself--and as the very real issue of protecting New York looms larger and larger, we'll have New York's own elected officials appearing before the nation, in their (now) sole capacity as Team Bush shit-lickers?