Remember Ice Man? That's him. Murdered at Abu Ghraib. Once again, The New Yorker scoops the other so-called newsgathering organization in New York. I guess Lizzie was too busy getting professional tips from Judy to pick up the phone and do some reporting.

I was going to title this post something like Republican Scum Defile My Country with Torture, and Now Murder, until I realized a headline like that might seem, erm, angry.

And God knows I wouldn't want to seem angry.

Probably the word scum is a little over the top.

And I won't even think about making that joke about "Republican Scum" being redundant, since, let's be charitable now, not all Republicans are scum. Maybe not even most of them.

Even if none of them have done squat.

I can call the Beltway Dems feckless, but heck, they don't have the power. The Republicans do. The Republicans have a lock on three branches of government, and they can't control the torturers in the White House? Either they're torturers themselves, or they're worse pussies than the Beltway Dems.

Oh, and here's the real killer detail: Remember Paul McNulty? He's the guy Bush nominated to replace Timothy E. Flanigan at [cough] Justice, who pulled out when his Abramoff connections made him too dirty even for Bush. Well, McNulty's the guy who put the investigation of Ice Man's murder on ice.

That's life under the outlaw Bush regime. Do evil, get promoted. POTL. If there are any Republicans that aren't scum, they can stop posturing on Senate votes that they'll take out in conference anyhow, and start by denying McNulty confirmation until he comes clean. Matters won't end there, but that would be a good start.

UPDATE And now my country is using phosphorus on Iraqi civilians. As my father would say, "I don't know whether to puke or go blind."