Whew! I�m glad that�s been cleared up.

I�m talking about the �consensus view of the 16 disparate [American] spy services� as provided in the recently-disclosed National Intelligence Estimate [NIE], a classified U.S. government assessment compiled in April �that concluded the [Iraq] war has helped create a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks� (per Associated Press writer Nedra Pickler, 09/24/06).

The Democrats are right on it, too, boy. Though they�ve faithfully commented publicly on all the thousand or so previous government reports concerning 9/11 and Iraq and torture and reconstruction fraud and the national surplus of reports that, basically, have all shared the same conclusion -- the Bushies are all a bunch of corrupt, bald-faced liars who�ve made America a despised pariah state -- and then backed up their righteous displeasure with strong, patriotic action like, well, um, nothing really quite yet. Still, make no mistake: you can tell this time for sure they mean real business because at several press conferences already, the Dems have somberly held copies of the NIE conclusion much higher over their heads than they would�ve in times past, noticeably shaken it more often with greater umbrage and audibly uttered an unmistakably higher number of �tsk-tsks.�

Can truly courageous �Nyeah, nyeah, nyeah-nyeah, nyeahs� be far behind?

I�ve a confession to make, and it�s not coerced, either (although that�s inconsequential anymore given the Bushies� official line toward torture-induced admittances: �Coerced, schmoerced, a confession�s a confession�): I�ve not read any of those reports. Not a single one. The titles are enough for me.

Some may call this laziness. I call it time management and common sense about common criminals. Besides, didn�t your mother ever ask you if you read a report entitled �Why You Should Jump Off a Bridge,� would you do it?

In other words, I don�t need to read no steenking report to smell the steenk; it�s been malevolently malodorous around this place for years.

But, believe it or not -- and I�m not saying I possess some sort of prophetic powers here, you unnerstand; I�m just sayin� -- I�d actually kind of guessed that the attack-Iraq, get-more-violence thing just might turn out to be the case. A while back, too, it was, around late 2002 and early 2003, at a time when I and several million of my closest friends around the globe took to the streets repeatedly to loudly proclaim, among other things, that an illegal, immoral and unprovoked attack on a pipsqueak nation like Iraq that had nothing to do with 9/11 -- after all, you�d need to look inside for the perpetrators of that heinous crime and I ain�t talkin� about navel gazing -- would, indeed, foment at least slight resentment against the United States and possibly prompt otherwise peace-loving individuals to want to exact revenge on those who killed their families, destroyed their homes, occupied their country and looted their resources for no good reason.

Now, admittedly, that�s not to say there weren�t a couple of very bad reasons for launching America�s horrific war of aggression, those being, of course, the relentless, conscienceless, remorseless and murderous pursuits of power and wealth by nasty neocon nutcases like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, etc. Let us not forget Poppy Bush, either, and his pinheaded progeny perfectly positioned per a pair of purloined presidencies to perpetually prosecute the poisonous proceedings.

Here�s the title of a report I�d really like to see: �The Just Plain Intelligent Report on the Storming of the White House and the Capitol; the Arrest, Conviction and Imprisonment of the Bush Administration and Ninety-Nine Percent of Congress on Charges of Treason, War Crimes, Dereliction of Duty and General Nincompoopery; and the Upcoming Convening of the Constitution Reconstitution Convention.�

The title�s a bit unwieldy, true, but even so, that would be one report I�d actually take the time to read.

Slowly and smilingly.