Thank you sir, may I have another?

Right now, in Egypt, in Pakistan, in Thailand, there's a guy who's done nothing wrong other than be in the wrong place at the wrong time who's hanging on a wall, his wrists bleeding from the metal bracelets, his fingernails torn out from trying to, for fuck's sake, hold himself up to give his torn arm muscles some rest. He's been stripped naked, cold water has been thrown on him, electric prods have been shoved in his nuts. He's been threatened with being fucked in the ass by German shepherds and he's had bottles and broomsticks and metal rods shoved into his asshole. The beatings? Fuck, the beatings are like soft cushions compared to everything else. But he's still getting the shit beaten out of him every day. And he's there, in Egypt, in Pakistan, in Thailand, where eventually he's gonna fuckin' confess to anything, to every goddamn sin they want him to confess to, because the United States sent him there so that he could be stripped, shocked, and sodomized in a hole in the middle of some shithole building, some prison or "interrogation room" where no one will ever give a fuck about such nasty bullshit like "habeas corpus" and fuckin' "rights."

The reason Gannon/Guckert matters is because this administration has mainstreamed evil, has made it a dull hum in the background. Oh, sure, sure, we were appalled, so goddamn outraged when Abu Ghraib happened, but now, even as story after story comes out that we, the American public, elected a government that thinks it's simply part of the post-9/11 game to abuse and torture suspects, we care less and less. And like a rickety old house with termites gnawing at its foundation, we are being undermined and won't know it until the whole thing comes crashing down around us. We are draining away law and ethics through the "extraordinary renditions" of "terror suspects," as well as our own torturing. Like city dwellers who can sleep through sirens, car alarms, and street construction, we just tune it all out. But it'll crash, finally. Then we'll think, oh, shit, should've killed those termites.

You may ask how these things are connected, Guckert and Guantanamo (and elsewhere), other than through the act of sodomy. All of one's lies are entangled, ultimately. Al Capone couldn't be caught on a murder rap. Instead, the government nailed him and destroyed him because of tax evasion. If what finally brings down the Bush administration is the revelation of a secret cabal of homosexuals trying desperately to stay in the closet, then so be it.