Catching Up

It seems that the world and the blogosphere were very busy while I was gone! I won't even attempt to catch up with everything that's happened here; if you read my blog, you read plenty of others that have done a great job of keeping up.

It appears, though, that one of the more interesting things to happen was the release of the prisoner abuse photos and the ensuing storm and the rather late apology. Or rather two apologies. Bush's was rather tepid and - as is his wont - vague, uninspiring and less than heart-felt. NTodd, at Dohiyi Mir, covers this rather well. Rumsfeld's apology was much more to the point; he apologized directly to the prisoners and, by his words (I didn't hear him), sounded more sincere. NTodd, again.

So what does all this apologizing mean? Since BushCo. has been so reticent in the past about taking personal responsibility for anything they've done or any of the repercussions, Rummy's apology is all the more surprising. While some in Congress are calling for his head on a platter, the Shrub has publicly defended him. And yet, the apology hangs there...

I wonder if poor Rummy is being hung out to dry in service to BushCo. He's old, he looks tired, and it's just possible that the rest of his co-conspirators think that a quick sacrifice to the gods of public opinion on this matter will help the incident pass into the dim recesses of public memory.