MORE BAD MEMOS, BAD REMINDERS AND THE SMELLY HAND OF ROVE

This week saw the news completely, utterly dominated by the protests over immigration reform bills, and the uprisings occasioned thereby. Throngs of "illegals" comandeering public streets, pouring out of schools, wreaking havoc . . . except that there weren't many reports of violence, or assaults or even a whole bunch of vandalism or anything. LOST's roving reporter, disguised as a normal, everyday high school underclassman, reported that a number of the "protesters" from his own campus simply blew out of school to get a day off - shades of Ferris Bueller, no doubt. But laying among the weeds of this foment, stirred by the media, the radio talking heads of both spectrums, the newspapers, LOST saw the grinning, sweaty porcine visage of Karl "Napoleon" Rove, happy as a clam that he'd found and whipped up another frenzy large enough to lower the searing heat under the bum of the First Bum, for at least another week. For there they were, ordinary "Americans" united as they had not been since 9/12/01, or so it would seem - spewing anger, frustration and indignation over the "illegals mess" or "this problem that is out of hand" or whatever. Jeez, nobody even seemed to know what happened on "American Idol" this past week.

And it all played masterfully out for the crumbling cronies of the White House. For virtually ignored during the week was the continued spalling of the DeLay empire - another high ranking hack in Mister Sir's
sinister cabal was broken off and fed to the justice system, and another avenue of escape blocked for D.C.'s most famous exterminator. Also ignored - or at least given very kid glove treatment was the passing of Caspar Weinberger - former Reagan Defense Secretary and major player in the cesspool of international skullduggery once known as "Iran-Contra" who was pardoned by Bush 41 a few weeks before the close of his one term in office, and mere days before "Cap's" criminal trial was about to begin. That trial, with its evidence that included hundreds of pages of documents detailing the scheme , threatened to shine a light into that particular roaches nest, and once and for all destroy the muddled fiction that Bush 41 was "out of the loop" on the illegal action, or that Saint Ronald of Reagan had no clue what was going on, either. Imagine what that trial would have done to the street cred of the junta which would become the PNAC (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bolton), or any member of 41's family aspiring to higher office (Jebby or Dubya). But of course, close scrutiny of this as part of the story was preempted, so we could bring you extensive coverage of "Rampage in Brown in Your Town."

Also largely ignored this week - beyond the continued decline in poll numbers, was the Sopranos-like behavior of the Holiest-than-thou of the Holier-than-thous on the Supreme Court, one Antonin Scalia, who flipped the "Italian bird" at a reporter on the steps of the church were "Neno" had moments before partaken of the Blessed Sacrament, while uttering an Italian vulgarity which translated into an invitation to sodomize oneself. True to form, when the story got a few legs, the Boston Archdiocese responded with suitable outrage and swift (boat) response - and fired the photographer who released the picture.

Finally, even more memos hit the street this week, pounding more nails into the coffin containing the moldering corpse of "Ah didn't want to go to war, no Prezdent wants war" canard that has been seared into Dubya's talking points coloring book on the recent "Pimp my War" tour. Perhaps this is because even the hoariest of corporate media outlets (not including Fox News Channel of course) have come to realize that Paul O'Neil and Richard Clarke weren't lying three years ago, and consider this as piling on; but LOST still sees the sloppy, hairy hand of Rove all over this diversionary media hi-jacking. The immigration issue is a problem, yes, but it did not appear last Sunday, or last week, and it will not be solved in that short of time either. Its boosting to the top of the agenda at a time when the cavalcade of newsworthy events has been Administration- damning seems more than a little fortuitously-scripted. Then again, perhaps it was all to cover up the Prezdent's Spring Break trip to Cancun -- oops! Darn those paparazzi!