WHERE TO START?

So much going on this week. The tragedy at Virginia Tech was heart renching, the media aftermath was an embarrassment of similar magnitude. ALL of the networks recreated the Oklahoma land rush in Blacksburg, each wanting to be the first to stick the most microphones and vid cams into as many grief stricken faces as possible. Then the revelation that General Electric Broadcasting got a pack of pictures and video from the shooter himself, and the blather acquired a new dimension. GE showing the pics and video, sandwiched between loud, barely-stifled chortles of "He chose US, HE LIKES US!", while the others, led by The Mouse Net, self righteously carped on about shame-on-GE-for- showing-this-awful-footage-and-exploiting-a-madman-and-hurting-the-victims - - wait-here's-a-victim-now-let's-ask-her-how-much-worse-do-you-feel-since-GE-showed-those-awful-images?

Does anyone wanna bet that the next time a savagely sick event like this happens - and it will again, Thank you National RIFLE Association for keeping the fetters off the patriotic right to buy one semi-automatic pistol a month - that the shooter chooses a different network to devise his last shrill and testament to, and they'll excitedly run with it, too?

Speaking of excitement, how can we not talk about Alberto Gonzales' testimony this past Thursday? Okay, maybe "excitement" is the wrong word - in fact this may be an "it" issue. But the AG supposedly secludes himself for over 2 weeks "Preparing" for this testimony before the Senate, and this is as good as it gets? 77 "I don't recalls" and a failure to grab for the few meager leading-question bones his one time apologists and supporters tossed him. LOST counted at least six instances where Senator Lindsay "JAG-in-Drag" Graham from South Carolina tried "question" Gonzales in ways that would have required no more than a "Yes Senator" - which would have at least created some rehabilitative instances in the transcript, but Gonzales was either too stupid or way too wary by then to take them for the olive branches they were. LOST doesn't think the AG is dumb - outside of his choice in political leaders, at least, so the latter explanation seems more plausible. After all, there was a bi-partisan chorus of grey haired white guys all singning the same barbecue ditty, and Dianne Feinstein was holding a big bowl of basting sauce with a tennis racket sized brush.

Through it all this week, the Prez still found time for more town hall meetings - a term in this White House which means a carefully planned, scripted media event in front of a hand picked audience of sycophants who are warmed up by piped in audio from the Rush O'Hanitwit Radio show and who are fed a pre-meeting meal of Savage Wieners and sauerkraut. This all begs several questions, such as 1. Are there still enough people in the country unabashedly willing to stand or sit or otherwise be propped up behind this President?; 2. If so, can they be herded on buses from one "meeting site" to another (it saves time in the "pre-screening" process); 3. If the audiences are screened, aren't the questions screened as well? 4. and if the questions are screened (hell EVERY interview of any public figure anymore has the questions pre-screened, so who is LOST kidding with that "If") wouldn'tcha think the President could do a better job with answering questions that he knows are coming, like ratlling off the ways that Iraq and Viet Nam are different? Watching him stumble-bum that question - above all others, almost evoked sympathy. You know, the way the the orphan status of the Menendez boys almost evoked pre-trial sympathy for them, too.