Meanwhile, back at the ranch:
Meanwhile, back at the ranch: FBI agent Kenneth Williams marked his now-infamous "Phoenix memo" as "Routine," which insured that it would be at least 60 days before any decisions were made about it. Folks living in Washington D.C. feel more threatened by terror than the residents of other cities, while folks in New York are displaying that plucky New York Sensibility. Cheney says the "noise in the system" has increased, leading to this week’s threat warnings, and Rummy says that captured al-Qaeda operatives are feeding false information into that system to see how we'll react. Overseas, Bush says he's got no war plans for Iraq on his desk, which might mean they’re on that bookshelf over there, near the coffee table.
After indulging in the Big Big Panic for a few days, I find myself tired and sick to my stomach. The need for action, left unmet, eventually results in resignation and the realization that by and large the world is unmoved by one’s own wants and needs. Generally, that's a lesson learned somewhere around age two or three, but it's easily forgotten, and the older one gets the more psychologically disturbing the consequences of such forgetfulness become.
So I hunker down, and wait.
