WHAT THEY HAVE IN COMMON

Lies, evasions, memory lapses, and prevarications are characteristics shared by the top U.S. Army brass and our Dear Leader's choices for the government's highest civilian posts. The evidence is overwhelming, and it's no coincidence -- not when it comes to the war in Iraq, torture, the regime's foreign policy, and the nation's highest court.

From the lead editorial in this morning's Washington Post:

In statements to investigators and in sworn testimony to Congress last year, Gen. Miller [left, former commander of the Guantanamo Bay prison, who was later dispatched by the Pentagon to Abu Ghraib] denied that he recommended the use of dogs for interrogation, or that they had been used at Guantanamo. ... The [latest] court evidence strongly suggests that Gen. Miller lied about his actions, and it merits further investigation by prosecutors and Congress.

The State Department admitted yesterday that U.N. nominee John Bolton "failed to tell the Senate during his confirmation hearings that he had been interviewed by the State Department's inspector general looking into how American intelligence agencies came to rely on fabricated reports that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Africa." He didn't prevaricate, or anything like that. Bolton just "did not recall being interviewed," a department spokesman said.

Similarly, when it became evident that Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, left, was listed on the steering committee of the Federalist Society in Washington, regime officials "continued to insist that Roberts has no recollection of ever being a full-fledged member of the conservative legal group."

Was he lying? Stonewalling? Or just doing what comes naturally to a right-wing generation of triumphalist American leaders willing to put personal and political ambition -- so-called patriotism -- before honesty?