Quoth folkert: You are *THIS* close to becoming a Commonwealth of the United States of America. Actually, I think Canada's moment of maximum peril came during the months following the Unpleasantness of Nine Eleven Oh One, when there were voices in the Bush administration talking about how our northern neighbor might have to "subordinate its policies" to US anti-terrorism concerns. The logical next step would have been a compromise between what we used to call "Finlandization"* and the Warsaw Pact, with sundry Canadian policies and procedures (beginning with immigration, but by now, I imagine, extending to, say, drug and abortion matters) being brought in line with US right wing wet dreams. This would have been called something like "bringing Canada inside the US security perimeter." It could happen yet, if this criminal cabal succeeds in perpetuating itself in power by one means or another.

Speaking of criminal cabals, Scott Horton today posts a useful pointer to [link|http://www.mcclatchydc.com/galloway/story/17599.html|this] trenchant piece of analysis of the Coup That Couldn't Speak Straight:

Why is it that the Bush administration, in its dying throes, looks remarkably more like an organized crime ring than one of the arms of the American government? A poorly organized and run crime ring, truly, but a crime ring nonetheless.

Why do I keep remembering the George Bush that I actually once voted for when he first ran for president—the one who talked of bringing in an administration that would look more like the face of America and of giving us a government whose appointees would be honest, upright, fair and moral.

Yes, that's the one. What happened to him? Where did that George Bush go? When did he go over to The Dark Side? What enticements did Vice President Darth Cheney offer him? Was it the vision of unlimited, unchecked power over the world?

How can it be that this man from Texas presides over a White House that shelters and provides cover for men like Karl Rove and I. Lewis \ufffdScooter\ufffd Libby, who clearly believe that the laws of our country are only meant to be imposed on lesser beings, the man in the street?

...

Where is it written in either the federal statutes or the Constitution of the United States that our laws against criminal acts apply to everyone but nice, meek, small-statured Republican political operatives who have a wonderful wife and children? Our prisons are full of nice, meek white-collar criminals who cheated a bit on their taxes or back-dated their bountiful option awards or raped and looted the coffers of corporations and beggared the poor fools who trusted them and bought stock in their criminal enterprises.

The estimable Scooter Libby repeatedly lied under oath to investigators of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a sitting federal grand jury. Last time I looked that is a felony offense punishable by fine and imprisonment.

There are two former agents of the U.S. Border Patrol sitting in a federal prison for shooting a fleeing dope smuggler and then lying in their reports in an attempt to cover their butts with their bosses. Where is their commutation of sentences? Where is their pardon?

In this connection I recently caught a reference to Bush as lately looking less like an American president, even a notably corrupt and brutal specimen of the breed, and more like Al Capone with an Air Force.

cordially,

*There are some, of course, who would aver that the "Finlandization" of Canada took place a long, long time ago—although in fairness I think that in 1968 any Soviet male reaching Helsinki in hopes of finding a haven from conscription would have been whisked back to the Rodina instanter. Particularly since for a time in 1971 following the, ah, unexpected forfeiture of my student deferment, I have thought warmly of my country's kinder, gentler neighbor.