But, Mom, it’s all Saddam’s fault!

Has El Commandante….'Chokes on Pretzel'…President Bush ever taken responsibility for anything?

His speech yesterday sounded familiar to many parents out there. (Thankfully, I only had to read it. That was painful enough.)

I used to hear the same sort of excuses about ten years ago, when my kids were little. (Names changed to protect the guilty.)

"Who broke the lamp in the living room?" I ask.

"What lamp?" said the nine-year old Son.

"I didn't know the lamp was broken," said the six-year-old son.

"I think the dog broke it," said the three-year-old Only Daughter, "but it could have been [Son #2]."

"Nuh-uh! It was already broken when I got there!"

Always, always, you'll hear, "Not me, I don't know nothin'' followed soon after by "blame someone else". From there, you usually start to reach the truth, because they know that you know that they're desperate.

In this case, the truth was the children decided to play kickball in the living room, and Son #1 hit a homerun off the lamp. (But it was Son #2's fault too, according to Son #1, because if he'd just caught the ball, it wouldn't have hit the lamp.) And the children, knowing their beloved mother, knew it didn't matter who actually broke the lamp, because they'd all get in trouble for playing kickball – again – in the living room.

It's not lying, so much as it's a game, testing a child's evasive manuevers and a parent's skill at interrogation. It's also early training for the teen years: "How did that dent get there?! It's a brand-new car, and no, the dent was not there when I bought it!"

Normally, though, kids grow out of it. They get in trouble for telling fibs, they're called to account for their actions in school. They learn to accept responsiblity for bad decisions, and they learn that they're expected to make corrections or amends, as the case may be.

President Bush is – no surprise – about 45 years behind the curve.

Feel safe, Senators?

Okay, just when you think the incompetence of government and bureaucratic bungling just couldn't get much worse than it has… 

If my area doesn't have a plan to deal with a terror attack, (we do, by the way) it isn't so much of a big deal. The tallest building is a 10-story teaching hospital. Terrorists who find this place are using an extremely out-of-date map. It's that small.

But when an place that hosts the bulls-eye of the terrorist dartboard still doesn't have a comprehensive response plan, and is "still not ready for a terror attack," even after experiencing 9-11, that's frightening. 

Eric Weiss, Washington Post:

Nearly five years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Washington region still lacks a strategic plan to guide preparations for any future attacks or to effectively spend hundreds of millions of homeland security dollars, federal and local officials told a U.S. Senate panel yesterday.

The lack of a comprehensive regionwide communication system was repeatedly cited by senators as a case of poor planning and coordination. For example, Prince George's County does not have radios that are fully compatible with neighboring jurisdictions.

An oversight panel for the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs took emergency response officials from the District, Maryland, Virginia and the federal government to task for bureaucratic foot-dragging and a lack of agreement on a long-term plan for protecting millions of residents in the region.

[snip] 

"What do we have today? What's in place today?'' asked Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.).

Local homeland security officials did not give a definitive answer. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, they said, strategies have been developed that make the region better prepared to deal with attacks, but they realize that more needs to be done.

[snip] 

Senators questioned why the Capital Region Homeland Security Strategic Plan has not been completed. The plan was promised last September but will not be available until August at the earliest, officials said. The plan would establish goals and priorities for enhancing disaster response and for efficiently spending federal preparedness dollars.

[snip] 

Edward D. Reiskin, the District's deputy mayor for public safety and justice, assured the panel that local jurisdictions are prepared to respond to individual emergencies.

"If a big, bad thing happens, we have a response plan,'' he said after the hearing. "That's not at all what is the issue here. It's about strategic planning and about what is the vision.''

[snip] 

But a detailed strategic plan is still vital, experts said. The problems encountered during the Katrina disaster highlighted the need for detailed evacuation plans, especially when many jurisdictions and agencies are involved.

In testimony yesterday, William O. Jenkins Jr., director of homeland security issues for the Government Accountability Office, was asked whether local officials can really know whether they are adequately prepared without such a plan.

"In a word, no,'' he said. [emphasis mine]

Jill Carroll Released

Update: (8:50a EDT) From CNN:

American hostage Jill Carroll, a freelance journalist released Thursday in Iraq after nearly three months in captivity, said she was "treated very well" while she was held.

"They never said they would hit me. They never threatened me in any way," she said in a TV interview after her release.

[snip]

Wearing glasses and a hijab scarf, she said, "They allowed me once to see TV. They also allowed me once to read the paper but it wasn't enough to know what's going on in the outside world."

Throughout her ordeal, she said, "I was allowed to move in a small space."

* * * * 

American Jill Carroll, a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor was released this morning after nearly three months in captivity.

From MSNBC.com:

Police Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammedawi said Carroll, 28, was handed over to the Iraqi Islamic Party office in Amiriya, western Baghdad, by an unknown group. She was later turned over to the Americans and was believed to be in the heavily fortified Green Zone, he said.

“She was released this morning, she’s talked to her father and she’s fine,” said David Cook, Washington bureau chief of The Christian Science Monitor.

[snip]

Carroll, a freelance reporter for the Monitor, was kidnapped on Jan. 7, in Baghdad’s western Adil neighborhood while going to interview Sunni Arab politician Adnan al-Dulaimi. Her translator was killed in the attack about 300 yards from al-Dulaimi’s office.

Her captors, calling themselves the Revenge Brigades, had demanded the release of all women detainees in Iraq by Feb. 26 and said Carroll would be killed if that didn’t happen. The date came and went with no word about her welfare.

The United States Embassy in Baghdad said it could not confirm Carroll’s release.