Lousy Timing

A couple months ago somebody sent me a review DVD of Greg Palast's Bush Family Fortunes (the Battlestar Galactica to Fahrenheit 9/11's Star Wars). I never got around to watching it, but figured I'd give it a look before the polls opened—just so there's no danger that I might vote without realizing that President Bush has connections with Big Oil. I understand Palast has some legitimate journalistic credentials (which he highlights by wearing a fedora and casting quizzical sidelong glances at the camera as he describes his various scoops), but he can't really help coming off like a Michael Moore manqué here. (Among other things, he manques a few hundred pounds.) But the big bust for this picture is that I didn't watch it when I first got it: Palast's lead source for information on Bush's unstellar Air National Guard career is Bill Burkett, the incredible imploding lieutenant colonel whose personal Stalingrad came with Rathergate. D'oh!

Anyway, if there's any reason to hope for a Kerry win today, it's the prospect that all the Inspector Javerts of the Bush/Halliburton/seven-minutes/Carlyle-Group unified theory might join all the retired Vincent-Foster/Mena-Airfield/Starbucks-waitress investigators at some bird sanctuary where we'll never have to hear from them again.