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Photo: kevindooley

A 2007 memorial to U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq at Santa Monica Beach, CA, including a cross (or star or moon) for each war casualty as of that time.

A startling new book released today and reviewed on Politico offers perhaps the most disturbing account yet of the gross malfeasance that a growing parade of critics and ex-insiders alike say seems to permeate the current executive branch of our government.

“The Way of the World,” written by author and Pulitzer Prize-winning former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind, goes far beyond various past accounts that have claimed the White House in the run-up to Operation Iraqi Freedom intentionally ignored any intelligence or evidence that interfered with its own predetermined war mindset. If only they had stopped there. According to Suskind, the White House actually ordered the CIA to backdate a forged letter from Saddam Hussein’s intelligence chief asserting a direct link between Hussein and al Qaeda.

Frustrated by the flimsy lack of evidence to support either of the original two premises for invading Iraq (WMDs and active terrorism links) — yet determined to snooker Congress and the American people into believing that both existed — the White House apparently opted to create what it could not find, assuming Suskind’s narrative is legitimate. Whether true or not, this scenario certainly fits the administration’s well-established pattern of showing little regard for truth or the rule of law…let alone winning its battles fairly and squarely.

As one might expect, the administration called the allegation “absurd”, as if it still has any remaining credibility at all, and then promptly engaged in the one thing it does best — planting doubts about the character or patriotism of the person who dared to question its own integrity and moral aptitude. “Gutter journalism”, White House spokesman Tony Fratto called it — as if that is somehow more nefarious than the gutter politics of which this administration has made an art.

Remember “shock and awe”? Well,we’ve all been shocked — and awed — by the human, economic and diplomatic costs of this five-year misadventure. But most astonishing of all — as numerous others have said in recent years — is that allegations such as Suskind’s are not even shocking anymore. This nation has become almost numb to the steady stream of lies, incompetency and corruption continually dished out by this White House. It’s the new norm. And that is just wrong.