Molly Ivins: Sins of omission

Sins of omission, sins of omission, so often so much more grave than our sins of commission. And we rarely pay for them in a timely fashion -- it is usually further on down the road that the gravity of whatever it was we should have done and failed to do becomes apparent. But the Bush administration seems to be an exception to this rule. The consequences of what the Bushies resolutely ignore, shove under the rug or divert our attention from seems to come back to bite them with atypical speed.

I suspect the Bushies' gravest sin of omission does in fact follow the usual rule -- it's a pretty good bet both future historians and future citizens will curse this administration for ignoring the growing avalanche of evidence about global warming. But operating on the splendid principle that sufficient-unto-the-day-is-the-evil-thereof, Bush & Co. have decided to put off even thinking about or studying that rather menacing problem in favor of more important stuff, like Star Wars.

On the it-won't-go-away-if-you-ignore-it front, we find Osama bin Laden, the nation's health care system, the Israeli-Palestinian problem, regulation of the financial industry, the environment, Afghanistan, dependence on foreign oil, dependence on fossil fuels and a whole host more. In fairness, once you start in on any list of sins of omission, it can rapidly become endless -- try listing the important stuff to which the news media devote too little attention, and you'll find it's more than you ever asked Santa for.

Trying to determine historical causation is notoriously tricky. Right now, the administration is stuck in a no-win fight with the commission investigating Sept. 11. The commission wants access to the president's daily intelligence briefings pre-9-11 for the obvious purpose of figuring what did he know and when did he know it. The Bushies resisted for months and then opened their marble hearts and generously offered a few commission members access to the briefings -- after they have been edited however the administration sees fit. I'm not that interested in the issue, but this is the kind of behavior that used to send the Clinton-haters screaming and howling into the topmost branches. Ignoring Bin Laden in favor of Saddam Hussein may yet turn out to be an even worse mistake than it now appears -- and the evidence accumulates that the decision to go after Saddam pre-dated Sept. 11.

more...

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=16005

The Bushies arew guilty of Omitting Reason and Sanity in the Equation

A crime requiring the Oaf Penalty

but I am a little on unclear on the suggested punishment. Just what is the oaf penalty?