Remember that first season of 24, where Lou Diamond Phillips ran a super-secret prison that held uber-terrorist Dennis Hopper? Ah, very funny, guys. Can't happen here. We don't do that sort of thing--though it makes for fun television.

Okay, so maybe it doesn't happen here. But it does happen "somewhere in eastern Europe" (I'd guess Poland, among other places, as the Prez always liked to single out Poland as part of the "new" Europe) under our watch. We listened to stories of Saddam Hussein "disappearing" citizens he didn't like, and we shuddered. What do we do when it turns out we've been doing the same thing?

Yell. Scream. Rend clothing and don sackcloth. Any of those actions would be appropriate. Just don't hurt yourself. The sins of a pious moron are not worth physical distress.

I've heard a lot of dispirited talk from people who were already kinda blue. Hell, we've been pissed for a while. This just adds to the tally. What's more interesting is to hear such dismay from folks who are considerably red in the face.

Take Lindsey Graham, Republican senator from South Carolina. He's fairly hard core in his conservatism. But when he heard that Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist want to hold hearings to find out who leaked the news of these secret prisons rather than examining the fact of their existence, he didn't mince words.

"Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. The real story is those jails," he told the Washington Post.

Amen.

If you want a list of high crimes and misdemeanors for a bill of impeachment, approval of those prisons would be at the top of the list. Approval of the use of torture would be next. I know lots of folks who could add reams of other charges, but I think those two could stick. They are completely and totally legit. Establishing those prisons and encouraging the use of torture are two acts that have already damaged our nation--and unless I am mistaken, the use of torture is forbidden by U. S. law. Just because you do it in Poland (or wherever) doens't mean it's okay.

It's definitely not okay. We are no longer the defenders of democracy. We are the running dogs of hypocrisy. As Jimmy Carter said on the Today Show last week, "It's this administration against every one that preceeded it."

Look at it this way: In five short years, the Prez has managed to completely destroy the image of America in the world. Yes, Vietnam was bad, but those inclined to cut us a break could point to the Soviet Union and say "Those guys are worse." There's no one to point at any more. We can't even say we're better than the terrorists, because we treat the terrorists the same way they treat us: without any regard for life or even human dignity.

I'm not calling the Prez a terrorist. He (and plenty of his pals) believe that things like secret prisons and the use of torture will help keep our country safer. I think it's apparent that they're wrong--after all, the Iraq war was supposed to strike a death knell to international terrorism, right? But no matter the intent, continuing to defend such odious (and, as a practical matter, useless) practices is criminal.

There appears to be no end in sight to the foul revelations that plague our news of late. Every day, something else comes out, another rancid fart from the bloated, malodorous beast that is the Bush White House. At some point, it seems likely that we'll witness some sort of Mr. Creosote event, whereby a final "thin wafer" of evidence just blows the whole thing sky high.

I don't crave such a thing. Despite what the Prez's defenders might think, no one is dancing in the streets celebrating the exposure of the secret prisons. We're crying, tossing back whiskey with our beer and hoping that things will look better when we wake up, even though we know better. After all, the rats haven't even begun to jump off the ship. Imagine what we'll learn when that happens.

Or better yet, don't. There are some things that are simpy too horrible to know.

Jon Worley is seething.