On the Cover of the Rolling Stone

And it's a gut check of what you believe - Anti-Flag

I don't have time this morning to post, but here's something to chew on.

Tomorrow, Rolling Stone tries to get its groove back by publishing a 10-page "damning and detailed feature article" by Robert F Kennedy Jr on the theft of the 2004 election. Bradblog, the electronic bulldog of voter fraud, is all over it. Kennedy will be promoting his story hard this month in a number of appearances, including a spot on The Colbert Report June 12.

I'm trying not to write something dithering, like time will tell whether America's peripatetic culture finally takes to this story. But it's tough. If it ever will, this is the window for it. With Bush's depressed numbers, editors who are neither backwash nor Mockingbirds may seize the moment, if for no more honourable reason than the consumers of their product are now more than ever likely to believe the worst of their government, and perhaps better of themselves. (We, the People, did not choose this man.)

The window won't remain open for long. Showdown: Iran looms, hastened by the hollow gesture of an offer of talks if Iran first abandons - well, just about everything. But it had to be done, so Washington can later shrug and say military action was, once more, the last choice. And when the next front opens in ernest, perhaps as soon as this month, don't be caught unaware in the stampede to "support the president in time of war."

Still, while the window's open a crack, it's encouraging to see pollster Lou Harris say that Ohio was "as dirty an election as America has ever seen." But what may come after that, I don't find so heartening. Do enough Americans really lack for knowledge of their government's crimes? Are there not already millions who, to the Bush laundry list of bloody obscenity, would wearily nod their heads, I know?

Maybe it's not awareness that needs raising, so much as American fists.