In Washington, conflict of interest rules, long considered prickly obstacles to self-dealing, are today but quaint relics, like rose petals dried and pressed between the pages of a dusty family album. These laws have been so routinely violated — both publicly (Halliburton) and privately (Carlyle Group) — that it seemed de rigueur, in 2004, for Diebold CEO Walden O’Dell to declare he was firmly “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president.” It comes as disappointing then, that Walt’s sense of duty doesn’t extend to Bush’s puppet government in Afghanistan. As such, electronic vote rigging has gained no traction and the recent election remains hostage to antiquated paper ballots. Manual tallies will take several weeks; nonetheless, the White House is already claiming victory over Taliban forces that tried to disrupt voting. Wait a minute; didn’t we get rid of them years ago? The silver lining, perhaps, is that things could be worse – like in Germany where the latest vote ended in a tie. A tie? Yeah, well, what can you expect from a bunch of soccer-loving Euros? Over here, we always have winners and losers; in America, baseball games are decided by extra innings, football contests by overtime and Presidents by the Supreme Court.

Yet, despite all this, we still don’t know whom to trust. Remember this famous 2002 repartee? CHENEY: “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has Weapons of Mass Destruction…” BUSH: “That could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.” Gosh, it seems like only yesterday. Yet, the same folks who swore Social Security would run out by Thursday, are now telling us not to worry about bubonic plague carried out of a university research lab by infected rats. The story is all too familiar: While the FBI investigates corruption charges linking the school, political donations and multi-million dollar no-bid contracts, safety measures at the facility, despite billions poured into Homeland Security, remain notoriously lax. Somehow, the rats to go missing. Former university public safety director Anthony Shelton explained, “They had a different contractor install the security system there (at the lab) that was not compatible with our system. Therefore we could not monitor it.”

In the end, slush funds and faulty surveillance will be of little consequence because we are up against the PLAGUE. This is no chicken pox. Or cholera. This disease is so virulent that it makes cancer look like a runny nose. A few coughs, a boil or two and the next thing you know you’re deader that Renee Zellweger’s marriage. Bubonic plague took out one third of Europe’s population (200 million) in the mid-1300s and was known throughout history as the Black Death. That was, of course, until FEMA commandeered the name for its post-Katrina operation in New Orleans. Which begs the question: Given the homicide charges filed against Saint Bernard Parish nursing home operators who refused to evacuate 34 patients who eventually drowned, shouldn’t our “Culture of Life” President, who has orchestrated 765 additional fatalities in New Orleans, 1,909 American casualties Iraq and 152 deaths in Texas’ electric chair, get at least a cattle prod up his ass?

Clearly, the stakes couldn’t be higher, but without the ability to trust our elected leaders, we fall prone to second-guessing ourselves. I originally thought that concerns over John Roberts voiced by Christian fundamentalists were planted by Karl Rove to make Roberts seem less pernicious to the rest of us. I mean, how often does Sean Hannity (who I would bet dollars to doughnuts was raped by his priest) contradict the administration? Sure Roberts did bro bono work on a landmark “gay case,” Romer v. Evens, successfully persuading the court to strike down Colorado’s infamous Amendment 2 that would have outlawed conferring civil rights to homosexuals. But he also worked for Reagan and Bush the Elder, and fought savagely to repeal dozens of laws protecting the environment, voting rights and civil liberties. Is the Right merely faking us out? How then to explain the rumors over his closet status – Yeah, he’s married but the kids are adopted (think: Tom Cruise) – clogging the blogosphere?

Though I harbor no doubts when I hear Jeb Bush, Jr. got liquored up and scuffled with a couple of cops, I am less convinced that uncle W. is, in fact, hitting the sauce again. That the story broke in the National Enquirer doesn’t sway me one way or the other. On one hand, they were first on Jennifer Flowers’ tryst with Clinton and Rush Limbaugh’s back alley drug buys. On the other, they claim that Elvis is living with aliens and that Danny Johnson, the 600 lb., two-headed bubble boy, was raised by wolves. Regarding W., they reported:

“When the levees broke in New Orleans, it apparently made him reach for a shot,” said one insider. “He poured himself a Texas-sized shot of straight whiskey and tossed it back. The First Lady was shocked and shouted: ‘Stop, George!’” A Washington source said: “The sad fact is that he has been sneaking drinks for weeks now. Laura may have only just caught him — but the word is his drinking has been going on for a while in the capital.” Dr. Justin Frank, a Washington D.C. psychiatrist and author of Bush On The Couch: Inside The Mind Of The President, told The National Enquirer: “I do think that Bush is drinking again. Alcoholics who are not in any program, like the President, have a hard time when stress gets to be great. I think it’s a concern that Bush disappears during times of stress.”

I am so addled by my discovery that what seems implausible can be true and what seems certain often enough isn’t, that until my relatives showed up with their pets and several suitcases, I didn’t believe Hurricane Rita was real. Global warming aside, what are the odds on two category 5 storms striking in the same month? Christ, I even thought the evacuation of Houston was a ruse manufactured by Barbara Bush to keep the jigaboos out of River Oaks. God willing, I soon will awake like Pam Ewing, and realize it’s all been a horrible, horrible dream.