Paul Krugman has another great piece in the NYT pointing out more examples of the Bush administration saying one thing and doing another. Like the Arab press, there are two different stories, one in Arabic for domestic consumption and the other in English for the kaffirs. It's Republican taquiya*.:

The SEC has been underfunded for years, and most observers — including Richard Breeden, who headed the agency when Mr. Bush's father was president — thought that even the budget Mr. Bush signed back in July was seriously inadequate. But now the administration wants to cancel most of the "new funding" Mr. Bush boasted about.

The reasons for this stealth gutting of the SEC are clear, but the mainstream media are still too dazzled by the prospect of a war to report it.

To an extent unprecedented in recent history, this is a government of, by and for corporate insiders. The Bush administration [used to boast that it] contains more former C.E.O.'s than any previous administration. But as James Surowiecki put it in The New Yorker, "Almost none of the C.E.O.'s on the Bush team headed competitive, entrepreneurial businesses." Instead they come out of a world of "crony capitalism, in which whom you know is more important than what you do and how you do it."

Those ex-C.E.O.'s in the administration became wealthy thanks to the connections they had acquired in Washington; the exception is Mr. Bush himself, who became wealthy thanks to the connections his father had acquired in Washington. This process continues. Senator Phil Gramm, who pushed through legislation that exempted Enron's trading practices from regulation while his wife sat on the company's board, is retiring and taking a new job: he's going to UBS Warburg, the company that bought Enron's trading operation.

The bottom line is that you shouldn't worry about those TV images of men in suits doing the perp walk. That was for public consumption; now that the public is focused on other things, it's back to business — insider business — as usual.

Whose money was lost in the recent fall of the stockmarket? Who is paying the price for the insiders cooking the books, selling out their stock options, and sticking the employees with worthless stock in the retiement plan? It's you, my reader.

Today, another article points out, again, one of the lies which has been used to justify the demonization of Iraq (as if that was necessary) and drumbeat of war. The Iraq-Al Qu'ida connection has always been tenuous, at best. Now, another one of the pieces of evidence for this connection is, again, contradicted. The arguments presented for the Iraq war are just another example of book-cooking. It's the same quality of analysis put out by these CEOs when they were trying to sell stock.

Taquiya or taquija means to dissimulate by talking, dressing, or behaving like the kaffir ("infidels") in order to pass or avoid detection as a Muslim. A muslim can deny his faith or activities to infidels if this will benefit him or serve to benefit or propagate Islam. Lying to "infidels" is officially acknowledged and was practised by "prophet " Muhammad himself. It is also common among certain minority muslim sects (Sufis, Ismailli, Shia) when living or travelling in areas dominated by other sects.