For months, now, I’ve been weary of talking about the specifics of the Iraq war. The politics continue to be worthy of sarcasm and sheer amazement, but the daily explosions, the tales of atrocities and the body counts just seem like a blur of information we don’t need anymore. Even the politics of the war can be tiresome these days because, unless you’re one of the few people left who think the whole thing is a great idea, everything that can be said has been said. Everyone knows what to expect from the Bush Gang, and nothing any of us might say has any chance of influencing what those guys are doing. Still, we have to keep talking about it, if only to let the world know that these guys might be getting away with it, but they’re not fooling too many people.

One way in which The Gang is influenced by the talk is the apparent compulsion to continually revise the rationalizations for the war. These guys have proven to be remarkably flagrant about lying to the people, and they stick with preposterous stories until the late night TV comics get tired of joking about them, but eventually weapons of mass destruction fell apart leading to an ever evolving series of excuses which you might call "everything but the oil." The Bushwhacker always maintains that our gallant soldiers are winning, but what it means to win is a concept at least as elusive as why we wanted to win in the first place and why we’re still trying to win. To bolster his claim, the acting commander in chief sent General Petraeus up the hill to advise Congress and the people how well things are going in Iraq. This strategy was widely reported to have bought more time in Congress. Just imagine what Congress would have done had the general not dropped in for a pep talk. Petraeus, by the way, is the same general who said six months ago that there is no military solution in Iraq.

You know, of course, that The Gang has been hinting for years that Iran is next on the hit list. Such a hit seems unlikely with so little time left in the Bush presidency, but it’s still hanging in the air. In his speech last week backing up the Petraeus performance, Bush added yet another new wrinkle to the "everything but the oil" series when he said that containing Iran is a major reason for the continued US presence in Iraq. Here’s the quote: "If we were to be driven out of Iraq . . . Iran would be encouraged in its efforts to gain nucular weapons and dominate the region." So if you happen to be driving your Hummer around Baghdad wondering when a roadside bomb will have your name on it, and you thought you were doing it to bring democracy to Iraq, you now know that you’re also doing it to prevent Iran from building the bomb.

The popular analysis right now is that Dick Cheney is promoting the hard line, "send in the Marines" approach to Iraq while Condi Rice prefers sweet talk and diplomacy. This speculation is made more entertaining by the grocery store tabloids proclaiming that Dubya and the secretary of state are carrying on a hot love affair. They say that one can be discredited by the mere appearance of impropriety. Tell that to the senator from Idaho. It sounds like Colin Powell got out of town just in time.

Alan Greenspan got a lot of attention this week by giving interviews for some eager media heavyweights. He followed his familiar pattern of talking a lot without letting anyone pin him down to some definitive economic pronouncement, but now that he’s not directly influencing the Federal Reserve, he admitted to his tendency toward elusive rhetoric. He ripped the Bush Gang on Iraq, but declared that he’s always been a Republican and he still plans to vote that way in the future. It’s sobering to realize that the guy who can make or break billionaires with the cock of an eyebrow is one of those people that you can fool all the time.

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For a long time, I’ve been wanting to talk about the airline business, because I keep reading stories about a passenger rights movement, people organizing to promote legislation which would force the airlines to be reasonable and maybe even courteous to their customers. The list of grievances is long, but recently the focus has been the practice of putting people on the plane, then letting ‘em sit there on the ground for hours. This passenger rights movement wants Congress to make a law specifying how long an airline is allowed to imprison the people who buy the tickets, but I think that approach misses the point. We already have such laws. The act is called kidnapping.

This calls for a little historical perspective on air travel. It probably started as an adventure only for the most daring and impatient traveler, but it quickly evolved into a luxury item. It was the fastest and most expensive way to travel, and the early airlines sold it like a luxury hotel–drinks and dinner, movies and music, attractive young waitresses. People put on their Sunday best outfit to fly on an airplane. But it gradually morphed into a necessity, and as it did, the airlines were less and less interested in the comfort and goodwill of the passengers. Today’s airlines are the manufacturers of a vital service, and the passengers are the raw material which must be twisted, molded and maneuvered into the end product. Once, you could simply call someone and find out the cost of flying from point A to point B. Now it depends on when you leave, when you return, the time of year, time of the month, even the time of day. Even if you could understand the rate structure, it wouldn’t matter because the rates are subject to change in the next few minutes. Airlines are whirling in that corporate dance of mergers, convenient bankruptcies and hostile takeovers. Like banks, they hang a new sign on the buildings every few months.

I mention all this now to put some context around the story last week about Southwest Airlines throwing a paying customer out of the tin tube because they didn’t like her outfit. Flight attendants threw her out because of a little cleavage and a short skirt. In other words, she was dressed like a teenager at the mall. Initially, the brass defended the ouster, but later apologized and offered the potential passenger some free tickets. They didn’t say if there would be a dress code on those free flights. She didn’t get where she was going that day, but she carved out a brief career on TV talk shows and didn’t even need a wardrobe change. Hey, if they can make you a prisoner on the tarmac, they sure ought to be able to tell you what to wear.