Good morning, America. This is Edward Thompson reporting.

Tuesday was a good day. California voters told Governor Schwarzenegger to take a hike, along with his plans to stifle organized labor and deny abortions to teenage girls. Back east, the voters ran their fundamentalist school boards out of town, replacing them with responsible adults who promised to let the schools teach evolution.

It's been a good week, in many respects. The war is unpopular, the House Majority Leader is under indictment for money laundering, the Vice President's chief of staff under indictment for perjury and obstruction of justice, the head of FEMA is out of a job for incompetence, the President's pick for the Supreme Court has withdrawn in shame, humiliation, and frank admission of cronyism. Presidential press secretary Scott McClellan, who used to bully and intimidate the White House press corps, now stammers and flinches like a little girl in a vicious dodgeball tournament.

At last. The swine have come home to roost.

Or wallow. Or whatever it is that swine do, exactly, when the lights go down and the health inspector closes the joint for the public good. Which, in this reporter's opinion, is exactly what needs to happen next.

It's not enough to pick another fall guy, or sack another patsy. That won't work any more. Too many corporals, aides, and henchmen have taken a bullet for the team already; they've discovered that loyalty among swine is a one-way street, and they're getting restless.

Restless swine? Put a little dance music on the hi-fi, Jimmy; it's time for the real capos to dance, on the gallows; just a little jig that says "So long, and thanks for all the votes."

It's in the air. Even the Press and the Democrats have suddenly grown testicles, albeit small ones, and are showing signs of what may be a spinal column, a late-breaking evolutionary development that could, one day, allow them to stand upright.

Or maybe not. God knows they love to crawl, and lick the boots of power. Where was their outrage when prisoners were stacked in naked pyramids in the corridors of Abu Ghraib? Not even prisoners, for god's sake: suspects. SUSPECTS. Where was the demand for accountability then? Little Corporal Lindy goes to prison, while the Secretary of Defense and the Commander in Chief put their hands in their pockets, roll their eyes, and whistle.

Here's something any grunt can tell you: when the troops are stacking the inmates in naked pyramids in the corridors, the camp commander either knows about it, or has made it absolutely clear that he or she doesn't want to know about it, ever.

In this case, the commandant at Abu Ghraib was the highest-ranking woman in the military, so she was sacked; the Good Old Boys thought they'd killed two birds with one stone. But now she's written a book, and she's pointing the finger upstairs. Did anyone think for one minute that torturing the suspects was her idea?

This goes all the way to the top. Before they started warehousing muslims in Guantanamo, Iraq, and "black" CIA prisons in eastern Europe, before they began stacking them in piles in Abu Ghraib, and outsourcing them to torture centers in the Middle East, the President cleared it with his lawyer, actually asked if it was legal to torture suspects; and the answer was "sure, I guess; as long as it's on foreign soil." For this, the President made him Attorney General.

But now Republicans in the Senate have signed a bill that forbids torture, and demands to hear some kind of plan from the President. Dick Cheney wants the bill killed, and probably the Senators, too. But he can't just tell them to go fuck themselves. Not this time. It's his turn in the barrel. The evil bastard has to stand on the Senate floor and publicly defend torture, torture of people who, in many cases, have not been accused of a crime.

Even the Republicans are sickened. Even the CIA wants out of this movie. They'd given up torture years ago. And they didn't stop torturing people because they're squeamish, not in Langly. They know a man will confess to anything, accuse anyone, tell you anything you want to hear, just to make it stop. Torture doesn't work; it just produces the kind of worthless intel that got us into this stupid war.

But the word keeps coming down from the top: torture them; beat them, squeeze them; keep it up until... until... we'll get back to you on that; just keep it up.

But no. Not anymore. Not even for a bullet in the neck and a Medal of Freedom. The swine have finally turned. Apparently, there are some things even a pig won't do.

Dance, you bastards. Dance.

Editor's Note: There's a story some people tell, a story about a very young Hunter Thompson and a very old Edward Murrow, meeting behind a bar one night. Words were exchanged. There was a knife. Things got ugly. When it was all over, there were enough parts in the alley to cobble together a third reporter, albeit a small one. And someone did. The violent love-child of this encounter was less than half as talented as either parent, but bore an eerie resemblance to both. Some call this a lot of hooey. I call it The Edward Thompson Report. copyright 2005