JUDGEMENT AT NUREMBERG II (DAY 1)

by Steve Young

(Correspondent Steve Young continues to file his reports from the 2008 trial)

It seems like only yesterday that Bush's own image listening to the news of the potential disaster from Katrina had once and for all confirmed what had been denied by for years by the likes of co-conspirators Hannity, Limbaugh and O'Reilly Disgraced former President George W. Bush was indeed a liar.

And now the residents of Nuremberg busy themselves getting ready for the expected crowds, giddy as schoolgirls awaiting their first meeting with the forty-five year-old trucker they met on MySpace.com.

"We haven't seen this much tourism since Tracy sent Klemperer to the gallows," said Otto Bloch. "And just in case anyone wants to know...we had no idea what was going on. We just thought the trains were taking the Democrats to summer camp."

It's been almost two years since the smoking gun videotapes documented the Bush administration's criminal deception. No longer do pundits need to tippy-toe around the facts. The president had not been mistaken. Nor had he read it in the papers or been given the wrong information. He lied, and despite his spokespersons' attempts to spin the lies into an innocent case of misunderstanding and all-too-familiar presidential ignorance, it does not excuse constitutional high crimes and misdemeanors. Especially when there are tapes.

Now Nuremberg has fast become the place to be and be seen. Hotel rooms and reservations at Nuremberg restaurants are at a premium, with Washington celebrities and their toupees filling every possible nook and cranny of this tiny German hamlet.

Though some have questioned the trial's site possibly sending the wrong message, officials say they had little choice.

I want to make one thing perfectly clear," said presiding Judge Ruth Ginsberg. "This is not about parallels with the first Nuremberg trial. It's just that with a good show trial being needed as soon as possible, Nuremberg was the only location available."

"Normally we're booked years in advance," said Nuremberg banquet manager, Hans Pfeffle. "But at the last minute, the Shapiro bar mitzvah canceled and we were happy to have trial here. Who wants to throw away thirty tons of good chopped liver?"

With the Bush administration's approval of the seaport deal with the United Arab Emirates, the outing of a CIA agent for political payback, cutting of veteran's benefits, tortured excuses for torture and a plethora of other potentially illicit acts, the Iraq war remains the most serious of the charges against the president and his coterie. And the attempts by the entire Bush administration to vacate their posts en masse to "spend more time with their families" have not stopped the prosecutors from pursuing an indictment.

The large number of defendants complicit in the Bush campaign of transgressions against the Republic have caused veteran war crime watchers to believe that nothing about this trial will be like any other.

Inasmuch as several Supreme Court justices will be doubling as co-conspirators, the courtroom makeup is in itself unconventional. The bench and the defendant's cages have been placed adjacent to each other making it easier for the respective justices to move effortlessly from judge's chair to defendants'.

Many of the defendants will be tried in absentia, as several Bush accessories are not available due to any number of "previous engagements" and circumstances spoken here in hushed tones due to the many "No Speaking Loudly" signs that fill the Nuremberg countryside.

President Bush, seemingly oblivious that his presidency had fallen, was last seen leaving his Crawford bunker to "cut some brush." He never returned. While his body was not found and there are many conspiracists who still believe the Weekly World Newsmax headlines of the President being spotted all over the world riding his bicycle, most experts feel that Bush just evaporated under the insufferable heat of his own incompetence.

Vice President Dick Cheney took his own life in his Georgetown bunker. (Actually, Cheney meant to give the cyanide to someone else, but missed.)

Condoleeza Rice also was spared the shame of a trial when she was found dead in her boudoir, implaled on the stiletto heels of the thousand-dollar boots she had purchased while New Orleans flooded.

Atty. General Gonzales, who reversed his opinions on torture even before his first full day at Gitmo, is currently being held in Albert Speer's drafty old cell, which he calls civilized by comparison.

And while government officials are the focus of the prosecution, charges have also been made against those colluding with the Bush administration to place America in harm's way. Officials have built an extra defendant's wing just for Clear Channel.

Next up at Nuremberg: What about those buses? Hannity finds himself on the wrong side of history.