All indications point to a hectic holiday season of defensive posturing and spin control in the Self- Righteous Belt.  Bookmakers are already scrambling to make odds on the exact date that congressional Republicans actually begin to eat each other.  Among other highlights of the fall season: House majority leader Tom DeLay was indicted in a long-running campaign finance investigation. DeLay tried the usual first line of defense of the arrested: “Dude, that’s not mine.”  But the Texas grand jury was unimpressed and in fact rewrote the indictment a week later in even stronger language, forcing the ethically bankrupt DeLay to step down from his post.  The Republican party gave the requisite supportive sound bites to the media and then promptly kicked DeLay to the curb, quietly naming Missouri Rep. Roy Blunt to replace him. Dick Cheney’s had a rough autumn, too.  Dispatched to do damage control after the feds’ bungled response to Katrina, Cheney was expounding on debris removal in an on-the-street interview in Gulfport, Mississippi, when a weary-sounding, unseen passerby invited the vice-president—on live TV-- to “Go fuck yourself, Mr. Cheney.  Go fuck yourself.”  Soon after he retreated to his Washington lair—er, office, Cheney learned that his chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, had apparently already gone and fucked himself:  Libby was indicted by the feds’ own special prosecutor on a slew of criminal charges.     Providing further evidence that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, Barbara Bush tripped over her own sense of superiority while on a visit to a Houston shelter after Hurricane Katrina displaced half the Southeast.  She declared the response to the hurricane a success for the “underprivileged” and said that many of the poor she had seen were faring better than before the storm, opining that “this is working very well for them.”  She did feel it was “sort of scary (that) they all want to stay in Texas.” Can’t have the huddled masses mucking up the view from the Haves and Have Mores clubhouse, after all. On Sept. 11th, the Department of Defense sponsored a memorial march and concert in Washington.  The event, optimistically entitled the America Supports Your Freedom Walk, was billed as a memorial to victims of the 2001 terrorist attacks and a show of support for those serving in the military.  Without a trace of irony, deputy assistant secretary of defense Allison Barber detailed to the press the extraordinary security measures applied to this “Freedom Walk”:  participants were required to register online by the day prior to the event; the US Park Police’s entire Washington force was deployed along the route, which was not specified until the day of the march and was then fenced off with four-foot-high snow fencing to keep it “sterile,” according to Barber.  Park Police Chief Dwight Pettiford warned that officers were prepared to arrest anyone who joined the event without credentials. Let freedom ring--as long as it’s applied for its permit, been appropriately registered and approved, paid the requisite fees in a timely manner and been thoroughly “sterilized”. The federal government announced this fall that for people between ages 12 and 17, there was a 9 percent drop in illicit drug use between 2002 and 2004.  Oddly, the survey also indicates that overall, 19.1 million Americans used illicit drugs last year, or about 7.9%.  These numbers remain basically unchanged from the CDC’s large-scale surveys of the two years prior, during which about 8% of Americans reported using illicit drugs within the previous month.  In fact, according to the survey, the 21 to 23% of high school seniors who have used marijuana at least once in the past month has remained virtually unchanged for the past decade.   Dollars budgeted to the government’s “war on drugs” in 2005 alone: 12.468 billion.   Alcohol, on the other hand, is used by 29% of 12- to 20-year-olds each year.  One point five million 12-to 17-year-olds met criteria last year for admission to an alcohol treatment center.  Of these, only 120,000 received treatment.  Not enough money for enough youth treatment beds, detox specialists lament.   Frustrated by the Food and Drug Administration’s spurious delay of approval of a proposed “morning- after” birth control pill despite extensive study showing it to be both safe and effective, Dr. Susan Wood, head of the FDA’s women’s health office, resigned in protest in September Anti-abortion activists have distorted this emergency contraceptive, known as Plan B, as an “abortion pill,” like the controversial RU-486.  But Plan B works using progestin, the same hormone found in many contraceptives, and must be taken within a day or two of unprotected sex.  Though opposed by conservatives, the application is strongly supported by most FDA medical officials, women’s health advocates and an outside expert panel.  In early October, a bipartisan group of 62 members of Congress sent a strongly-worded letter demanding FDA clearance of Plan B.   The FDA, blind to the irony of denying women contraception and thus forcing many more of them to deal with the question of abortion, further demonstrated its commitment to women’s health issues in the wake of Wood’s resignation by appointing  Norris Alderson, a man trained as a veterinarian, to Wood’s vacated post.  To the agency’s surprise, this news was not so warmly received by advocates for women’s health.   Two days later, amid a firestorm of criticism, the FDA decided longtime agency official Theresa A. Toigo would fill the temporary vacancy instead.   William Bennett, who served as education secretary under President Reagan and as director of drug control policy under Bush I, started a fire on his radio show “Morning America” this fall with his comment that “…if you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country and your crime rate would go down.”  Bennett added that such a plan would be “…an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down.”   Using his logic, if you aborted all the self-righteous conservative Republican radio talk show hosts, would your stupidity rate go down? Looking for the perfect gift for the office born-again who eyes you anxiously every time you pass his/her desk?  Get ‘em the Reverend Louis Sheldon’s new book, The Agenda: The Homosexual Plan to Change America.  The author is the founder of the Traditional Values Coalition, a political organization of religious fundamentalists, and he has spent more time thinking of gay stuff than you have.  His book details how “funds for AIDS research are co-opted by homosexual activists to promote their lifestyle to America’s children,” among other jewels.  This little tome of terror would be quite funny if it weren’t for the people who take such drivel seriously.    Let them worry that we do have a plan. Happy Holidays to all the rainbow tribe.  Here’s wishing you peace, love and a sense of humor for the coming year.