Shrub thwarts attack on L.A.... phew!

The Mandarin got home in time to watch the news tonight. Here's what he learned: the tallest building west of the Mississippi (what is it with the Mississippi anyway?) is in Los Angeles. Formerly called the Library Tower (or "Liberty Tower" per Shrub, whose bifocals weren't calibrated for the teleprompter), it is now named for a Minneapolis-based bank to which the Mandarin prefers not to give any free advertising. Of course, some of the Mandarin's friends who worked for the old First Interstate Bank in those days prefer to call it "Joe Pinola's Erection." Anyway, the tower is a bit over 1,000 feet high, and the Mandarin's office is in a building -- never mind which one -- that is about 1,000 feet from the Library Tower. Do the math.

So, how glad was the Mandarin that Shrub was on the job and saved him from being almost smushed by falling books from the Library Tower? But, wait a minute, the Mandarin says to himself -- what if the information that helped Shrub foil their dastardly plot was obtained through illegal wiretaps in violation of the Constitution and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act?

Well, Bob Schieffer had the answer on CBS tonight. The information was not obtained from illegally wiretapping Americans. It was obtained by means of "aggressive interrogation" of "suspected al Qaeda terrorists" by agents of third countries under the policy of "extraordinary rendition."

In other words, we had some poor schmuck (or however you say "schmuck" in Arabic) flown to someplace like Egypt and tortured until they spilled the beans. Or made up the beans to get the Egyptians to stop torturing them. Anyway, Mr. and Mrs. America, rest easy. Your civil liberties are intact. Unless, of course, Shrub decides they aren't.

Original photo caption: An airplane passes behind the U.S. Bank Tower, formerly known as the Library Tower, in downtown Los Angeles Thursday, Feb. 9, 2006. President Bush said Thursday the U.S-led global war on terror, with multinational cooperation, foiled purported terrorist plans to fly a commercial airplane into the Los Angeles skyscraper in 2002. (AP Photo/Kim D. Johnson)