It's downright surprising how often our President finds himself surprised:

"No one could have guessed that Al Qaeda had cells here in the U.S."

"No one could have guessed that they'd fly planes into buildings."

"No one could have guessed that the WMD's were all gone."

"No one could have guessed that we wouldn't be welcomed as liberators."

"No one could have guessed that the war would cost so much."

"No one could have guessed that the deficits would grow so fast."

And now, the latest:

"No one could have guessed that the levees could be breached."

Actually, in all these cases, some could have, and did, guess.  In fact, they not only guessed, they predicted, they warned, they pleaded for people, for this President, to listen.  And they have names: Colleen Rowley, Richard Clarke, Joe Wilson, Eric Shinseki, Paul O'Neill.  Whose name will we add to the honor roll for their unheard concerns over New Orleans?  Eric Tolbert? James Lee Witt?

What secrets did these wise people possess that our President apparently does not?  It seems that they all took a similar path:

The current Republican electoral advantage is built on an unholy alliance of God and greed.  The corporations fund the candidates, and get deregulation, tax breaks, subsidies, and government contracts in return.  Meanwhile, those candidates use the funding to fire up the fundamentalist faithful by spewing hate and fear and some well-placed lies (like "Compassionate Conservatism") through the media (ads and, better yet, ownership) and direct contact.  This much we all know.  Keep reading...

I know you're all thinking "Well, with the swift boat thing, apparently we can now just make sh*t up."

So, here are  a few believable lies one might consider spreading around:

• Bush knew about 9/11 -- who, what, how, where, we'll give him the benefit of the doubt on when.

• Rumsfeld directly approved Abu Ghraib abuses, which were his idea.  And the same stuff goes on at Gitmo.

• Cheney ordered Plame outed.

• Cheney has an off-the-books deal to take profit from Halliburton's Iraq contracts.

Hey, those aren't believable lies, they're unconfirmed truths!  Hmmm, it's getting hard to make damaging things up that aren't probably true. Read on, I'll keep trying...