[news] Is Rummy sandbagging us?

Donald Rumsfeld has said there is yet more evidence of crimes committed at Abu Ghraib coming, and that some of these crimes surpass what we've already seen and learned. I don't know exactly who's getting their information from where, but rape and murder figure prominently in every specific breakdown I've seen of what to expect.

Consider this:

- The Bush administration tends to stick with a consistent arsenal of political maneuvers. (Lately, among others, they've been running with "I was never formally informed that was a problem," but that's not the move I'm thinking of now.)

- Bush and his people, in the past, have been fond of floating outrageous proposals which allow them to then "compromise" at a position their critics never would have accepted originally. Moving the goalposts.

- The Bush administration has by NO means stopped the process of furiously spinning things for their own political survival. Rumsfeld in particular has led the way, starting with his "it's abuse, not torture" speech.

- Rumsfeld's announcement of worse horrors to come doesn't look like a political boon on its face. Maybe you can reduce the impact of announcing a funding cut if you hint at it beforehand, but images of US soldiers raping a prisoner that's supposed to be under their care? Nah, those are still disturbing.

I can't help suspecting from all this that the awful pictures Rumsfeld has warned us are coming... aren't. Or they'll depict something different, and categorically less shocking, than Rumsfeld's warnings suggest, yet still bad enough that someone wanted them minimized.