Once again credit has to be given where it is due. The Bush administration propaganda machine is flexing its cut, bulging, muscles. Just when it appears that the Bush team is down for the count they change the subject, distract an already complacent media and a hypnotized public, get off the mat and then return to the fight. The scandal and disgrace of the Abu Ghraib torture revelations caused even Republicans to utter words of condemnation. Donald Rumsfeld had to endure his own humiliation as he was forced to give one mea culpa after another before Congressional committees. Even GOP Senators tried to outdo one another expressing outrage and disgust. Richard Lugar, Trent Lott, John Warner, Pat Roberts and Orrin Hatch were all shocked, shocked to have been kept in the dark about the situation at Abu Ghraib. Of course any semi-curious web surfer knew about human rights abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan. Only members of the United States Senate, the most powerful legislators on earth, were unaware of them.

Does Karl Rove have a rainy day fund of issues to raise in tough times? Did he and John Ashcroft talk about emerging cases that would make Bush look truly compassionate, i.e. friendly to black people? The decision to reopen the Emmett Till murder investigation certainly challenged the Abu Ghraib story for media attention. Did they pick Emmett Till out of a hat or was he being held in reserve? The rightness of reopening the case is clear. Who would argue against finding the evil killers of an innocent child?

The story of Emmett Till was not unique. His murder is well known because it took place as the great American Revolution, the civil rights movement, was beginning to take shape. Black Americans lived under the threat of lynching for decades, our own history of terrorism. Till was a 14-year old Chicagoan murdered in Money, Mississippi in 1955 while visiting relatives. He allegedly spoke to, whistled at, touched, pinched, or recklessly eyeballed a white woman in a grocery store. Her husband, brother-in-law and perhaps other persons abducted Till, beat and tortured him and shot him in the head. His mother, Mamie Till Mobley, insisted on keeping her child’s coffin open so that the world would be forced to see his tortured, mutilated face.

The two men tried for the murder, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, both now deceased, were acquitted but later admitted their guilt in a Look magazine article. Two recently produced documentaries, The Murder of Emmett Till and The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till, revealed the existence of additional suspects who may still be living.

The apprehension of additional killers would be a true victory for justice. No one will question the need to resolve the unanswered questions in this case. I certainly won’t, but I was left with a nagging suspicion that the announcement of reopening the case was all staged, waiting for an opportune moment, such as a drop in approval ratings, to seize the media day.

The United States Department of Justice has had little interest in justice ever since the Bush regime came to power. Attorney General John Ashcroft has insisted on prosecuting old comedians who sell drug paraphernalia, the environmental group, Green Peace, and library card holders throughout the nation. The ACLU can’t even publicly reveal details of its challenge to the Patriot Act because doing so violates the Patriot Act. Ashcroft has seen the light now that a presidential election year and bad news overseas have arrived. Faster than you can say Miranda Warning our intrepid Attorney General is actually doing the job he is supposed to do.

The use of words such as genius to describe Karl Rove and other political operatives should cease. The job of making bad politicians look good isn’t genius. The scientist who discovers a cure for HIV should be called a genius. Anyone who would orchestrate a presidential landing on an aircraft carrier only to repudiate the stunt when it no longer has any campaign commercial or photo op benefit, is not a genius. Rove and his ilk are more like three card monty players who use sleight of hand to distract suckers and prevent them from looking at the marked card.

We should not see ourselves as suckers, however. Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York expressed “pleasant surprise” when the announcement was made in the Till case. Schumer is known for giving press conferences to announce envelope openings. If he didn’t know that a notorious murder case was being reopened we can only assume that it was because it hadn’t been discussed. Bush was taking a beating on Iraq, so it was time to get Iraq and Abu Ghraib a little further back in the paper.

The announcement of the new investigation will be a test for Ashcroft and the rest of the Bush administration. Having raised the hopes of millions with just one announcement the political geniuses must now deliver. They must be watched to guarantee that justice will truly be done in the case of Emmett Till. The war on terror should begin at home. It should not take a back seat to saving the election prospects of a man who cheated his way into the White House and lied to get his nation into a disastrous war.