All Over But the Shouting... and Trial

Five indictments for Scooter, none (yet) for Rove. Does that qualify as getting a pony? It's better than nothing, I guess, and more information is bound to come out as Scooter goes to court. But damn, I wanted to see Turd Blossom do the perp walk. Well, there's still hope, I suppose.

In other news, The Generik Brand will be on hiatus for the next few days (probably until next Wednesday or Thursday), as Mrs. Gen and I are taking a quick trip to New York City to celebrate Halloween and her birthday there. Catch you when I return!

'Twas the Bash Before Fitzmas

Last night the Bay Area Resident Bloggers And Readers Drinking Society celebrated their one-year anniversary at a bar new to most of us -- Glen Park Station, suggested by our own Barrespondent Drew of Scamboogah!! (who unfortunately couldn't make it) -- and a good time was had by all. Seriously, it was swell, and if you missed it, you missed a lot of good fun and good conversation and good beer. New faces this time were Swopa and Green Boy of Needlenose, and we all hope that they will become regular attendees in the future. Also showing up were Angie of Ang's Weird Ideas, Mags of You Forgot Poland!, Scaramouche, qubit the Token Reader, the King of Zembla, Hal from Hellblazer, Victor Shystee, Chuck from Bad Attitudes and Belisarius Blogs and The Editors from The Poor Man, with his lovely bride in tow. MIA, besides the aforementioned Drew, were Dr. Laniac and Paperwight, who both had to bow out at the last minute, mrgumby2u from itlookslikethis, Brian from 1000 Buffalo Stampede and fyrste from suckful, who apparently had band practice. We hope they can all make the next one. And you, too -- we all hope you can make the next get-together as well!

Out On the Lynx

Just a few for you today...

• A friend in Virginia replies to a fundraising request from Senator George Allen.
• There was a blog written by a soldier in Iraq, but he's been silenced. Not killed, silenced. The blog is still up, though, and you can navigate from there.
• An amusing cartoon about turning from Blue Dem to Rep Repub.
  
• A new Get Your War On is up!
• Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey is briefly explained, using Flash animation.
  

Wingnuts 1, Miers 0

To the surprise of virtually no one, Harriet "I'm as qualified to be a Supreme Court Justice as my work-husband George is qualified to be President" Miers has withdrawn her nomination. Well, gosh, Harriet, we hardly knew ye. Don't forget that old saying about the door and your ass, and hey, look, here's your hat!

Pardon me if I don't jump for joy over this revelation. I mean, yes, I believe that she was singularly unqualified to serve, and in that, I have to (chillingly) admit that I was in agreement with such dim lights of the winger universe as Ann Coulter, Robert Bork, George Will and Pat Buchanan. But the fact is that she was (and is) unqualified, and the nomination itself was just one more example of how Bush cronyism has turned our government into a cabal of sycophants and party apparatchiks who are prized more for their loyalty than their ability.

So sure, I'm glad to see that she's withdrawn, and yes I am enjoying just the slightest bit of schadenfreude over Bush getting publicly bitch-slapped by his own former defenders, not to mention flocks and flocks of formerly-adoring sheep, but I have little doubt that whoever he nominates to take her place will be even worse. Worried that he is in danger of having the fundie lunatic fringe desert him completely, he will likely name someone so vile, so extremely right-wing and dangerous that many of us will wish that the recently deceased William Rehnquist could be exhumed and reinstalled. Just like Bush's failed and destructive presidency makes us now wish for the halcyon days of the crooked Richard Nixon, so too might his next Supreme Court nominee make us all wish that the Senate had just bitten the bullet and put the overmatched Harriet in the SCOTUS seat.

Harriet Miers has withdrawn. Yea. Hurray.

Wednesday Vacation Blogging

While we're waiting for Patrick Fitzgerald to decide what he's going to do -- since he obviously isn't going to announce anything today -- here are some pictures I took in Europe with which to bore you to tears entertain you. These are all from Rome, the Eternal City.

Not sure what this is, other than a very cool old building just across the river from Castel Sant-Angelo.

God Rays at the Vatican.

Close-up detail of some of the marble at the Forum.

Fruit stand near the Colosseum.

A balloon hovers above the old city wall at the top of the Via Veneto; the Borghese Estate is on the other side.

Legionnaires making a buck posing for pictures outside the Colosseum.

Marble columns in the sunlight at the Forum.

The Spanish Steps at night.

The Victor Emmanuel Memorial Building (aka the Wedding Cake).

Outside the Colosseum...

...and inside.

The Forum.

Fitzmas Eve

According to CBS News and a few other unauthorized sources, tomorrow, Wednesday is the day that we all find out if we get ponies or lumps of coal for Fitzmas. Speculation, of course is running rampant, and names are being bandied about with abandon. Surely Karl Rove and Scooter Libby will be among those indicted -- if, indeed, anyone actually is indicted -- and Steven Hadley's name has been mentioned by some, as well as Ari Fleischer's and a few other button men. But more importantly, Dick the Big Kahuna is also potentially on the hook, and I can't tell you how big a helping of schadenfreude that would be to see that Major League Asshole ("Big time!") brought down by the long arm of the law. Whose puppetmaster's (or puppetmistress's) hand goes up Preznit Witless's ass if Crashcart goes? Who cares?

Man, I can't even pay attention to the World Series, I'm so nervous and excited. I haven't enjoyed politics this much since I was a teenager and watched Nixon get his dick knocked in the dirt. (I don't care if he's dead, I still want to impeach the bastard!)

What a fitting tribute it would be to the 2000 Americans (and many, many times that number of Iraqis) who have died as a direct result of the BushCo lies if the originators of those lies were to be made to do the perp walk very soon for their crimes against this country. However, the unfortunate part of this whole equation is that Preznit Deer In The Headlights still retains the power of pardon, and is sure to do his utmost to see that The Gang That Couldn't Conspire Straight ends up safely free from license plate duty and cellmate-husbands named Bubba.

Ah, but we can dream, can't we?

Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you, tomorrow, you're only a day away.

Denied!

Thanks to the editorial writers at the Wall Street Journal, we already know how the Republicans plan on combatting the potential damage from the highly anticipated Fitzmas indictments (if, indeed, our dreams come true and they do come to pass), as they laid out in great detail just exactly what the RNC-approved talking points will be over this past weekend. (Not only that, but Kay Bailey Hutchinson, conveniently forgetting all about the Clenis impeachment and proving once again that overt hypocrisy is still the stock in trade of the Republicans, made the comment on one of the Sunday screaming head shows that she hoped the indictments would be for "real crimes," and not something insignificant like perjury. Well, yeah, I hope the indictments are for "real crimes," too. Like perjury. And obstruction of justice. And revealing the identity of an undercover CIA agent. And lying to take the country to war.)

But! Thanks to the ever-vigilant World O' Crap, those Republican talking points have already been refuted, point by point. The post detailing the WSJ fallacies is a thing of beauty, and should be spread far and wide throughout the blogosphere. If you haven't seen it already, you should all check it out, if for no other reason than to have your arguments ready when one of your winger friends (or some idiot TV pundit) starts bloviating about "criminalizing politics" or "insignificant crimes like perjury" or some such bullshit.

Not Everybody Got It Wrong

Arianna Huffington has a great post up on her blog with a list of journalists who, unlike the compromised and now-discredited Judith Miller, had it right about WMD in Iraq before the war. Joe Lauria, for instance, has this to say:

"I didn't get it wrong. And a lot of others who covered the lead up to the war didn't get it wrong. Mostly because we weren't just cozying up to Washington sources but had widened our reporting to what we were hearing from people like Mohamed ElBaradei and Hans Blix, and from sources in other countries, like Germany, France, and Russia. Miller had access to these voices, too, but ignored them. Our chief job as journalists is to challenge authority. Because an official says something might make it 'official,' but it doesn't necessarily make it true."

There's a lot more. A lot more. if you haven't seen it yet, check it out.

Spreading Democracy, One Lie at a Time

Karen Hughes, friend and advisor to Preznit Treason (and the type of woman that my wife would refer to as a "See You Next Tuesday"), has been tasked these past few months with spreading American goodwill around the Muslim world, and she is apparently doing a bang-up job. Just like all BushCo appointees do a bang-up job. Right, Brownie?

What's interesting and rather amusing to me is that she is finding her audiences away from the hand-picked Potemkin crowds of loyal, unquestioning Republicans that slaver and worship at the feet of her boss here in the US are a much harder sell for her particular brand of propaganda, disingenuousness and outright lies. For instance, the Washington Post reported yesterday on her getting caught in front of an Indonesian audience in a lie that has worked so well for so long in America that she probably even believes it herself. She made the claim that the war in Iraq was justified because Saddam Hussein "had murdered hundreds of thousands of his own people using poison gas." This line has been repeated for so long here -- and gone unquestioned by anyone in the lapdog, Judith Miller-personified media -- that it's accepted as gospel among millions of Moron-Americans and wingnuts (but I repeat myself). Only it isn't true. Leaving aside the small, inconvenient matter that when Hussein gassed the Kurds in 1982, he did so with the full knowledge and backing of the American government, the numbers just don't bear out the claim. Officials acknowledge that there were perhaps 5,000 people gassed -- a horrible and significant number, yes, but hardly the "hundreds of thousands" of which Hughes spoke.

Challenged more than once to back up her allegation, Hughes simply repeated the number, saying, "It's something that our U.S. government has said a number of times in the past. It's information that was used very widely after his attack on the Kurds. I believe it was close to 300,000... That's something I said every day in the course of the campaign. That's information that we talked about a great deal in America."

I have no doubt that the Bush maladministration made that claim, and I have no doubt that Hughes repeated that number every day during the campaign. Which only illustrates once again that the Republican Big Lie strategy is alive and well. Keep repeating something, no matter how specious, and it becomes a fact. The entire Republican oeuvre of the last twenty years or more is built largely upon simply Making Shit Up, it seems. And Hughes is obviously a graduate, summa cum laude, of MSU.

Perhaps if the corporate press had been doing its job here in the so-called Land of the Free, someone, somewhere would have challenged Ms. Hughes a few times when she made that claim "every day in the course of the campaign." But of course that sort of thing just doesn't happen here any more; that sort of challenge just doesn't fit the script dictated by Rupert Murdoch and the rest of his media-controlling pals. So Hughes was mystified then when it was disputed by audience members who are more knowledgeable of history, current events and politics than she'll ever be. That sort of thing is unheard of when she addresses the True Believers here in America.

And today the Post reports that Hughes may be on the short list of people who will be called upon to step a little closer to Preznit Heckuva Job when and if Rove and Libby and possibly even Cheney (I hope I hope I hope) are soon forced to step aside. Well, she's certainly qualified for the job by BushCo standards.

His Majesty's Review

(I'm a couple days late to this, but better late than never.)

My esteemed royal colleague, the King of Zembla, has a marvelous post up about his experience hearing former amabssador and husband to the most well-known former undercover CIA operative to date, Joseph Wilson, speak at San Francisco State University (an institute of learning that this blog's author once attended with some regularity many eons ago) earlier this week, and if you haven't read it yet, it is well worth a look. Here are a few choice excerpts from the notes the King took of Mr. Wilson's presentation:

In the current administration there are, according to Wilson, three schools of thought regarding foreign policy. The Whack-a-Mole school, epitomized by Rumsfeld and Cheney, likes to hit anything and hit everything, and goes looking for new threats when it has nothing left to hit. The Jodhpurs-and-Pith-Helmet school (Perle, Bolton, Wolfowitz on his saner days) argues that America, as the lone remaining superpower, should embrace its imperial destiny and take any actions necessary to maintain global hegemony for generations to come. The God's-Gift-of-Freedom school (Bush, possibly Rice, Wolfowitz on his less sane days) believes, stupidly, that it is part of America's great mission to spread democracy by military force.

Wilson openly mocks the view that a new, Democratized Middle East can arise from chaos we are currently spreading. Columnists like Thomas Friedman make the mistake of assuming that educated, liberal Arabs -- the Westernized types Friedman hangs out with, whom Wilson characterizes as "Doctors, Lawyers, Accountants, and Golfers" -- will naturally rise in influence as the region reconfigures itself. Big mistake, says Wilson: the DLAG class benefits primarily from incremental change, from slow evolution toward modernity. Revolution, on the other hand, favors revolutionaries. Professionals and intellectuals are being driven out of Iraq because they have been targeted for murder by the militias.

There's much more. Check it out for yourselves.

Speculation

Maybe it doesn't mean anything at all, but special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has set up a website today... wonder what he has on his mind? I'll bet it will make for some very interesting reading over the course of the next few months.

Most everyone who's been paying even the slightest bit of attention to the Plame case has to be wondering just how the whole thing is going to play out. Lots of indictments, or just a few, or none at all? One or two major people caught up in the machinations of the law, or a gang of minor players offered up as sacrificial lambs? We'll know soon, and the anticipation is unlike anything I've known since I was a six-year-old waiting for Christmas. The champagne is already on ice.

Another aspect of this whole thing is the speculation that Evil Dick Cheney will be asked -- or forced -- to remove himself from office before the whole thing blows over. Who will replace him if that happens? Already rumors are floating that it might be Condimelda Rice, or Rick "Man on Dog" Santorum, or... well, hell, I think the field is wide open. I can't imagine that if this really does come to pass that Preznit I (Heart) Torture will name anybody that I personally would want to see one heartbeat away from the Oval Office, though. That just won't happen, given his track record so far.

Maybe he'll go the Harriet Miers route and name his brother, Jeb. Or Neil, who I understand is not too terribly busy these days. Or Lump Laura. Or Jenna.

Whatever. All I want for Christmas is a bunch of corrupt Republicans behind bars.

Captions Anyone?

While we're all busy waiting for Fitzmas and the indictments that we all want most, *cough Cheney! Rove! Libby! cough* let's see what you folks have to say about this picture taken recently at the White House.

Here's my shot at it: "You sure do look different without your red wig and all that clown make-up, Mr. Bozo."

Fire away.

What 2000 Looks Like

Here's a powerful piece of animation about the war in Iraq, guaranteed to make most of you mad. (It would be even better if it didn't have a few spots in it where it freezes up for a second or two, but still, it's definitely worth a look.)

In other news: If you didn't get a chance to see Jon Stewart effectively kick Bill O'Reilly to the curb on The Daily Show the other night, here's the video clip of it for you, courtesy of Crooks & Liars. See why Stewart is perhaps the best newsman in American media today, while O'Reilly simply makes a complete ass of himself with his boorishness and ignorance.

Has It Really Been A Year?

It was nearly one year ago that the first BARBARian gathering (which turned out to be quite successful) occurred in Oakland, and to celebrate, we're going to all get together and do what we do best: drink! This gathering will be on Thursday, October 27, the actual one-year anniversary of the original event, at Glen Park Station in San Francisco. That's amazingly close to the Glen Park BART Station. (Go figure.) Check out this post on the BARBARian Blog for more information.

Peak Bush

It only took five years, but it appears that it's finally happened. We've reached the tipping point. The camel's back has been broken. After sailing arrogantly along virtually unimpeded and unencumbered by anything resembling a conscience or any type of oversight, Preznit Too Stupid To Live In The Real World's personal Ship of State appears to be foundering. How has this happened? He is now being regularly attacked not just by those of us on the left who have opposed him all along, but by the very people who once worshipped and adored and enshrined him. They're jumping off the bus in droves. Of course, proving that moronitude is still the near-exclusive province of the extreme right-wing, they are now in many cases calling him a "liberal" as a way of justifying their new criticisms. Apparently that's the worst epithet they can come up with, and eases their fits of lucidity and shattered cognitive dissonance when they think too much about the fact that he was their guy all along, and now they can no longer support him.

At least he was their guy until the one-two punch of Hurricane Katrina and the nomination of Harriet Miers exposed his glass jaw for all to see.

Because it would appear that those two events, in large part, are what finally turned all but the Truest of Believers against AWOL McJingo, the neo-cons' puppet Chickenhawk in Chief. Sure, the added discomfort of the ever-growing deficit, the bloody war-with-no-end in Iraq and the increasing number of indictments of Republicans already served and yet to come have played a part, but I believe most historians will point to Katrina and Harriet as the main participants in the fateful menage-a-trois that has lately brought him (and his entire maladministration) low.

With Katrina, the sheer incompetence of the man -- and nearly everyone he's surrounded himself with -- was on view for the world to see. His tin-eared, too-late response will live in the memories of this nation for generations to come -- the image of him playing a guitar while New Orleans drowned, his comments about partying at Mardi Gras in his youth and rebuilding Trent Lott's house from the "rubbles" of the one that was lost, his mother's chuckling observation about how disaster and relocation was "working out very well" for the poor of Louisiana -- these and more combined to reveal to all but the most partisanly-blinded ideologue that we had a singularly overmatched person in a position of great power at a time when we could least afford it. Simply put, he blew it. "Brownie, yer doin' a heckuva job."

The shit really hit the right-wing fan, though, with the nomination of Harriet "I (Heart) My Brilliant Georgie" Miers to the Supreme Court. Suddenly all the talk about cronyism and incompetence, about rewarding loyalty over ability, became clear, even to those who had, up to that point, defended him. Harriet Miers, the conventional wisdom goes, is even less qualified to be a Supreme Court justice than her nominator is qualified to be president. The fact that many on the fringe right (which has now become the de facto mainstream right) opposed her nomination because she wasn't conservative enough -- read: they weren't 100% convinced that she would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade -- is irrelevant. What's important is that it has led to this sea change, this mass disenchantment, this peek-behind-the-curtain moment when the people who had just recently been cheering the Emperor for his stylishness and taste suddenly, as one, realize that he is wearing no clothes.

It remains to be seen what this will all mean in terms of the political landscape over the course of the next few years. With the Plame investigation about to come to a head, no one yet knows how much more trouble that will bring to an already-beleaguered White House. But unless Patrick Fitzgerald decides not to indict anyone -- not a particularly likely scenario at this point -- one would have to think that it will only cause more disillusionment among the masses who once believed that the man occupying the Oval Office is a good guy, a strong leader and someone they'd like to sit down and have a beer with. Could it be that our long national nightmare will soon be over? That enough Americans have finally come out of their stupor to realize that a significant change needs to be made, and made soon, if we and our Constitution are to survive?

George, your slip is showing.

I Have a Dream, Part II: Penitentiary Boogaloo

I can't remember where I originally got this picture, but it's been sitting on my desktop for a week now, so I figured it was about time I shared it with you. Missing from this motley crew are Rove, Libby, DeLay, Frist and a few others, but it still looks like a damn good start to me.

Blogrolling In Our Time: Secret Cinema

As long as I'm shilling websites for friends and family, I should definitely mention this one for all you cinephiles out there. My bro Motis, my Main Man in China, the Hoodoo of Chengdu, is affiliated with a rilly bitchin' site (it's owned by Intelligroup Empire Communications, AG, and and operated by user volunteers) where you can download and discuss movies, movies, TV shows and movies. And movies. And stuff. Check it out, it's colossal, it's amazing, it's stupendous, it's Secret Cinema!

***Note: A correction was made in this post regarding the ownership and operating status of the site. Still, you should visit, and visit often.***

NorCal Politics

As some of you already know, the NorCal Politics blog is now up and running, featuring commentary and information about Northern California politics from our own Jeremy Woodburn, and with a new post today from yours truly. Check it out and spread the word if you're interested.

They Sure Did a Lot in Five Days!

"The number of Iraqi army battalions that can fight insurgents without U.S. and coalition help has dropped from three to one, top U.S. generals told Congress yesterday, adding that the security situation in Iraq is too uncertain to predict large-scale American troop withdrawals anytime soon."

"Decline in Iraq Troops' Readiness Cited," Washington Post, Sept 30, 2005

"Over 30 percent of the Iraqi troops are in the lead on these offensive operations. We've got troops embedded with them, and that's an important part of the training mission. But nevertheless, the Iraqis are showing more and more capability to take the fight to the enemy."

President Bush, October 5, 2005

Need a Job?

NAME: Julie Myers
POSITION: Director: Immigration & Customs
SALARY: $122,500/year (pending)
TESTIMONIAL: "OMIGOD, like, CronyJobs is SOOOO AWESOME! After I helped Ken Starr crucify that semen geyser Bill Clinton, I got hired in the Bush White House. And I made coffee so well there, now I get to manage the 20,000 agents who keep America's borders as impenetrable as the boss's daughters!"

(Check it out, readers; maybe YOU can get a job with the Bush maladministration too! Many thanks to Fred for this link.)

Congressional Rollcall Voting Analysis

The self-described Loopy Dr. Laniac (who has probably forgotten more about HTML than I'll ever know) has just posted a new and useful tool to help determine how the Dems in Congress are voting, and whether or not they're actually living up to their obligations to we, the people. Check it out, especially all you stat and numbers geeks. It's a great companion post to his earlier Blue Dog vs. True Blue, Senate Voting Patterns and House Voting Solidarity pieces.

Hitchens on Harriet

If there's one thing we here at the G-Brand Dude Ranch and Dance Emporium appreciate, it's good snark. Therefore we were very happy that our old friend Scott passed along this link to a piece by the porcine, besotted and otherwise useless Christopher Hitchens. Yes, yes, we realize Hitchens is still, against all reason, defending the bloody American abusement park BushCo has set up in Iraq, but when it comes to his bashing the pious, the sanctimonious, the... well, actually, pretty much anyone that expresses any sort of religious conviction whatsoever, he is perhaps in a league of his own. And when that happens, all we ask is for a ringside seat and a couple of tall ones.

Hitchens' ire in this case is raised by the Supreme Court nomination of Harriet "Plame Protection" Miers, and the role her religion (and, by extension, every nominee's religion) plays in the nominating process. Here's an excerpt:

Of the nomination of Harriet Miers... it can be said that only her religion has been considered by her conservative fans to be worth mentioning. What else is there to say, in any case, about a middling bureaucrat and yes-woman than that she attends some mediocre place of worship? One could happily make a case that more random civilians, and fewer fucking lawyers, should be on the court. But the only other thing to say about Miers is that she is a fucking lawyer. Her own opinion of herself is somewhat higher: She does not attribute her presence among us to the laws of biology but chooses to regard herself as having a personal and unmediated relationship with the alleged Jesus of Nazareth, who is further alleged to be the son of God. Such modesty! On this basis, the president and his people have felt able to issue assurances of her OK-ness. So, as far as I can determine, she was set, and has passed, a religious test: that of being an "Evangelical" Christian.

The cowardice of the Democrats in this respect is absolutely breathtaking. Having determined that they, too, must move to faith-based high ground (and having chosen a Mormon as their Senate leader), they have refused to make the smallest squeak about this overt theocratic blackmail. Having swallowed [John] Roberts by agreeing that religion should have nothing to do with it, they will swallow Miers even though it now seems that religion has everything to do with it. The worst they will say is that she might be unsound on Roe v. Wade and that she might be insufficiently qualified. Even the incensed right wing has been more principled than that (though the line of the week award must go to Terry Eastland in the Weekly Standard, who solemnly says that "Several friends of Miers told me, on background, that she is pro-life and defines marriage in traditional terms." On background …)

In the very near future, the court is certain to hear arguments about whether the state or the states should determine who decides who carries a baby to full term and about whether the state or the states should take a position on evolution versus the argument from design. (I am sorry, but I flatly refuse to play the silly current game of prefixing the word "design" with the word "intelligent.") There is simply no point in asking an active member of the Valley View Christian Church of North Dallas what she "thinks" about abortion or creationism, because, although the Bible often recommends actual infanticide—and is thus open to "interpretation"—this congregation's view of Roe v. Wade is well-known and also because the Valley View Christian Church of North Dallas has allowed itself the discovery that the Bible is "the only infallible, inspired, authoritative Word of God." (You have to love that broad-minded "only." As if there were some rival claimant for that distinction that had been weighed in the balance in North Dallas and found wanting.)

Either Miers takes her faith seriously, in which case it must be her life's mission to redeem those who have not accepted Jesus as their savior, or she does not, in which case she is a vapid and posturing hypocrite. And either she is nominated in order to gratify a political constituency, whose leaders such as James Dobson of Focus on the Family seem to have had advance notice, or she is not, in which case the president could see no further than his own kitchen Cabinet in searching for merit. So, the whole exercise is a disgusting insult.

Don't soft-pedal it, Chris, how do you really feel?

God, Speak to George and Tell Him to Take a Damn Hike

I totally believe George Bush when he says that God talks to him, and that God told him to invade Iraq (among other things). No question about it. He literally heard the voice of God tell him to start a war against a sovereign nation that posed no threat to America. God talks to him all the time, I'm sure. Because what the news is failing to mention in this story is that, in George Bush's world, Dick Cheney is God.

Unless, of course, it's Rummy.

My Name is W

My good friend Dan Kemp sent me an email this morning that I thoroughly enjoyed, and wanted to share some of it with you, my faithful readers. Dan writes:

This whole business with Miers being nominated for the Supreme Court has left
me just speechless. It seems that it left the Democratic leadership speechless as well.
I think in this case it may have worked to our benefit. The first people to stand up
and note what a truly bad idea it is to have a non-judge being the final word on this
country's laws are the conservative zealots who have been Bush's bedrock supporters.

It's that moment when someone says something so asinine that everyone stops talking
and there is a long silence when everyone feels uncomfortable and embarrassed. And
in this case it's covered by the world news media.

It feels like we are in this mirror world where real life has imitated popular culture.

Open on title card:

My Name is W

W is sitting in the oval office reading "President of the United States for Dummies."
Tom DeLay sits across the desk looking anxious.

W:
Well it doesn't say anything in here about a Supreme Court judge needs to be a judge.

Tom:
They probably left it out because they assumed the reader would understand that part.
Like instructing someone to open the door before leaving the room.

W:
There's nothing in here about opening a door either.

Tom:
It was just an ironic example of not having to state the obvious. Never mind George.
I came here to talk to you about that political action committee I've been running out
of the Mail Boxes and More on 16th St. Do you remember?

W:
No.
(audience laughs)

Tom:
Sure you remember. Texans for Honest Government.

W:
Is that another ironic example of... What did you call it?
(audience laughs)

Tom:
Stating the obvious. Remember George, we talked about the bad laws that we need
to change in Texas.

W:
I used to be Governor of Texas.
(audience laughs and applauds)

Tom:
Yes George, I know. Please try and focus. Remember we talked about making things
right with the world. And I would help pay for it with my good idea.

W:
Yes. God told me to make things right with the world.
(audience applauds, there is a smattering of "praise Jesus" and "hallelujah.")

Tom DeLay slowly shakes his head with his face buried in his hands.

Cut to commercial.

Shorter Bush

"I just wanted to mention 9/11 today, like I do pretty much every day, and tell you to be afraid, be real afraid, and remember 9/11 and the terrorists. The terrorists, by the way, are worse than Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot and Dracula and Skeletor combined, just in case you forgot that. Remember 9/11, 'cause that was back when all y'all really liked me and thought I was a good preznit, which I still am, by the way, 'cause I'll keep you safe from them terrorists and Democrats and events like what happened back on September the 11th, 2001. Pay no attention to Karl Rove maybe bein' indicted or Dick Cheney maybe bein' indicted or Tom DeLay or David Safavian or Jack Abramoff bein' indicted, and just remember 9/11. We stand strong, our resolve is firm, and we're gonna win this war on terror some day. Thank you, and God bless America. Heh heh heh heh."

(37% approval rating. Heh heh heh heh.)

More on Miers

Speaking of Harriet "you're doin' a heckuva job" Miers, whose best quality from this quarter would seem to be that the Freepers and their ilk all appear to hate her (not that that in itself makes her any more qualified to be a Supreme Court justice than your average bag of hammers or stalk of broccoli), if you haven't seen this yet, you are missing out on a very funny site.

For instance:

You know, sometimes working in the White House you forget that you're standing shoulder to shoulder with giants. But then you have a speech like today and you just can't believe you are where you are!! And it's like, he's talking about *me*! Me, Harriet!

Every time he said "character," I melted a little bit... and he said it eight times! And when he said I'd "have that same philosophy 20 years from now"--he means when I'm 49 years old. Wow that's old! ;)

Check it out, it's a riot.

Happy Dance Part II

Apparently I was just getting ahead of myself when I first said last week that Tom DeLay was indicted for money-laundering. In fact, last week he was indicted for criminal conspiracy. This week, on the other hand, he was indicted for money laundering. That's actually a more serious charge, carrying with it the possibility of a life sentence. A life sentence!

Be still, my beating heart!

I have to wonder how long this run of good luck will last, what with the arrests and/or investigations continuing apace, from DeLay to Abramoff to Safavian to Frist to Ney to Cunningham to Rove and Libby and even possibly up the ladder to Chimpy McAWOL and Vice Preznit Go-Cheney-Yourself himself. What is it that happens when a Republican administration stays in office for two terms? Nixon resigned in disgrace, before he could be impeached. Reagan's entire staff and Cabinet and his basement NSA were practically all under investigation and/or indictment by the end of his second term. You'd have to go all the way back to Eisenhower -- who, with his comments warning about the dangers of the "military-industrial complex," his disdain for preemptive warfare and his utilization of the National Guard to defend civil rights in the South would qualify as an ultra-liberal in today's skewed-far-right political climate -- to find a two-term Republican administration that didn't end its second term under a dark legal cloud. Is it just that power itself is so corrupting, and what with the unprecedented power in the hands of the current crop of Republicans, has corrupted absolutely? Or is it something more inherent in the Republican philosophy of today, with its greed-is-good, corporations-are-king mindset that has sent so many right-wing politicos over the ethical edge?

You really have to wonder. In Nixon's day, one of the biggest reasons he resigned was because he knew -- and the whole country knew -- that he could not count on members of his own party to vote against his impeachment once the facts of Watergate came to light. The same cannot be said of today's House and Senate members. Even if it's proven that their Boy Bush was directly involved in the Plame outing -- which is looking increasingly likely -- even with all the gathered and gathering evidence that he lied us into an unnecessary, illegal and immoral war -- which ought to be an impeachable offense all by itself -- even with dozens of other lesser charges and shady actions and corruption and cronyism and incompetence surrounding him and his administration, you just know that the Congress as it's currently made up would not vote to impeach him. They just won't, no matter what. (Which is why it's imperative that we wrest control of Congress from the forces of darkness; and why it's even more vital that the Democrats begin to work on their spinal and testicular growth between now and the 2006 elections.)

Maybe one of the reasons Harriet Miers was nominated for the Supreme Court is that Spurious George thinks he may need some friends high up in the judiciary sometime in the next couple years, and who better than a woman who obviously worships him and has said that he is "the most brilliant man I ever met"? Yeesh.

Regardless of how it all shakes out -- and you can bet it will be some time in the shaking -- today is a happy day here at the Generik Brand. Tom Delay is going down, George Bush is going down, all of them are going down, and I'm dancing and snapping my fingers. Join me in a celebratory cocktail?

Six Degrees of Zarqawi

I'm coming a bit late to this, but if you haven't read the list up at Blogenlust of Zarqawi's alleged top henchmen captured or killed in Iraq over the past year, you've missed one excellent post. It's almost laughable, much like the body counts issued by the Pentagon during the Vietnam War. I recall at one point in the war, about 1972, it was said that, if those body counts were to be believed, every man, woman and child in Vietnam had been killed. I suppose pretty soon we'll have captured or killed every single Al Qaeda official above the rank of lance corporal, and then where will those terrorists be?

Firm resolve. Staying the course. Not giving in to the terrorists. Number Two man. Threat level yellow.

I feel better already.