Sunday Morning Comin’ Down

What do "Kojack", "The Honeymooners" and the GOP Iraq Spin Olympics have in common?

This week, despite the leaves falling faster that Dubya's poll numbers, the chill in the air and the lengthening shadows of an approaching solstice, it felt just like Summer, when all the shows go on hiatus and the airwaves are thick with “encore performances”.

Today it was “GOP 2002 Redux: Let the Remarketing Begin!”

But first let me ask the question all America want’s to know: Was it Steve Gilliard’s very own blog that Ken Mehlman was referencing during his fabulous Wicked Witch, “What a world! What a world!” tongue-clucking One Man Show on Meet the Press?

Was it that mean, ol’ Gilly who called out Michael Steele on being, um, a Turner of Coats using clarion clear and church-bell plain language that the Mell-Man was all a-flap about?

The ubertheme today -- especially on the Brit Hume Baby Eating Hour – was twofold, each targeted towards the same end. Specifically, broadening the same “Blame Clinton even though we’ve been running the show from ass to antlers for half a decade now” meme to desperately try to shift the “Who Lost Iraq?” question onto the backs of the Dems who, admittedly, made this cardinal error: They trusted George W. Bush.

They were foolish enough to trust a single word that came out of the bibble-spigots of the cowards and liars and poltroons that control the White House. In the end, their's was a failure of imagination.

They were told by the President of the United States that he needed the elbow-room of a credible threat to bring down the wrath of the United States Armed Forces in order to force Iraq to comply with inspections…

They were told by the President of the United States that he would never, ever, ever use such a resolution to go to war precipitously…

They were told by the President of the United States that he if he ever had to take us to war, it would be a last resort, and that we would never, ever, ever go in without a fully-developed exit strategy…

And they were told by the President of the United States -- while standing in the deep, terrifying shadow of 9/11 -- that another, more devastating attack with nuclear weapons was imminent unless we invaded Iraq Right Now!!

Flashblinded by grief and fear and a historical Rally-round-the-Chief reflex-response to crisis, they did not comprehend that George Bush is a balloon animal masquerading as President, and that his White House is a criminal junta run by hucksters and madmen who have no concern whatsoever for the good of the country by any definition that a non-sociopath would comprehend.

They did not understand that while normal, non-Evil people viewed 9/11 as a tragedy, the Neocon White House viewed the rubble of the WTC exactly as shark views a wounded seal, or gangrene views a open wound.

As a free lunch buffet.

As an opportunity the take a 9/11 Sledgehammer to the Middle East and remake it as they saw fit. And if the facts did not fit their case, well Hell, why not just take the 9/11 Sledgehammer to the data too? Treat it like just another enemy of Dear Leader, to be extaordinarily rendered off to a star chamber and tortured until it says whatever the fuck they want it to say.

That was the mistake leading Dems made. They failed to recalibrate their imaginations wide enough to comprehend that, while most people would view our national tragedy, funeral and period of mourning as a chance for somber reflection and grief, George Bush and his cronies saw it as a moment of national weakness they could exploit to rape the widow and steal her car.

So today the GOP and their surrogates were out en masse to make the following arguments, side-by-side:

1. How dare anyone question anything Dear Leader says during this War on Terrorism. Any such quibbling with Dear Leader is tantamount to treason.

Followed in the same breath with…

2. Why didn’t the Democrats question Dear Leader harder? Why didn’t you grill him back in ’02? Huh? Huh?

So it was vastly entertaining to watch the Party of God continue its weekly attempt to rewrite history, causality and the laws of physics as completely as an Etch-a-Sketch doodle of one of the “Mobile Weapon’s Labs” that Saddam never had after it's been lobbed into a paint-shaker.

Which will of course always work on about 1/3 of the people (or 70% of Republicans) in any support-the-Preznit poll, on any subject, ever, because frankly, don’t you have to be either retarded or morally degenerate to self-identify as a Republican anymore? Isn’t that the only weapon the GOP has left? Tapping the invincible ignorance of their Strategic Fucktard Reserve?

And what were they up to today?

Glad you asked.

On Fox…

God bless Mike Huckabee for accidentally letting us know where the Republican hearts and minds are these days when he characterized both Scooter Libby and Iraq as “distractions”.

Chris Wallace asking timeless questions with a perpetual, eye-rolling smirk stuck in his voice as conspicuous as a bone in his throat. Such as…

“Do the people of New Mexico really care about something the VP said in 2002?!!” and “How long do you think the Democrats are going to ‘ride this’!?” in reference to Iraq.

Also, having explained to the world that there is “an exit strategy” which consists of “a stable Iraq”, someone needs to explain the Governor Huckabee the difference between a “strategy” and an “outcome”. See an example of an “outcome” would be me riding an ecstatic Lucy Liu like Seabiscuit all weekend long, but a "strategy" would be the crafty means I would employ to accomplish this noble goal.

Also frankly waking up and watching Brit Hume is way too much like waking up and licking an ashtray.

This is no part of him that does not ooze moral pustulence. Only in a deeply sick, deeply mad culture could a thug like him exist outside of some 4:00 a.m. public access nuthouse. A “journalist” only in the same sense a sun-dial is a “time-piece” when all it does is sit in front of a million-candle-power Klieg-light that throws an unwavering, million-mile shadow down at hard right 3:00 p.m. and never budges an inch despite the rising and setting of the sun outside.

On This Week…

I skipped it. Ho hum. Yadda yadda. So sue me.


On Face the Nation…

John McCain tried his level best to stuff himself into his Johnny Cash togs and play “Walk the Line” on national teevee. Simultaneously trying to be a serious critic of the war (pointing out that we still can’t even control the main road to the airport) while nattering on that it’s wrong to suggest that Dubya misled the American people, or that Dick Cheney is anything other than an honorable public servant, a friend of McCain and a patriot.

Sadly, McCain no longer has the chops the play the Man in Black (But I hear Jaochim Phoenix does!).

As he tries to straddle the fence but still front himself as a maverick he comes across as just another Senator in a Gray Flannel Suit, with a solid hero’s past and a thinning, liquefying future.

On Meet the Press…

As if to bequeath to future generations a perfect object lesson in just how bankrupt the Party of Personal Responsibility really is now that it owns the entire government and has to at least pretend to govern, Ken Mehlman relaunched the “Iraq = 9/11” campaign.

Aggressively.

In fact, here is a picture of the GOP Wizard of Speed and Time deploying his Magic 9/11 Powers to try to carry Public Nemesis #1 to safety.

Jesus!

How come the drunks are always so fucking heavy!

But what can you expect?

It is literally all they have left to hide behind, and Mehlman spun it out like what it is: The GOP’s Top Quark. The fractal out of which they build every argument. The elemental particle out of which they construct their castles in the air, which they then up-armor as weapon's platforms for launching wars that have nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11.

It is the Vulcan Neck Pinch that they still try to use to stifle all dissent and cripple any opposition.

(And, BTW, if any of the bean counters at NBC are looking for a place to shave a few pfennigs, may I suggest you look into the “Speech” function that comes free of charge with any Apple Computer. Just line up the quotes that Timmuh Russert will be regurgitating that week, let the freeware do its thing and you can cut the Punkin Haid loose without a soul noticing, and save yourself the price of a really ass-kicking holiday party.)

The whole Mell-Man segment went pretty much like this:

Timmuh: Isn’t there a cloud over the White House over Iraq.

Mell-Man: 9/11/9/11/9/11/9/11. Iraq is not a matter of domestic politics. 9/11/9/11. Iraq is about National Security. 9/11/9/11.

Timmuh: But Iraq didn’t have shit-all to do with 9/11.

Mell-Man: 9/11/9/11/9/11/9/11/9/11/9/11/9/11/9/11/9/11/9/11/9/11/9/11/9/11.


Then came Howard Dean, a palate-clearing sorbet to wash away the stale taste of GOP lies. Dean pulled no punches, and his themes were simple and clear. Loosely transcribed, some of what he said was:

“This is an administration that has a fundamental problem with the truth.”

“Tell the truth. 6-8 years ago we [the Dems] made mistakes, but this country told the truth.”

“Telling the truth has a lot to do with defending America”

“The mistake Democrats have made is not talking about our moral values.”

“Our job now is to stop this corrupt and incompetent administration.”

He was on it. Calling out the gargantuan hypocrisy of the GOP who demand an up-or-down vote on their new Supreme Court nominee, while living with the legacy of killing hundreds of Clinton court appointments before any hearings were ever held, and killing their own President’s nomination of Harriet Meirs before the banging of a single gavel.

It was a call for honesty, both as a fundamental requirement of civil society and as an indispensable element of national defense.

It was a call for reaching back and remembering to explicitly articulate the deeply moral, deeply pro-American, deeply Liberal context that frames and informs our policies and positions.

And that, Governor Huckabee, is what a fucking "strategy" looks like.