But what about the children?

Explaining Dirty Jack to the little ones.

Dick has a wagon company.

And Dick likes Jane.

Dick contributes to Jane’s campaign.

Run, Jane, run!

Quite separate and apart from Jane, Dick is also shaken down for contributions by Human Chupacabra

Jack Abramoff.

Bilk, Jack, bilk!

Dirty Jack uses the cash he has scared Dick out of to bankroll sleazy, despicable insults to Christianity and Democracy like Tom DeLay and Ralph Reed.

Sin, Ralph, sin!

Dirty Jack also uses the cash he bilked Dick out of to finance people who turn around and fuck Dick over.

Cozen, Jack, cozen.

Then Jack gets caught.

Oh, oh, oh!

Caught and squeezed and is now singing (as I once said) like Michael Bolton with his balls dry-shaved and slathered in Tiger Balm.

Which has caused no little fear among his fellow Republican criminals.

The horror, Tom, the horror!

The thing is, while the problems with lobbyists are far and wide, the specific and suppurating Dirty Jack Scandal pustules are Exclusively Republican in etiology.

And given the clarity and simplicity of this story, even an averagely bright eight-year-old could not be able to mistake to morale at the heart of this little parable: Dick helped Jane, and was then fucked over by Jack…and so in what bizarro, alternate Universe does this add up to Jane being Jack’s co-conspirator?

Well, OK: In Republicanland and Mainstream Mediaville –- from whence facts and sweet reason have long been exiled –- drivers, passengers and the guy holding the gun and telling everyone to get the fuck out of the vehicle are all somehow equally guilty of the crime of carjacking.

When the passengers are Democrats.

Because if you’re still a rank-and-file GOPer after the last five years, or a Bigtime Professional White House Newsreading Haircut, lets face it; an averagely bright eight-year-old can probably outclever you three falls out of five.

Having said that, let me say that I have known a wide array of both stupid people and lying bastard in my time, but I must admit that I find the scope and breadth of willful, shameless and public lying and fake ignorance that has attended the Abramoff Affair kinda breathtaking.

And yet there is something oddly familiar about it. Something that has a vaguely 2005ish flavor. Something about it that we Liberals and Progressives need to remember.

The Long March of the Social Security Liars.

You remember the Social Security debacle right?

Wherein video poker slot jockey, bigot and notorious liar Bill Bennett declared, on February 3, 2005 that:

"Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the guy who established Social Security, said that it would be good to have it replaced by private investment over time. Private investment would be the way to really carry this thing through."

After which notorious liar and Bush Family Suppository, Brit Hume, declared that:

In a written statement to Congress in 1935, Roosevelt said that any Social Security plans should include, quote, "Voluntary contributory annuities, by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age," adding that government funding, quote, "ought to ultimately be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans."

(Both via Media Matters)

That was, of course, patently untrue.

Hume carved up FDR’s original words like Hannibal Lechter doing a guest shot on “Nip/Tuck” and inverted their intent in order to advance the House of Bush’s crusade to destroy the legacy of the New Deal.

He did it deliberately and maliciously. He did it under the color of being a journalist simply reporting the truth, and in the shadow of Dan Rather being run out of the anchor chair merely for making a foolish error in the context of a truthful story.

He remained while Rather was ousted, for the same reason that Clinton was flogged in the Congressional stocks for trivia while the Congress shrugs off and ignores Bush’s serial High Criminality.

Because Modern Republicans do not care about this country.

They care about power, and the amassing of power. Sometimes high dudgeon is the means they use. High flown rhetoric. Pious moralizing. The shedding of public tears and the enraged rending of public garments are useful tools, but only – ONLY -- when the beast in the cross-hairs is a Democrat.

When it’s Rostenkowski and stamps, or Clinton and fellatio, it’s “Pay any price and bear any burden” time, and let the Heaven’s fall…because at that moment outrage and moralizing are the most efficient means of aggregating power.

When its DeLay and Abramoff and Reed leading a vast, criminal enterprise, extortion, gutting the Constitution of Texas and the House Ethics committee…fuggedaboutit.

When it’s Bush and lying about war and peace, torture and spying…who gives a shit?

Because anyone who has survived the moral winnowing process of the last five years and has stayed Republican does not care about this country.

They care only about power, and the amassing of power, because only in that morally degenerate context does the fact that they still lionize DeLay and Abramoff and Bush and Cheney as Gods make any sense sitting chockablock with all of their Righteous Clinton-era Rhetoric about holding public officials to account for any offense against the commonweal, no matter how small.

What some of us forget sometimes – what still never fails to shock me, even though I know better – is that when cornered, these fuckers are in no way subtle or slick.
They just lie and lie and lie. They lie loudly and with a straight face.

Rather than simply living up to their own slogans, rather than standing up like men when caught and taking personal responsibility for their crimes, this party of Personal Responsibility will always and unhesitatingly use blunt, screaming lies like a battering ram to bash their way out of the corner into which they have painted themselves.

And being weak, lazy and spineless, the Mainstream Media will always aid and abet them.

They’ll lie like Nixon whenever it suits them because being a Modern Republican means always putting power and Party ahead of country, and never telling the truth when a lie will do.