Sunday Mornin’ Coming Down

In which Christ is driven from the marketplace instead of t’other way ‘round.

And remember, all quotes are approximate: contents may have shifted during shipping.

On Civet News – Browie comes out, gun’s blazin’!

Abridged Brownie: The Government sucks. Michael “Chert-Head” Chertoff sucks. We’re worse off that before 9/11.

Steve Gilliard has this just about right: Brownie is the GOPs Joe Valachi.

A Nordstrom-clad flunky given an cush job with the syndicate on the same tacit, wink-nod-fuggedaboudit terms on which everyone takes a job with any big, dirty organization being run by assworms: You draw a check, get to put a faboo title on your biz cards and play with Big Expensive Toys...until the day comes for you to perform a reciprocal service for the Godfather.

At which point you take one for the team, STFU, do your time, and get pensioned quietly off into sinecure. Maybe get filtered back up the food chain if you’re especially gifted: like, say, you have pix of Dick Cheney beating a dog to death with a snow shovel. Or maybe you can simultaneously fit the testicles of the entire Bush Cabinet into your mouth and still whistle, “Brown-eyed Girl”.

Whatever. Something entertaining, bestial or extortable.

So why is it important that Brownie did his #2s all over Chertoff on Fox?

Because doing it on Fox actually pumps the ugliness of this internecine, GOP slapfight straight into the bloodstream of the wingnut rank-and-file.

‘Cause Fox is where the Rat People -- who could point to neither NOLA nor Iraq on a map if the lives of their children depended on it -- get their "News".

Or, rather, their chewy-chewy, Nooz-Flavored, media-excreta.

Produced in a manner strikingly similar to Civet Coffee.

Because, come on! Go ahead and tell me that when you hear a sentence like this --

“…eaten, partly digested and then excreted by the weasel-like animals.”

-- the Evil Gumby visage of Fox News’ slab of snarling gristle -- Brit Hume --doesn’t positively leap to mind.


On Face the Nation – Mostly Murtha.

We strike up the band with this quote by General Peter Pace -- “The war is going very, very well.” – and an invitation by our host to Congressman John Murtha to respond.

Murtha: Why should we believe anything these people say?

Murtha has a gift for keeping it simple.

Amen, Congressman, and here you playing along at home can insert your own breathtaking and daily-lengthening laundry list of lies and ass-headed judgments made by the Bush White House.

Murtha: The Iraqis know where the bad guys are. They just won’t tell us, because they no longer trust us. We have lost their hearts and minds. The commanders have AC, electricity, hot water and good food. The Iraqis, on the other hand, have nothing except resentment (driftglass distillation.)

Murtha: Everything that has gone wrong. And everything they have screwed up along the way that could have been done to save this situation from clean water to food to electricity to jobs were things we warned this Administration about years ago and which they completely blew off.

For you sticklers out there, Murtha is more accurately quoted via this article, which isn’t quite a transcript, but is close enough for gummint work:

"The only people who want us in Iraq are Iran and al-Qaeda”…

"And I talked to a top-level commander the other day and he said China wants us there also. Why? Because we're depleting our resources ... our troop resources and our fiscal resources.”

Murtha on ports: Roosevelt said, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Well these guys have used fear as a club since 9/11, so how dare they act surprised when the American public reacts like they have.

Dick Lugar followed and, frankly, such an old man shouldn’t try break dancing so early on a Sunday.

Lugar -- as determinedly cloudy and colorless as old ice.

What do I mean?

When asked a very pointed question about Gen. Pace’s opinion of the overall terrificness of the Iraqi situation, Lugar answers…We may be in a civil war. Or...maybe not. Difficult the future is. Much confusion. It depends on Talabani. Depends on the Parliament. Depends of the tea leaves. Depends on the ley-lines. Depends on the “I Ching”. Depends on how you read the “I Ching”. Depends on my Depends.

Depends on a lotta shit.

Lugar (on where the GOP stand these days): Uh, there is, uh, general support of the President and the troops and so forth. And things could still all work out! In the event Iraq forms a democracy. In the event our economy booms. In the event the yarrow sticks are interpreted correctly.

Shorter Lugar: “All is for the best, in the best of all possible worlds…”



On This Week – Ports...but the UAE and not the USB kind.

Congressman Duncan Hunter (R): The gummint (the White House) didn’t do their due diligence. Wow. Lassies bites Timmy.

Senator Susan Collins (R): The whole process is flawed. Review was not done, and even if it had been, it's still would be done by the wrong people. Too weighed towards investment and not security.

Again, amen. Orphaned-Republican Collins ( :-) Thanks for the catch, Andrew. This is what I get for speed-typing from scrawled notes, while sipping Oban, while watching Lauren Bacall flub her read on the Oscars) seems to be hitting just about the right notes today. Firm, competent, workmanlike. You know...Liberal. Striking a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger note on her turn out on the digital boards.

(Wesley) Clark: Our security doesn’t depend on who own the ports, it vitally matters how we secure the ports.

Clark: Dubai is secondary (driftglass paraphrase). The primary problem is that our port security sucks. Homeland security has not been handled well here at home.

Clark (on Iraq): We have got to get responsible Sunni leadership into this government. What happens in Iraq is not about the military; it’s a problem the military can solve. It is a political problem.

driftglass aside: See, this is what is what happens when people who fundamentally do not believe in government and who only believe in politics as a tactic to gain enough power to destroy the government...are put in charge of creating a government. Like putting Norman Bates in charge of an Animal Shelter and then wondering why so many kittens start turning up dead, stuffed and on sale on eBay.

Clark: We should talk to Iran. Directly. It is the United States that has not taken its responsibilities seriously.

driftglass aside: But of course, Bush does not believe in “government.” Cheney does not believe in government. They are doing what they were hired to do: terminate the Federal Government with extreme prejudice. Razing, gutting, boosting-stripping-and-selling-for-parts is all they have ever excelled at.

Clark: (Precedes his remarks with long laundry list of crimes and treachery the GOP will not lift a finger to stop or even bother to look into) because the Republicans refuse to investigate Republicans. We, for example, have never finished the investigation of 9/11. This White House lied and gamed the intel, and it seems that no one in the Republican Party is interested in finding out what went wrong, or why.

driftglass aside: “Seems”?


This Week...Roundtable – Robert Reich, George Will and an up-and-coming-Brit-Humelet, Bill Sammon (Washington Examiner) (Thus adhering to the Red Shift Rule for the Sunday Mouse Circus that when you bother to even have a Lil’ Liberal like Robert Reich, you need to bracket him with at least two Conservatives.)

Reich: If people find out that 80% of our military contracts are done by furriners. Some of them quite sensitive...

driftglass aside: I find this comment unintentionally hysterical.

Think about it.

Reich is left-handedly acknowledging that, even though this broadcast is being sent out free of charge over the magical teevee box, it is essentially a stealth op. That the Rat People have self-segregated themselves away from any data that would make their tiny heads ache so utterly that the Great Wad would find even this debased, mutant form of public discourse too taxing.

Will: Who will stand with the President? The Preznit made a huge mistake by saying...something. Sorry, but this is where my neocon A.D.D. kicked in. Couldn’t care less. George Will is sticking the fork in this week...which means next week he’ll be felching nickels out of Dubya’s sphincter.

Hmm? Bill Sammon? Who is this idjit, anyway? Another third-rate GOProcurer making the most of his five minutes under the Big Lights to prove his loyalty to Big Daddy Dubya, singing the hell out of “It’s Hard Out Here For A Pimp” as a paean to his bosses.

What does he have to say?

SOS: Same ol’ shit.

The Dems wanna have it both ways. Blah blah blah. Howard Dean said that the Republicans are too weak on Defense. But the Dems say Dubya's too strong on defense. They want it both ways! Bad Dems!

Well, Reich dropped the ball, again. Jeez Bob. Here is the right answer:

That this is a flat out lie, but what can you expect from a Republican?

Dems never for a minute ever said the Dear Leader was “too strong” on defense. No, we maintain that he’s too inept, corrupt, distractedly “don’t-care-ish” on defense to ever be trusted to look after a damned thing.

Sammon: The Liberals! The Left using this for their purposes. And...and...The Media. The Tewwible Tewwible Media! Them! Those people! Hate them. Hate the “other”.

Sammon (on the Oscars): These are preachy, Lefty movies that nobody wants to see. Which is why Hollywood is losing at the box office.

Stephanopoulos (putting the knife in): So which was your favorite?

Sammon (caught flat-footed loudly opining about shit about which he knows not): I don’t know. I didn’t see any...I mean, I, uh, I, none, uh, none of them appealed to me.

driftglass aside: Which means you didn’t see a damned one of them, but knew you didn’t like ‘em because all the rest of the Kool Kids who didn’t wanna go see a buncha fag flicks and lefty films told you them didn’t like ‘em.

Shorter driftglass on Sammon: The Bad Guys are running on fumes. To find some dunsel that can sit upright in a chair without scaffolding and chocks under his ass, al that won’t start flossing his sinuses with his tie under pressure, they’ve had to tag-in their third-stringers; Pillsbury D’oh!-boys with as much tensile strength as a pillowcase full of poached eggs.

This is good news.

Then on to Face the Nation -- following the obligatory 2-to-1 GOP-to-Dem ration we find General Peter Pace, followed up by John Edwards and Jack Kemp.

Pace: All is well.

Timmuh: OK, but polls suck. It’s, like, a trillion to one against staying one more day in Iraq! Can you keep an Army in the field with these kind of numbers?

Pace: No. Which is why we have to...wait for it...wait for it...”remarket” the fucking war. ‘Cause that’s the problem! The packaging!

The problem, sayeth Pace, is that after almost exactly three years in-country and a one year of prep – all slathered in an all-out, propaganda campaign of lies and deceit, aided and abetted by a completely boneless, prostrate Media that have ceded the field to the Administration Talking Point Marching Band at every point – that the poor, poor White House just can’t get its message out and ‘Murricans don’t really, really know just how terrific everything is really going in Iraq.

Seem no one likes the New Iraq, so we need to go back to Classic Iraq.

Or maybe Cherry Iraq.

Or Vanilla Iraq.

Or Black Cherry Vanilla Iraq.

Yeah, that’s the problem.

Other than putting the proper spin on this puppy, all is well!

All is well!!

Kemp: Lots of problems, but foremost, there is no economic component to the Iraqi problem.

True, but insufficient. Like saying that the problem with a high-rise fire is the drunk doorman. But then, Kemp has no context in which he can speak with any authority but economic, so there you go.

Kemp: Fundamental misjudgements. Mispreceptions. We need to announce that we have a timetable, and that we have absolutely no intention to leave bases in Iraq.

When pigs pilot Predator drones, Kemp.

Edwards: (Timmuh quoting Edwards’ op-ed page.) I was wrong. My judgment was wrong.

Timmuh: But what about…

Edwards: I was wrong.

Timmuh: But what about this quote from Boy’s Life in 1972?!

Edwards: I. Was. Wrong. Look, I believe in moral leadership. That we need it in this country, and this country need to lead the world. And moral leadership begins with the truth.

Timmuh (deflating from full Fugu Mode for lack of any self-consciously defensive Dem onto whom he can ejaculate his “J'accuse!” sac): So, uh, what do we do now?

(Because, come on! Go ahead and tell me that when you hear a sentence like this --

“The poison paralyzes the muscles while the victim stays fully conscious, and eventually dies from asphyxiation.”

little, puffy Russ doesn’t positively leap to mind.)

Edwards lays out a whole menu of programs and directions building on his Two Americas theme.

Ably done, President Edwards!

Russia: Bunch of nuttieness going on there. Putin bad. Anti-Democratic. Ruthless.

It’s...it’s....almost as if the Dear Leader was wrong when his put on his Majyk Anima-Vision Goggles, looked deep in the Pooty-Poot’s manly eyes and said, “I declare this soul...Clean!”

Timmuh: It’s nice to have a Democrat and a Republican sitting here together!

Hmmm. I wonder who that non sequitur was directed at?

His corporate overlords?

Me (an a thousand others) who called his Bloated Self out for booking three Republicans and no Dems last week?

Or the bland man with the trank-rifle who stands just off-camera and forces poor Punkin’ Haid to hand his spotlight over to GOP apologists week after week after week.

And, lastly, the most weirdly apropos moment of the day did not come from The Mouse Circus at all.

It came from WGN.

Since this was Oscar Day, and WGN has nothing whatsoever to do with that behemoth, it would appear that they just picked a Big Oscar Name out of the WGN Sombrero and decided to feature that guy all day long.

Sorta.

And today it was the very worthy Al Pacino who they elected to, believe it or not, limn in “Glengarry, Glen Ross”.

“Glen Fucking Garry Glen Fucking Ross.”

Edited for tee-Fucking-vee.

I kid you not.

Mamet’s searing, brutal masterpiece of flawed men shattering and turning on one another under the metal-stamping pressure of the ominous and invisible “Mitch and Murray” from “downtown”...completely flensed of Mamet’s language.

The language that Mamet guards like the last splinter of the True Cross.

That he allows no actor to diddle with.

That he demands be spoken and paused and breathed around like a cast spell.

Flawless, foul language eviscerated by the signature station -- WGN -- of Mamet’s signature city -- Chicago.

And somehow the unintended but perfect, unalloyed metaphoriness of it just whammed the air right out of my lungs.

That the true obscenity of this modern “Death of a Salesman” -- the pulverizing of imperfect men in an merciless, sadistic economic vice over which they have no control and from which they cannot flee -- is allowed on the screen...but the diamond-pure-diamond-sharp, potty-mouth language that Mamet uses to lay it all bare is neutered beyond recognition.

So this epic of capitalist pornography rolled on, but every scary word -- from “Fuck” to “Balls” to “Christ” (hence the subtitle for this little essay) -- so indispensably necessary to correctly “frame [the] fearful symmetry” of this American tragedy, depilated and denatured.

Whittled away to so much tepid air to spare the delicate ears of those can’t be bothered to be horrified by the blunt force of the story itself, but would flee their La-Z-Boys should the vagrant “cock” slither its way into their cochlea.

So to speak.

How very George Orwellian

How very Scott McClellian.

And that was Sunday, as I saw it.