Blast Fishing* in the Fever Swamp.

Definitely not recommended.

*(Blast Fishing: “…the practice of using dynamite or other explosives to stun or kill schools of fish for easy collection”)

File under: History is fun.

Sometimes, when the weather is as sensorium-stunning, brick-melting, pigeon-combusting hot as it is here in the city, it’s the better part of valor of climb into the virtual punt with six-pack of something iced and slowly pole out into the febrile bogs of digital days gone by.

No sudden moves on a Blog Day Afternoon best suited to make lazy anchor under the limbs of ancient binary trees -- creaking with the sultry weight of their rotting shawls of Spamish CMOS -- and then lob a few stick of virtual dynamite into the murk and see what bytes and bones and mathoms hove on up to the surface.

Because on a summer day when the Sun has taken up a geosynchronous orbit ten feet above your head, basic cognition becomes an act of defiance and cleverness something mentally tabled until crisper weather.

So in the swelter I find it rewarding to dwell on two things:

First, in Iraq all summer long it is this fucking hot, plus a 20% serviceman’s Cakewalk Bonus thrown in at no extra charge. And whatever else is going on around me, I’m not in stranded in Iraq, outside, under-armored, humping a 100 lbs of equipment or driving a cardboard-reinforced targetmobile while people are trying to kill me.

Therefore I'm doing just fine.

Second, memories of summers past will come unbidden to mind. Hosing down my uncle’s garden by day so we could go bait nightcrawler hunting at dusk. Pickup baseball until you couldn’t see the pitches. Camping, with salmon and campfire taters and s’mores and cold wine.

Or this little jewel from a seven short summers ago.

A Remembrance of Wingnuts Past, in which I remember that there was once a thing called the “past” and that certain people -- certain Conservative people -- said certain things in that “past” that sound, well, kinda like the rankest sort of treason under bright new sun of 2006.

Not when measured not against the standards of a terrible Liberal like me. Heaven’s no!

Rather when measured against the principles they themselves espoused at 100,000 decibels each and every day. The Republican Guard, who chose to set the bar so very high and weld it in place: an ant-swarm of dime-store legislative Gandalfs, standing athwart the Constitution making Apocalyptic pronouncements about every kind of Presidential behavior.

From war powers to secret policies to peccadilloes, they roared “This shall not pass!” for all the world and all of history to see.

So how’s that working out?

The article reprinted in snips below is from the July 1999 edition of the Phyllis Schafly Report. Exactly seven years ago she printed this edition of her e-zine, “Eagle Forum”: a virtual broadsheet from back in the nearly-pre-blog-days and was the political Bible for rabid wingnuts, Impeachmentites, Clinton-haters and the assorted other dregs of humanity that make up the Republican Party.

And as you read, bear in mind a couple of things, both equally important.

First, we were not tricked into Yugoslavia. We were not lied into Yugoslavia.

We were not scared into Yugoslavia by dark hints of imminent mushroom clouds.

We were not attacked by Latvian terrorists and then stampeded into Yugoslavia because someone saw four Latvians in a café in Sarajevo six years before.

Agree or disagree, the Clinton Administration was willing to have a public debate over the actual reasons we went war. A war we fought – eyes open and as part of a genuine alliance -- for just the reasons we cited.

Second, Schlafly is not a two-digit hitcount blogger whose fall in the Opine Forests would make no sound.

Quite the contrary; her vast influence and so-far-Right-she’s-ultraviolet credentials are not in doubt.

Tamp down your gag reflex and read what her “Eagle Forum” bio has to say about her…

Phyllis Schlafly has been a national leader of the conservative movement since the publication of her best-selling 1964 book, A Choice Not An Echo. She has been a leader of the pro-family movement since 1972, when she started her national volunteer organization now called Eagle Forum. In a ten-year battle, Mrs. Schlafly led the pro-family movement to victory over the principal legislative goal of the radical feminists, called the Equal Rights Amendment. An articulate and successful opponent of the radical feminist movement, she appears in debate on college campuses more frequently than any other conservative. She was named one of the 100 most important women of the 20th century by the Ladies' Home Journal.

Mrs. Schlafly's monthly newsletter called The Phyllis Schlafly Report is now in its 38th year. Her syndicated column appears in 100 newspapers, her radio commentaries are heard daily on 460 stations, and her radio talk show on education called "Phyllis Schlafly Live" is heard weekly on 45 stations.

She, like few others, can be said to speak for the Right. And her ideas on Executive power and war, speculations on motives and deception, and example of the proper tone a Good American is allowed to strike when taking a President to task in public print can be taken as Conservative Holy Writ.

So what was the Right saying a mere seven years ago?

About a certain Commander-in-Chief?

During a time of war?

What imputations were they boldly and publicly making about his “real” motives?

And about the horrors that would now be unleashed by an “interventionst” policy that bullied countries that had not attacked us into doing what we wanted them to do?

About run-amok Executive Power?

Let’s take it subject-by-subject, shall we?

(Emphasis added, and here’s a link to the entire thing if you are so inclined)

On what to entitle you article respectfully raising doubts about the Commander-in-Chief during wartime:

"Clinton's War Is a Tragic Failure"

Wheee! And we're off...

On war, its efficacy, and what it will really cost the taxpayer:

"The media and the Washington establishment have been touting Clinton's "victory" in the Balkans and the "success" of his bombing. But no amount of "spin" can prove such delusional notions. The deal that ended the 80 days and nights of bombing was no better, and possibly worse, than we could have had before the bombing started. Yugoslavia has been bombed back into the 19th century. Clinton and NATO have done over $50 billion worth of damage to Yugoslavia without achieving any strategic or humanitarian objective. Of course, we all know that the U.S. taxpayers will eventually be called upon to rebuild the Danube River bridges, the civilian property, and the water, electric, sanitation and communications infrastructure that the bombing destroyed."

On the loss of moral authority that comes from attacking a country that has not attacked you:

"Clinton has bombed six sovereign countries during the past year: Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania. None of those countries attacked or threatened us or our allies. For the first time in history, the United States was the aggressor in war, thus forfeiting our reputation as a peace-loving nation. For the first time in history, a President took us into war when we were not attacked or threatened, and where we have no discernable national interest."
…

On making matters worse:

"Clinton's talk about our "moral" duty to take "humanitarian" action is as phony as his lies about his private misbehavior. All the people he said he wanted to help are now far worse off than before his bombing started. "
…

On damaging – not building – one’s reputation when one behaves like a bully:

"Clinton defended the bombing as needed to save NATO's credibility. On the contrary, Clinton's war did terrible damage to NATO's credibility because it changed NATO into a bully trying to impose its will on a non-NATO country."

On actually getting rid of fuck-ups if you’re going to cop to a plea of “mistakes were made”:

Clinton's bombing fractured our relations with the two most dangerous nations in the world: Russia and China. It's not surprising that the Chinese don't believe that the bombing of their embassy in Belgrade was a mistake. They think that blaming it on a two-year old map doesn't ring true and, besides, nobody has been fired or punished.

On staying on your Dalek-minded “Destroy Clinton! Destroy! Destroy!” message rain or shine by darkly speculating on the President’s “real” motives. Because once you’ve cavalierly dismissed the stated ones out-of-hand, you can get back to the only thing you ever really cared about: smirking about blowjobs and circle-jerking about conspiracies...

“So why did Clinton do it? Did he start the bombing of Yugoslavia, and keep it going for 80 days despite several good opportunities to end it … in order to distract attention from the transfers of U.S. missile technology to Communist China and the Clinton Administration's coverup?
…

Or, was it because he wanted the drama of war to define his legacy, rather than impeachment and Monicagate? After all, Clinton complained at the White House Correspondents dinner that he ranked only 53rd on the Newseum list of the top news stories, asking, "What do I have to do to make the top 50?" The answer is, start a war.

Clinton bombed a remote camp in Afghanistan and an aspirin factory in the Sudan just three days after his non-apology about the Monica scandal was such a public relations flop. He bombed Iraq the day before the House was scheduled to begin impeachment proceedings.

Or, was Clinton's bombing of Yugoslavia a ruse to get Americans accustomed to an interventionist policy under which our armed forces will, again and again, be called upon to play global cops and global social workers for the rest of the world?”
…

On how noble it is when Congressmen stand up and tell the President to fuck off:

“The media spinmeisters have been trying to put Republican Members of Congress on the griddle because they were critical of Clinton's war and refused to support it. History will show that they were absolutely right to vote against Clinton's military actions in Yugoslavia.

"By large majorities, Republican Members of Congress went on record against Clinton's war: 93% voted to require Congressional approval before ground troops were sent in, 86% voted against the bombing, 80% voted against sending peacekeeping troops, 58% voted to withdraw U.S. forces after the bombing started, and 64% voted to forbid the use of defense appropriations for Yugoslavia without specific Congressional approval.”

On citing other leading Conservatives agreeing with you that what the President did was reckless, unforgivable, unconstitutional and probably criminal:

“Jack Kemp said it exactly right in an editorial entitled "A Web of Deceit" (Washington Times, June 27, 1999). He called Clinton's war "a debacle, an international Waco, which no amount of spinning by NATO and the media can erase." Kemp called the war "unnecessary, illegal and unconstitutional from the beginning. It failed on every score to achieve the goals articulated to justify it, exacerbated the very problems it sought to remedy and created new problems that will plague America and the Balkans for years to come."

Tsk Tsk. Doesn’t the following statement mean that Jack Kemp is “objectively” pro-dictator? Pro-rape? Pro-torture? Pro-terror? That he believes that the world would be better off if Milosevic were still in power?

“Kemp pointed out that "the bombing and the killing and destruction it wreaked in Yugoslavia were absolutely unnecessary to achieving the final terms of the current agreement." Clinton could have gotten the same or even a better deal at Rambouillet if he had wanted to, but he flung an ultimatum on Milosevic that no sovereign country could accept…”

On the horrors of unbridled Executive Power:

“What Clinton did to Yugoslavia was bad enough, but what he did to the United States Constitution was even worse. He stole from Congress its constitutional power to decide when and if America goes to war. He stole from the Senate its treaty-ratification power by agreeing -- without Senate approval -- to change the mission prescribed in the NATO treaty from defensive to offensive. “

On why its OK to call your opponents warmongers...if you’re a Republican.

“Jack Kemp correctly labelled Clinton's foreign policy "this fog of lies, this culture of deceit." How much more damage will Clinton do before the 2000 elections bring the warmongering politicians back to reality?”

Needless to say I don’t agree with Schlafly, who has been a blight on the humanity and a cultural carbuncle on our national ass for decades.

And, for the record, while she has remained almost ostentatiously silent on the subject of Iraq, Schlafly has said that she thinks the idea that there will be a democracy in Iraq is “ridiculous.” That there are competing factions in Iraq, and that “maybe they need some dictator to rule them all.”

(Frankly, so long as there are “Supremacist” judges who conspire in the gay shadows to force Boy Scouts and Jebus out of the schools, she now seems massively uninterested in war, Executive power, pre-emption, Presidential lying or any of the other keywords with which a blind squirrel could find the single most important issue of our time. )

Instead, the object of the exercise was to limn yet again that the Right are, above and beyond all of their other sins, liars and hypocrites of the First Water.

A Party that collectively had absolutely no compunction committing – thunderingly and in spades – exactly the transgressions from which they now loudly demand the Left cease and desist.

Once again we see in the end that the Right are the twisted, everted People of the Lie: externalizing their own rotting souls onto the outside world and then attacking it like Furies. Hysterically demanding that everyone else live up to the most impossibly rigid and/or Puritanical codes conduct. And always, always turning out to be the most dangerous and degenerate examples of the very failings, perversions and corruptions they imagine they see in others.

A cult of anger, nihilism and delusion who, judging solely by their own publicly held standards and words, are utterly unfit to govern.