Sunday Morning Comin’ Down – Part 2 of 2

The Daze of Whine and Russerts continues…

On "This Week"…Joe Biden and Carl Levin. Then White House chief of staff , Josh Bolten.

Rummy was on the menu.

The info from the show as run through my filter: Iraq boosters both in and outside of our Pet Government have been hitting the snooze alarm, saying “Just one more friedman, Mommy!” and rolling back into bed.

No more.

When it comes to the matter of setting timetables and benchmarks, we are though being al-Malaki deep-pocketed Drinking Buddy, heedless of the clock and eternally willing to accept excuse after excuse as to why we’re always drunk and fucking things up.

The kindest and most useful thing we can do now – for both our fucked up government, and theirs -- is to give them no choice but to change.

To lay it out as clear and plain as Joe Clay from “Days of Wine and Roses”:

Kirsten Clay:

You drunk?

Joe Clay:

I haven't had a drop!

Kirsten Clay:

Well, then, what's the matter with you?

Joe Clay:

I walked by the Union Square Bar.
I was gonna go in and I saw myself...

...my reflection in the window.
And I thought, "I wonder who that bum is."
And then I saw it was me.

Now, look at me, I'm a bum. Look at me,
look at you. You're a bum! Look at you.

And look at us. Look at us, come on!

Look at us. See? A couple of bums.
Now, look! You've gotta listen to me.

It came to me. I saw it all.
You know why I've been fired...

...from five jobs in four years.
It's not politics.

It's not office politics or jealousy
or any of that stuff. It's booze!

It's booze!

Kirsten Clay:

A couple of drinks...

Joe Clay:

We have more than a couple of drinks, we
get drunk! We stay drunk most of the time.

Look at the dump that we live in,
the clothes that we wear...

We send that child
off to school like she's...

Look at me. I'm a drunk
and I don't do my job and that's it!

I'm a drunk and I don't do my job and I get
fired and I can't get a job now! And I...

We should've looked at ourselves long ago
and realized we've turned into bums!

Kirsten Clay:

Honey, honey, I love you!

Joe Clay:

I love you too, and I don't mean
that I didn't. But we gotta face this.

Please!

Kirsten Clay:

All right, we just won't drink so much.

Joe Clay:

No! Not so... Jim Baker's got a plan and we got
to do it, honey. We gotta make it work.

We're gonna get sober, but we'll stay sober.
We don't take a drop. Nothing.

(Ok, I admit I did doctor one line from that exchange.)

Biden: All Dubya’s plans for Iraq have hinged on creating a strong, central government. There is no prospect for creating a strong, central government.

Levin: I’m hoping Robert Gates gets a vote before this Congress ends. I voted against him 15 years ago because of his tricksiness in the Iran/Contra. He also has a history of cooking the intel to tell the boss what the boss wants to hear. But I’ll hear him out, and maybe he has good answers to these kinds of questions.

Biden: I’m inclined to vote for him…because, to put it bluntly, every day he isn’t SecDef is another day that inept asshat Rummy is.

Biden: John Bolton doesn’t even have votes for the confirmation of this braying ass inside the Republican controlled committee, much less the whole Senate. Dude, read the fucking polls, send up someone competent, and we’ll deal. What is it about “The voters have decided you’re too stupid to run with the scissors ever again” don’t you get?

Then White House chief of staff Josh Bolten steps into the light.

Stephanopoulos: Preznit was asked a direct question about kicking Rummy off the island. He lied. How about that?

Josh Bolten: He hadn’t made up his mind yet.

Stephanopoulos: But Dubya was actively searching for a replacement, right?

Josh Bolten: The Preznit was not going to make any announcement until he’d closed the deal with Bob Gates and only with Bob Gates.

Stephanopoulos: Are you shitting me? Are you really saying that if Bob Gates had said “No”, the Preznit would have stopped the process?

Josh Bolten: Yes.

Wow.

It still astonishes me how they lie so...unhesitatingly.

So automatically.

So heedless of the consequences, because for the last six years it has been drilled into them that no matter what they do -- no matter how often or baldly they lie, steal or fuck up -- no one will ever hold them to account for it.

So of the 300 million Americans residing in our fair land, the only person competent to be Secretary of Defense is Bob Gates. And if he had said “No” -- if the Preznit had sniffed his hair and not like the way it smelled – then the only other person capable of holding the job is…Donald “Stuff Happens” Rumsfeld.

Bless you, Josh Bolten, for dropping another coupla hundred pounds of napalm on the already-visible-from-space, Bush Political Dumpster Fire.

The Panel – Donaldson, Cokie and George Will.

Feh.

As was true in the chill days of March is true in chill days of November:

Arrayed around The Round Table were the usual waxwork artifacts. Cokie, Sam and George showing what a badly oxidizing diorama of “Puerile Punditry of the 80s” will look like after the Museum of Bad Journalism is abandoned to the elements, forgotten, and then disinterred by Chinese archeologists in the early 22nd Century.

Not an ounce of untainted blood nor square inch of fresh ideation anywhere.

On "Face the Nation" -- Harry Reid talks sense, and Josh Bolten talks nonsense.

FYI, I often short-shrift "Face The Nation" here because four rings of the Mouse Circus run side-by-side in Chicago, which means something's gonna get less attention. And perversely, because Bob Schieffer does a pretty fair job IMHO, he cries out for tweaking much less than the other sinners.



On the “Chris Matthews Show” – Feh.

I mean it’s nice to see that Dan Rather found a day job, and Cynthia Tucker is usually a breathe of fresh air, but Matthews schtick is tired:

1/3 -- A buncha pundits most of whom have made their professional fortunes bluffing on busted flushes, who’ve had their collective bluffs repeatedly called Big Time, and are now snuffling and musing and picking nits out of each other’s hair plugs.

1/3 – The Hillary Panty Sniffing Interval.

1/3 – Matthews cracker barrel, porch whittlin’ nostalgia for some bygone thing or another. “Why I remember when you could go down to da Woolworth’s and getch’erself three Messicans, a Baby Ruth, an egg cream and a very serviceable Polish hooker for a nickel!”

And now, time for a beer and a bite