Sunday Morning Comin’ Down

In which we wait for the hologram of our own Hari Seldon to appear and explain WTF is going on with our own, most recent Seldon Crisis.

For the non-science fiction dorks in the room, a "Seldon Crisis" is…

…a fictional socio-historical phenomenon in Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series of science fiction novels. Utilizing the mathematics of Psychohistory, Hari Seldon foresaw that the collapse of the Galactic Empire would herald a period of galactic barbarism that would last for 30,000 years, stretching until a second Galactic Empire could rise from the ashes.

To shorten this period of anarchy, Hari Seldon formed the Seldon Plan, which would shorten the period of barbarism to a single thousand years. To insure that the Plan was followed to fruition, a Seldon Crisis would occur when the fictional Foundation nation would encounter a social and political situation that, to be successfully surmounted, would eventually leave only one possible, inevitable, course of action.

These 'Seldon Crises' were planned and pre-determined by Hari Seldon (after whom they were named) as devices for controlling the flow of events in connection to the Foundation in order to execute the Seldon Plan.
…

All of which is to say that, when you step a little back from the rush of event and the cataract of crimes and betrayals that have come to define the Bush Administration, there is nothing going on here that would have particularly surprised our own Founders.

They know these crises were possible because the enticement of tyranny is always there, just beyond over horizon, grinding out its sirens song.

Just give up a little.

Just give in a little.

Just sell out a little.

And I will keep you safe.

Or, because The Boss puts this shit so much better than anyone:

…
Poor man wanna be rich,
rich man wanna be king
And a king ain't satisfied
till he rules everything

The Founders knew the disease, knew the type of man who would be drawn to power for power's sake. Who would try to lure us down into Hell, so they left behind a weapon to save us.

The Constitution.

But, see, we have to actually pick it up and use it.

On “Face the Nation”

Bob Schieffer talks with Harry Reid, and Olympia Snowe.


Schieffer: Last week you tried to force a vote. Pizza. Cots. The GOP blocked a vote. And you have blocked a vote from the GOP. So aren't you all just naughty children who can't get along?

Reid: That’s not what happened. We offered the GOP lots of opportunities to vote on a lot of amendments. And they wouldn’t do it.

Reid: We have a bipartisan working group trying to figure a way to work through this, but you now have Republicans who are blocking their own amendments.

Schieffer: It is the impression that you don’t want to let people vote.

Reid: It is a myth from the White House spin machine. We offered unanimous consent to have simple majority votes on everybody’s amendments. Levin/Reid. McCain. Campbell. Asimov. Warner/Lugar. Dirty/Sanchez. Kramden. Desilu. Dostoyevsky/Twain. Junebug/Ray-Ray. Everybody. And they told us to fuck off.

Because they are more interested in protecting the President than in protecting the troops.

Jim Webb offered a simple amendment to head off the destruction of our military by allowing the troops reasonable time to rest and recuperate between their long deployments in Iraq.

And the GOP told us to fuck off.



On “Meet the Press”

Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell

Pass.

Than, Big Russ Feingold (D-Wisc)

Plus, oh man, I really am in Hell; David Fucking Brooks collects another paycheck, sitting next to Bob Woodward and Stephen Hayes, lying on his back and making little chirr-upping sounds by rubbing his hind legs together.

But first, like Howard Dean, America has caught up with Russ Feingold. What was once slandered as the radical, cut-and-run, loony Left is now the solid mainstream.

And yet, these guys who were right all along still get asked stupid questions by buffoons.

Russert: But if we leave, won’t things be bad?

Feingold: Aren’t things bad now, Tim? And aren’t you sick of having this fucking conversation? Every time anyone even tries to talk about finding the exit to the slaughterhouse, we get yanked back by some dickhead yelling “precipitous”. And then, a friedman later when things have gotten worse, these same dickheads want to know when someone's gonna do something.

(Grabs Russert by his Big Boy tie and yanks his potato head into the desk.

And a nation stands up and cheers.)

Censure resolutions!

Russert: Isn’t this a futile effort that’s just “politics”? Don’t you think the American people will get all pissy about Democrats want to censure the Preznit instead of joining hands and singing about buying the world a Coke?

The Democrats are the American people, you flatulent gourd.

Feingold: Are you fucking kidding me? Americans are outraged. They are talking impeachment. Shit, if Cheney ended up hanging by his heels in the Capital rotunda, about 7 out of 10 Americans would declare it a national holiday.

Then, David Fucking Brooks.

David Brooks: You might call Dubya confident, or you might call him deranged…

That's some real fine jounalisming there, Bobo.

Brooks (responding to Russert’s questions about lying to get us into a war): That damned Harry Reid and censure resolutions and partisanships are what’s making it impossible for 30 Republicans to run away from Dubya and, y'know, do the right thing.

Shorter Brooks: It was perfectly fine for the Bush Regime to have used the Manichean club of “You’re either with us, or with the Terr’ists” year after year after year to bludgeon Democrats, geld the media, and win elections. But now that the Democrats have a solid position, solidly supported by the overwhelming majority of Americans, it is somehow terribly unfair to demand that Bush Regime liars and lackeys “Come to Jesus”.


Woodward: The Administration believes that we would need to be fighting in Iraq for another 5-10 years to do it up right.

Brooks: Sure, we could lose 125 American lives every month for the next 5 years, but getting out could be bad too.


Russert: But you will hear a lot of people say that, since the Administration has been wrong about every fucking thing since the beginning of time, why should we think they’re right about how awful Iraq will be when we leave?

Brooks: Chirp. Chirr-up. Squeak, squeak. You see 4-5 Civil Wars going on Iraq. It’s bad, but we have an, uh, moral obligation in Iraq. And of course when I say “we” I mean mostly poor people and brown people, and not College Republicans of Selective Service age, myself, or anyone I might ever have any contact with whatsoever.

Then I had to looks away or risk defenestrating a perfectly serviceable teevee machine.


On “Fox News Sunday”

Two years ago, Dubya said we were kicking al-Qaeda ass everywhere.

Now the NIE says not so much.

And when the feces hits the cyclotron and spatters Truth all over the face of the Earth, it is Fran Townsend the Bush Regime air-lifts in to explain to the squealing Fox masses that Up is still Down, Black is still White, we've always been at war with Eastasia, and the Dear Leader has been right about everything all along.

Like all good RePravdacans, you can tell when Fran is kicking it up a notch from bullshit to hypershit, when she starts to precede her mendacity with the phrase: “There is no question…”

Translation: How dare you question!

Chris Wallace (After a lost of backing-and-forthing about the obvious fact that the Preznit has lied about how well we are doing against al-Qaeda): But this is simple. There was a downward trend. Now an upward trend.

Fran: There is no question that it looks that way if you don’t have a Magic Sekrit Iraq decoder ring. Do you have one?

Chris: No.

Fran: Well there you are. There is no question you would agree with me that everything is great and getting better if you could process the incomplete and misleading information you have through a Magic Sekrit Iraq decoder ring.

Chris: So, can I have one?

Fran: No, Chris. It’s Magic. And Sekrit. And there is no question that the enemy –- who are simultaneously weak, on the run, we are on the verge of wiping out forever, and remain a Terrible!Terrible!Globe-Spanning!Threat! who could kill us all at any moment -- would love it if we were to reveal Magic Sekrit Iraq decoder ring technology on the teevee.

Chris: OK, then why aren’t we bombing the crap of them. Starting...now.

Fran: There is no question that just because we don’t tell you we’re not bombing the living crap out of everything east of Iran doesn’t mean we’re not.

Chris: Well, OK. Are we?

Fran: It’s all Sekrit. You just need to trust us. But we’re doing lotsa stuff. Lotsa stuff.

Chris: But you have this intel that says where al-Qaeda is, what they are doing, what their training camps are up to. I mean, you can practically Google Map the Pakistan frontier and watch them on the fucking monkey bars. So a lot of people are asking “Why don’t we just take them out"?

Fran: We have lotsa capabilities and we’re doing lotsa stuff.

Chris: So we pussyfooting around with Pakistan why?

Fran: They are our friends. But rest assured that there’s no question that our national interest comes first.

Fran: There’s no question that Iraq the Central Front on the GWOT? After all, they attacked a wedding reception in Amman. Therefore there’s no question they can attack Idaho!

Then some Senators Kit Bond and Evan Bayh.

Bayh: Gotta be more aggressive, but more careful.

Bond: We have to work with the Pakistanis

Wallace: But not unilaterally. Not by ourselves.

So we have to play nice with others?

Defer to Pakistan?

But…But…

Insert sexy flashback here:

“But as the President has made very clear, there is a difference between leading a coalition of many nations and submitting to the objections of a few. The United States will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our country.”

Dick Cheney at the Reagan Presidential Library, March 17, 2004.

“George W. Bush will never seek a permission slip to defend the American people.”

Dick Cheney: 2004 Republican Convention Keynote speech Sep 1, 2004

So I guess all that "permission slip" butchtalk only counts when you are slandering honorable men and lying yourself back into power.

Bond: Pakistan is not a perfect Jeffersonian democracy. But we’re kinda sloppy about this in some ways ourselves.

Translation: Maybe trading secret prisons, torture, domestic spying and habeas corpus for moral authority wasn’t such a good idea after all.

Bayh: It’s all so tough. And complicated.

Wallace: Iraq: GWOT Central, or not?

Bond: Both.

Bayh: Not. Read the NIE. Its Pakistan and Afghanistan. We’re creating more terrorists. We’ve spent a shitload of blood and treasure in Iraq, and the NIE says under George Bush, our named enemy – al-Qaeda – has reconstituted and gotten stronger.

Wallace: Two years ago you had a very different view. You changed your mind! How dare you accept new information and let it affect your opinion! Which is it!?

Bayh: Both.

Bond: The problem was we were following the fucking Bremer Plan for three years. Oy! If only someone had told us! That Medal of Freedom was soooo shiny. It had us all hip-mo-tized I tell ya!


Then, later, Evil Anti-Gumby Brit Hume repeats, offhandedly, the latest Regime Dicta that everybody knows you need 60 votes in the Senate to get anything done.

As if that were a secret part of the Constitution.

You need 51 votes to pass anything in the Senate.

You need 60 votes to cut off debate and prevent a filibuster.

Now that Republicans are filibustering everything from troop rotation policy to pee-pee breaks, Hume just yawns and waives it off.

Ah, but back when Democrats even hinted that they may filibuster some of the GOPs more radical wingnut appointments and proposals...



Bloody Bill Kristol: Harry Ried is making Hillary Clinton vote for losing in Iraq.

Juan Williams: What you describe as “Left” is the Center you fucking ghoul.

Williams: So you made a mistake 2 years ago. Or five years ago. When do you say “Enough is enough” in Iraq?

Kristol: “Enough is enough” is not a serious policy.

Williams: So what? We go on forever?

Kristol: We have a new strategy. And the American people are frustrated with Iraq only because they’re uninformed idiots. We’re making progress in Iraq and by ‘08 the Democrats will be tagged as wanting to cut and run from Iraq just as we were winning.


Again, if anyone has solid facts explaining why, why , Holy Mother of God why this lying, blood-soaked butcher -- who has been 100% wrong about everything since the dawn of history -- is still being allowed anywhere near a camera, I'd love to hear about it.

“This Week” was pre-empted by golf.

Hard to tell the difference, really; white guys in ugly pants whispering seriously about minutia that has no effect of the real lives of real people whatsoever.


On ”The Chris Matthews Show”

GOP Electoral Strategery.

We heard:

“The Base wants…”

But how does (Romney) do this split the difference dance with “The real hawks. The real Republican types”…

Karl Rove reassures regime dead-enders by telling them “Iraq won’t be the big issue in ‘08”…

The big question is really simple, except no one on the Mouse Circus will come right out on the teevee and say it: since Dubya and the GOP Base have driven the car off the cliff, how does any Republican candidate manage the burning wreckage while at the same time reassuring the Base that the car is really fine, goin’ like 60 towards victory, and that they and their Dear Leader are actually brilliant, shrewd drivers?

In other words, for anyone seeking higher office, the GOP has become an electoral Alcatraz from which no escape is possible.

Because the Base really are drooling, subhuman homunculi, and they really do now own the GOP down to the studs and floorboard. So is a Republican candidate wants to have any shot at winning the primary, they have to kiss the pasty asses of these monsters out in the bright noonday sun.

And in doing so, so creep out and horrify normal human swing/indy voters that they'll flee from the GOP in droves come '08.


And then cam Episode 309 of the Hillary Panty Sniffing Show, in which Matthews actually showed extended video of “Stand By Me” to illustrate the theoretical, potential future problems of a Hillary Clinton Vice President.

Next week on the “Matthew’s Meter” the panel votes on this question: “Has Chris Matthews gone nuts from DTs, or tertiary syphilis?”