Great headline from
Reuters on subpoena clash: "White House dares Congress to fight in court"
It's so true - the White House is like every pompous, puffed up bully there ever was. And Reuters is calling it correctly. The White House is doing what they've always done, based on past behavior of Congress (including the current Democratic one) to fail to do anything about the sheer criminality of this administration because of a basic failure to know what to do in the face of the utter shamelessness of this administration. That is, they're basically telling Pelosi, Conyers, and Waxman, you don't have the cajones (or huevos in Pelosi's case) to stand up to the sheer unadulterated criminality that we embody. Oh, and by the way, if/when you try to do anything about it, we'll be busy lying our a** off about you. For more on that, see the
great post by Dave Johnson at the Huff Post.
For more on this, see perhaps
the greatest blog post ever written about the Cheney Administration over at Kung Fu Monkey, though the title will probably be pretty inscrutable for the rest of us less hip folks (yeah, if you had to look up
l33t on Wikipedia to remind you what it meant, you're one of us). Here's the killer bits from the end.
As I watched Congressmen and Senators stumble and fumble and thrash, unable to bring to heel men and women who were plainly lying to them under oath, unable to eject from public office toadies of a boot-licking expertise unseen since Versailles, it struck me. The sheer, simple elegance of it. The "exploit".
The exploit is shame.
Our representatives -- and to a great degree we as a culture -- are completely buffaloed by shamelessness. You reveal a man's corrupt, or lying, or incompetent, and what does he do? He resigns. He attempts to escape attention, often to aid in his escape of legal pursuit. Public shame has up to now been the silver bullet of American political life. But people who are willing to just do the wrong thing and wait you out, to be publicly guilty ... dammmnnnn.
We are faced with utterly shameless men. Cheney and the rest are looking our representatives right in the eye and saying "You don't have the balls to take down a government. You don't have the sheer testicular fortitude to call us lying sonuvabitches when we lie, to stop us from kicking the rule of law and the Constitution in the ass. You just don't. What's beyond that abyss -- what that would do to our government and our identity as a nation -- terrifies you too much. So get the fuck out of our way." (totally see Cheney saying that - ed.)
And to a great degree, the White House is right. You peel this back, and you reveal that the greatest country in the world has been run, for the last six and a half years, by men who do not give a shit about the Constitution, or fair play, or honesty. No, not just run by corrupt men, or bribe-takers, or adulterers or whatever, we could handle that --no we'd be admitting It Went Wrong.
There is a sizeable population in America that just does not, cannot wrap their head around the fact that the President may be a Bad Man who does Bad Things. He's President of America. We're Americans. We're the good guys. Remember, the Nixon mythos in America is that the system worked. "See, in America, even the President is not above the law."
These Suited Bastards know the fragile shell of American exceptionalism is all that's keeping a whole lot of people from processing that they're working too many hours for not enough money, and they either believe real reeaaaalll hard that they're living in the Shining City on the Hill or admit their lives are shit and they've been chumped.
Who ya gonna believe, me or your lyin' Congress?
I cannot help but think that as Nixon walked to the chopper, somewhere in the darkened hallways of the White House Dick Cheney shook his head, spit, and whispered: "Pussy." (Brilliant. Effing Brilliant.)
More of the usual from KFM, who also penned perhaps one of my
favorite blog posts ever (after Poker with Dick Cheney by the Poor Man Institute, the Zork spoof of the Bush Administration by Defective Yeti, and, well, most of Fafblog) which
- Captures the crazification levels of the United States populace (which, as a theoretical bottom, is being rapidly approached by Bush's approval ratings).
- Dismantles hilariously an argument by the Bush Administration about a Islamic reign from Spain to Indoesia, with lines like:
- Tyrone: From there, if you spot him the Indian Ocean and India, you're in Indonesia.
- John: I am not spotting him eight hundred million Hindus. I call shenanigans.
and
- John: But he's citing that desire as a basis for our strategy. You can't cite your enemy's delusional hopes as a basis for a rational strategy. Goals don't exist in a vacuum, they're linked to capability. David Koresh was utterly committed to being Jesus Christ. See how far that got him.
Either Bush is making strategy based on a delusional goal of his opponent, which is idiotic; or he's saying he believes his opponent has the capability of achieving this delusional goal, which is idiotic. Neither bodes well for the republic.
and
- Tyrone: Being #3 in Al-queda is like being a "creative vice president" at a Hollywood studio. There are dozens of them ... and they are expendable. Listen, don't do this, you're just getting worked up. Have another mozzarella stick.
- 3) Contains one of my all time favorite exchanges
Tyrone: (shrugs) Probably right, then. Speaking of Obama, I need to get t-shirts printed up to sell.
John: I can do that on the web. What do they say?
Tyrone: Don't You Dare Kill Obama
John: How about Don't You Dare Kill Obama (... and we know you're thinking about it)
Tyrone: Niiiiice.
John: Or You Kill Obama and WE WILL BURN SHIT DOWN
Tyrone: Even better. Nobody wants their shit burned down.
John: Glad to help.
Tyrone: I'm having you taken off the list for when the revolution comes.
John: ... there's really a list --
Tyrone: Oh yeah. Hell yeah.
I keep waiting for the t-shirts to appear online. If I have to wait much longer, I may have to make one myself.
