Utopia 2025

Boy, it feels good to get that out of my system. As a card-carrying member of the America-hating, flag-burning, blood-on-my-hands Commie left, I have always thought that Bush Lied! ™, but I’ve been too scared to say so. True patriots like Dean Esmay have cowed me into not revealing my real evil agenda to the world at large. (He’s worked his magic on so many other lefty sites that for every mention of Bush lied! on a liberal site, that phrase appears approximately 45,000 times on conservative sites.) But no more! I will proudly proclaim now that Bush Lied! People Died!

Ahem.

See the thing is, as people like the execrable Dean Esmay are so fond of pointing out, a lie is a difficult thing to prove, especially in court. I can’t look into George W. Bush’s mind (not that I would want to) and figure out what he knew and what he didn’t know. My problem has always been, he didn’t *care* whether what he said was a lie or not. And I consider that to be equal to or worse than an actual literal prove-it-in-court falsehood, especially when it comes to the Leader of the Free World. His people had a plan, and they were going to do whatever it took to make that into reality.

Mounds of real evidence show that Bush’s gang wanted to invade Iraq long before 9/11, and before Bush was even elected. Mounds of real evidence from both inside and outside the administration shows that they minimized or ignored evidence that didn’t support their position, and hopped up anything, no matter how trivial or possibly false, that might do the opposite. (Colin Powell and the fake anthrax at the U.N.? Aluminum tubes? Unmanned drones? Anyone? Bueller?)

This is eminently acceptable behavior for, say, a defense lawyer. His job is to convince a jury that his client is innocent, and whether his client did the crime or not is immaterial. In our system of justice (at least for now) everyone deserves the best defense they can get. It’s up to the jury to decide the fate of the accused.

This is not acceptable behavior for the Leader of the Free World. It just isn’t. But that position is perhaps a little too nuanced for a slogan; a little too logical for the screaming harridans of the Right. Let a thousand terrorism experts proclaim that the administration “fixed intelligence around the policy,” and that the war has made us less safe, not more. It’s all just elitist America-hating to Esmay and Coulter and Hannity.

And the world rolls on. For now.

1991: Anita Hill is a bitch. Therefore, Clarence Thomas should be confirmed to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.

2006: Ted Kennedy made Sam Alito’s wife cry. Therefore, Alito should be confirmed to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.

It doesn’t take Nostradamus to predict that the second will come true, just as the first did.

We are a bunch of stupid, stupid little bitches in this country. And we deserve everything that’s coming to us.

Monica Lewinsky changed the world more profoundly than Anne Boleyn ever did.

Discuss.

1. He lets too many brown people into the country.
2. He wanted to put someone on the Supreme Court who might not have wanted to overturn Roe v. Wade.
3. There is no Number 3.

I am continually amazed (see comments on the “bathroom” post below) at the American public’s ability to smile while they say, “The President can do whatever he wants, as long as he says it will keep me safe. I don’t need to know anything about it – in fact, it’s better if I don’t know. I trust him completely with all my freedoms.” I’ve said many times since that date that we went collectively insane as a society on 9/11/01, and it may take generations for us to come out of it. (Even Sybil listened to her therapist.)

So it has struck me in the last few months how conservative blogger John Cole has begun to question, on many fronts, the Bush Administration’s War on an Abstract Concept. Here’s what he said to the latest news that Homeland Security (a creepy name if there ever was one) may be reading your mail:

Once again, another government practice that is news to me. And, of course, I will be told that the government has long had the authority to do this, that it is necessary to keep me ‘safe,’ and that I really shouldn’t worry about it- just like torture and the Patriot Act, this is vital to our security.

At what point will these people have all the damned tools they need to fight terrorism?

Preach it, brother.

All you Bush apologists may have absolutely no problem that the President wipes his ass with the Constitution. You may even be there in the bathroom to hand it to him – gladly.

But aren’t you the least bit concerned about the contents of the Presidential bathroom when it’s occupied by, say, Hillary Clinton?

The pendulum swings.

“…and I would like to thank my predecessor, George W. Bush, for establishing once and for all that in America, the President *is* the state. In these uncertain times, our great nation needs a benevolent leader who knows what is best for all her citizens. I want to assure the American people here and now that I will be using my absolute power only for good.”

“If I believed in burning books, I’d have a perfect prospect for the bonfire!”
–Rhianna, frequent commenter at Rosemary Esmay’s “Queen of All Evil” site

It reminded me of one of my favorite quotes from the actually-evil Connie du Toit (no longer blogging, apparently): “I would never read Hillary Clinton’s book, because I am 100 percent certain it is full of lies.”

Watching Bill O’Reilly on David Letterman last night was, to say the least, a bittersweet experience. Each made sort of a fool of himself, but each also did just well enough that partisans on both sides predictably declared their guy the winner of the skirmish. Ho hum.

I was quite disappointed, though, that Dave didn’t debunk Bill when Bill pulled out the fully discredited story about the “Silent Night” lyrics at a school in Dodgeville. Dave, that could have started the segment out with a slam-dunk. Try preparing for interviews next time, OK?

But mainly, I have a message for Bill. Hey Bill: if I want to change the lyrics to fucking “Silent Night,” or fucking “Good King Wenceslas,” or whatever, I’m going to fucking do it. If I want to have an “Atheist Holiday Solstice Pageant” like on South Park, where the cute moppets run around in grey jumpsuits holding up cardboard face masks of Noam Chomsky wearing a Santa hat, I’m going to fucking do it.

(now there’s an idea!)

People keep writing amazing stuff, while my brain slumbers (hopefully not for much longer). But in the meantime, I have to repost this comment from Balloon Juice on the domestic spying scandal:

Bush now stands in contempt of the Constitution, both in deed and declared intent. That is the astonishing thing—he does not even try to hide his villainy. He has declared himself an enemy of the constitution. This means that we all now have an affirmative moral obligation to see to it that he is removed. At least those of us who have sworn similar oaths (lawyers, other public officials) have that obligation, ordinary citizens need to examine their consciences to see if they prefer a man who claims to be a benevolent monarch to their own freedom.

The general populace of America has already made that choice, more than once. And they chose the monarch.

UPDATE: More on the Imperial Presidency in this Salon article.