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October 15, 2005

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Why are conservative Republicans, who control the executive and legislative branches of government for the first time in living memory, so vulnerable to the phenomenon of criminalization? Is it simple payback for the impeachment of Bill Clinton? Or is it a reflection of some deep malady at the heart of American politics? If criminalization is seen to loom ahead for every conservative who begins successfully to act out his or her beliefs in government or politics, is the project of conservative reform sustainable?

Shorter Kristol:

"Every time a man passes me on the street, I'm afraid he's going to grab me and drag me off to some bathroom to suck my cock. I've even started to visualize these repulsive cock-sucking episodes during the healthy, heterosexual marital relations I enjoy with my wife–even some that haven't actually happened, like the sweaty, post-game locker-room tryst with Vancouver Canucks forward Mark Messier that I can't seem to stop thinking about."

-- courtesy of The Onion, 'Why Do These Homosexuals Keep Sucking My Cock?'

Kagro X, you're dead on. The current batch of Republicans has surpassed the previous record for dishonesty and destructiveness. Nixon was more cunning than Bush, and as nasty as Cheney. But he didn't lie to start a war; that was LBJ, who might have been a great President, given his commitment to civil rights, if he hadn't shot his wad in Vietnam.

And, like the Nixonistas, this crop of criminals will claim — indeed, is claiming — that everyone does it, that lying to start a war in which over a hundred thousand people have been killed to increase Halliburton's profits is equivalent to extramarital sex. In their book, it's true: sex is worse than murder. Unfortunately for them, the law doesn't agree. If only they could read, they would know…

Here are two paragraphs I was missing from the Rich article that hammer home the point with some additional force:

"Bush's Brain" is the title of James Moore and Wayne Slater's definitive account of Mr. Rove's political career. But Mr. Rove is less his boss's brain than another alliterative organ (or organs), that which provides testosterone. As we learn in "Bush's Brain," bad things (usually character assassination) often happen to Bush foes, whether Ann Richards or John McCain. On such occasions, Mr. Bush stays compassionately above the fray while the ruthless Mr. Rove operates below the radar, always separated by "a layer of operatives" from any ill behavior that might implicate him. "There is no crime, just a victim," Mr. Moore and Mr. Slater write of this repeated pattern.

THIS modus operandi was foolproof, shielding the president as well as Mr. Rove from culpability, as long as it was about winning an election. The attack on Mr. Wilson, by contrast, has left them and the Cheney-Libby tag team vulnerable because it's about something far bigger: protecting the lies that took the country into what the Reagan administration National Security Agency director, Lt. Gen. William Odom, recently called "the greatest strategic disaster in United States history."

What it means: Rove, on Bush's behalf, accumulates and holds power not by "building a mandate," but by being better and more ruthless at undermining the competition. (This, ironically, is precisely the shortcoming Republicans try to pin on Democrats in the media: that they rely solely on tearing down their opponents and have no ideas of their own.) When the prize at issue is an election, people expect it -- although Rove frequently goes further than the law allows. When the prize at issue is the governance of the United States, people don't -- and when people like Rove avail themselves of the new toys at their disposal as the nominal heads of government to do their dirty work, they cross into criminality by definition.

kagro, the signature of mehlman (protege) and Rove (master) is to accuse Dems of what they are doing. Sometimes it's the easiest way of figuring out what they're up to.

Mike Allen has a Miers story that shows the mindset:

Bush's friends contend that it is the conservative elite, not the President, who miscalculated and that self-righteous right-wingers stand to lose their seats at the table of power for the next three years. "They're crazy to take him on this frontally," said a former West Wing official. "Not many people have done that with George Bush and lived to tell about it." If a Justice Miers eventually takes her seat on the court, vocal critics can only hope the Bush Administration handles the punishment of the treasonous as poorly as it is currently promoting one of its most loyal subjects.

What bullshit. This weak little man is going down as the worst president in modern history, and within a week his consigliere will (politically speaking) sleep with the fishes. What kool-aid are they drinking in the West Wing?

Hmmm ... about those "seats at the table of power for the next three years" ...

Miers may be confirmed, or Miers may be rejected, and it weakens W's position at the grown-up's table either way.

If Bush can hold his place at the table, it'll be a rough ride. If not, rougher. Either way, his skybox backers have to start thinking about how to turn the franchise around.

kagro, the signature of mehlman (protege) and Rove (master) is to accuse Dems of what they are doing. Sometimes it's the easiest way of figuring out what they're up to.

Accusing the Dems of playing dirty also helps justify the Republicans' own actions. It's the same reasoning that says that it's not wrong to kill people when you're fighting a war.

But even in war, some things are prohibited -- targeting civilians, for example. Jack Abramoff, and the manipulation of intelligence on Iraq, should fall into this category.

This is really a good summing up, Kagro. As I said before I read it, the conduct of Abramoff-DeLay-Rove etc shows that they didn;t believe that the GOP could win in a fair fight. They thpught they had to corrupt the whole enterprise to be surte of winning. What unconfident guys! And they strut around as if they are so tough. No wonder that the whole enterprise is starting to come unglued. They never really cared about governing and had no idea how to do it. I really do think that the people are starting to turn on them,, enough that is, because theri incompetence has led to so many deaths, high gas proces and so many potential disasters left unattended. The GOP was right to intuit that what people really want from gov't is to be protected, but it isn't just about terror, it is about hurricanes, flu and all the rest, things they can't even begin to think about how to deal with.

Whose is sucking Bill Clinton's cock now?

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