I found myself wondering why George Bush did not realize how ineffectual he would be and resign two years into his first term. But then I became scared when I realized that would have put Cheney in charge. So maybe it was a good thing Bush didn't have the presence of mind Palin has and remained President?
At this point, I decided to stop thinking about it.

Tea Baggers: The Legacy of Grover Norquist.

And finally, in this post-Independence day musing, something for those who like things that go explodo; and a new motto for a party renewing itself:

Go Republican. Our shit blows up real good!




That's politics. You're welcome.

First, Mark Thiessen's story, fifth paragraph:

"Palin instead cast herself as a victim and blasted the media, calling the response to her announcement "predictable" and out of touch."

Second, the Diva of Desultory Declamation Sarah Palin herself:

"Political operatives descended on Alaska last August, digging for dirt. The ethics law I championed became their weapon of choice. Over the past nine months I've been accused of all sorts of frivolous ethics violations..."

Josh says:

"It's not a matter of ignoring or papering anything over. But it's worth remembering whoever it was who said that none of us deserve to be known or remembered only for our worst moments."

Then Zachary Roth posts about how Sanford belongs to some sort of xtian cult called C Street...housed in, of all places, a former convent.

Oh, the irony: a bunch of dudes in a former convent learning how to be faithful heterosexuals? What do they do? Get up in drag, call each other Hercules, and find out what it's like to be a wooo-woman W. O. M. A. N. ?

Anyway, on a serious note: what's up with that whole buying into forgiveness schtick, with the "we shouldn't remember him at his worst"?

Why not remember him as the hypocrite he is?

Because what I'm remembering is that these are the DUDES who would be quite content with, even want to impose, a United States of Theocracy.

And that is working out just great in Afghanistan; or Iran; and it was the bee's knees in Europe before the Enlightenment.

Give me that old time religion, my brown eye.

Updated: not that anyone cares, but is there a difference between Sanford's performance, and Giuliani's press conference on May 10, 2000 where Giuliani basically divorced his wife at a press conference?

That's politics. You're welcome.

Over at Greg Sargent's blog we are shown this:

CIA Postpones Release Of Big Torture Report That Could Undercut Cheney

And over at the New Yorker , we are shown this: The Secret History, containing this about Panetta:

"The record of outsiders taking over the C.I.A. is mixed. John McCone, a California shipping magnate who ran the agency in the Kennedy and Johnson years, is often cited as being among the most successful directors; having been trained as a mechanical engineer, he was skilled at assessing threats posed by both conventional and nuclear weapons. But other outsiders have been met with intense hostility. James Schlesinger was named C.I.A. director by President Richard Nixon after heading the Atomic Energy Commission. Given instructions to "get rid of the clowns," Schlesinger dismissed or forced into retirement more than five hundred analysts and a thousand clandestine officers. He faced death threats, and his tenure lasted six months. In 1995, President Clinton appointed John Deutch, who had previously served at the Pentagon. Deutch tried to improve the oversight of clandestine operatives after evidence surfaced that an agent in Guatemala had covered up two murders. Deutch was reviled by many operatives, and he left the agency after eighteen months. Eventually, he was accused of mishandling classified documents and stripped of his security clearance. "You pick on the C.I.A. at your own peril," Michael Waldman says."

Note the last sentence: "You pick on the C.I.A. at your own peril," Michael Waldman says."

Are we having an "Oh, really?" moment yet?

Then consider Valerie Plame.

That's politics. You're welcome, and please pass the popcorn.

The depth of the GOP's ignorance, combined with the breadth of the lack of contact between the GOP and the rest of the world is, I confess, breath-taking.

Though I've long said here that they don't get it; and included in some post or another something about communication;I really had no idea how extensive, even all-encompassing, their ignorance and lack of contact are.

It's like they are a child, found in a basement after years of imprisonment, knowing only the company of animals, attempting to sniff the butt of his rescuer. They really cannot be blamed for behaving inappropriately. Can they? Read on.

Or it's like they've been recently released from a prison they constructed for their own selves; and, possessed by inappropriate feelings of betrayal, sally forth in Lady Vengeance mode. The only problem here is that they've only their selves to blame....and it's at this point one encounters The Pity Party Meme in the recent Twitter posts about Iran.

In my febrile imaginings, I expect some enterprising Young Republican to begin tentatively moving toward a National Reconciliation by opining "Like the Russians in 1991, our Party post-Reagan and post-Bush was just not prepared for Democracy. We blame our moms."

Here they are, actually: living in what they describe as the world's greatest democracy; a global example of how to correctly implement capitalism; surrounded by (for much of the planet's population) unimaginable wealth; saturated with marketing for tech wonders and gee-gaws bordering on kitsch; in a nation long past re-construction....acting like they've been exiled to a cave on Deprivation Archipelago in the year dot.

When the problem is really their ignorance flowing from an obstreperous, self-imposed exile from the civil, secular, commons that is our Republic.

From Empty Wheel:

"Here's how Whitehouse described the questions they're asking in his Senate speech the other day. "I see three issues we need to grapple with. The first is the torture itself: What did Americans do? In what conditions of humanity and hygiene were the techniques applied? With what intensity and duration? Are our preconceptions about what was done based on the sanitized descriptions of techniques justified? Or was the actuality far worse?

Were the carefully described predicates for the torture techniques and the limitations on their use followed in practice? Or did the torture exceed the predicates and bounds of the Office of Legal Counsel opinions?"

I've wanted to point out something, for a long time, about Republican rhetoric concerned with regulation. I think this gives me a leverage point.

Sadly, it looks like even the Democrats have adopted the Republican Party line:

We can look at torture (NB: torture is simply formalized sadism) as a behavior that can be regulated; as behavior that can be controlled.

If the thing is described in detail; specifying when this must occur; and in what proportion; and how it must be combined with this, but not that; and so on...then it, by virtue of these regulations, becomes something other than torture; and so, becomes (via rhetorical legerdemain) enhanced interrogation.

That set of rules, procedures, and prescriptions are the essence of regulation...the fundamental directives of a Torture Bureaucracy.

Yet they decry regulation of health care; tobacco; almost anything, in fact; and certainly, the regulation of our common economy as suboptimal, undesirable, even harmful.

Yet they know how to regulate and formalize sadism.

Also implied here is that they or their designated agents know how to control the Americans who apply the formalized sadism.

This is a Torture Bureacracy. Make no mistake about that.

From http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/69268.html

"The U.S. military says it seizes and destroys photos of detainees, even those in which the captives pose for news photographers, under an interpretation of the Geneva Conventions that shields prisoners of war from public humiliation."

So:

Pictures of detainees cannot be taken to avoid public humiliation.

Pictures of detainees suffering private humiliation can be taken. Those pictures cannot be released.

Ladies, Gentlemen, and gentle readers of other persuasions: your system, working hard for you!

That's politics. You're welcome.

The sound:

We cannot imprison Guantonamo detainees on American soil.

The fury:

We welcome American Torturers back into our communities.

Not only do we welcome them back to our communities, we give to some a place in the bureaucracy of our nations' government; others remain accredited by their professions.

Two exercises:

1) Develop the relevant Idiocy Index

2) Informed by that index, assume the role of the Sarcastic Fool and offer commentary

That's politics. You're welcome.

The more I watch Cheney, the more I see a guilty conscience seeking absolution; imploring expiation.

It's almost as if he seeks a way to provoke a prosecution; or even to dog Obama into rash acts, perhaps prosecution...at least then, he'd find some way to resist the importuning of his conscience. Then, he'd have a more concrete object to resist; some work to give meaning to his denial.

It's what happens when you walk down the dark side: you damage yourself. Sometimes, permanently; even fatally. But Cheney is no hero, though he has his Cult of Personality; just like Obama has his. But Cheney is no hero.

And Obama...you have to feel for him. He genuinely has no way out of this. Obama, we must remember, has a conscience. His conscience does not give him a way out; what he has is the passage of time...and, I suspect: hope. Ironic? Maybe.

Make sure you understand this: he has no way out. We might even name his situation Huis Clos.

We won't like it; but we MUST hear it.

We, on this side of the house, have to understand the same thing people like Lindsey Graham; David Addington; Dick Cheney; and even some Democrats know, approvingly:

He has no way out.

We must hear him on this. Because we might be able to invent a way.

If I had to guess, I'd bet the soundtrack on this is something like Hendrix's cover of All Along The Watchtower.

By now, you've seen the statement by Speaker Pelosi regarding the briefings. In it, she leads by referencing her Human Rights work.

Here is what I've told AI and HRW:

Greetings...

During her statement on May 14, 2009, Nancy Pelosi referenced her work on Human Rights and as an opponent of torture.

Her website has this brief blurb:

"Pelosi has long been an advocate for human rights around the world. She has fought to improve China's human rights record, attempting to tie trade to increased human rights standards. She has also been a leader on efforts to free the people of Tibet."

In short, if Nancy Pelosi is a worker on behalf of Human Rights then your organization owes it not just to Speaker Pelosi but to all victims of torture to speak up, loudly and as often as necessary, on her behalf; which, I must remind you, is to speak on behalf of torture victims. If Speaker Pelosi has been their advocate in America, your organization must be her advocate now.

This is something your organization must do if Speaker Pelosi's record is that of a worker for Human Rights.

From:

STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT
ON THE SITUATION IN SRI LANKA
AND DETAINEE PHOTOGRAPHS

"Understand, these photos are associated with closed investigations of the alleged abuse of detainees in our ongoing war effort."

Alleged, Mr. President?

"Moreover, I fear the publication of these photos may only have a chilling effect on future investigations of detainee abuse."

What future investigations, Mr. President?

"It's therefore my belief that the publication of these photos would not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals."

There it is again; that small number of bad apples argument, where the argument is accurate; it's just that the wrong apples were punished.

The small number of bad apples are named Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Addington and Yoo, For starters.

They are not named Lynndie England, Charles Graner, Chip Frederick, Thomas Pappas, Javal Davis, Jeremy Sivits, Armin Cruz, Sabrina Harman. For starters.

This is interesting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Provance

Still relevant, thirty years later:


Could have come through anytime
Cold lonely Puritan
What are you fighting for?
It's not my security

It's just an old war
Not even a cold war
Don't say it in Russian
Don't say it in German
Say it in broken English
Say it in broken English

Lose your father, your husband,
Your mother, your children.
What are you dying for ?
It's not my reality.

It's just an old war
Not even a cold war
Don't say it in Russian
Don't say it in German
Say it in broken English
Say it in broken English

What are you fighting for?

At the Washington Post, we read:

"Former Bush administration officials are launching a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign..."

In fact, it is so completely behind the scenes we can read about in the paper.

It's as if we are sitting, stunned, in the theater for the Avante Garde performance of the decade ; the curtain is drawn; the lights are down; we can hear scuttling movement and can only guess at what events transpire there, in the darkness of the obscured stage: "Given what we've just seen, that noise could be from...large rodents of unusual size, perhaps?" and before we can think again the house manager calms our apprehensive souls:

"Owing to the transgressive nature of previous scene and not a little stage fright, the main performers in the previous scene have each requested a few moments privacy; a bucket of fresh towelletes; and clean pairs of pants. There will be a slight delay before the performance resumes."

That's politics. You're welcome.

This morning, I picked a page at random (as I live and breath, at random) from this book:

Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella Meadows

Here it is, from the preview available at Chelsea Green; page 135:

The Trap: Shifting the Burden to the Intervenor

"Shifting the burden, dependence, and addiction arise when a solution to a systemic problem reduces (or disguises) the symptoms, but does nothing to solve the underlying problem. Whether it is a substance that dulls one's perception or a policy that hides the underlying trouble, the drug of choice interferes with the actions that could solve the real problem.

"If the intervention designed to correct the problem causes the self-maintaining capacity of the original system to atrophy or erode, then a destructive reinforcing feedback loop is set in motion. The system deteriorates; more and more of the solution is required. They system will become more and more dependent on the intervention and less and less able to maintain its own desired state.

The Way Out

"Again, the best way out of this trap is to avoid getting in. Beware of symptom-relieving or signal-denying policies or practices that don't really address the problem. Take the focus off short-term relief and put it on long-term restructuring."

A few thoughts: animals will learn to avoid the traps set by hunters, I've heard; and coyotes, I've heard, will crap on a hunter's trap after turning it over. There's a lesson here, probably about traps. Duh.

Breaking the cycle of this addiction is going to hurt; and it is precisely that threat of pain that is the Sword of Damocles over your head, gentle reader.

Again, I'll ask: Is there anyone out there up for a New Economy?

But I could be mistaken:

AUSTIN (AP) - The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed 16 cases of swine flu in Texas, and Governor Rick Perry has issued a disaster declaration for the entire state.

[snip]

Perry's disaster declaration...will allow officials to...seek reimbursement from the federal government.

[snip to end]

Read it here .

I suppose reimbursement will be sought before they secede. Someone should ask him if he's going to turn it down.