After just watching another in a long line of Watergate rewinds on cable TV, I am convinced that the parallels are sufficiently clear for Congress to act legally against the President in the way that the Constitution lays it out: address articles of impeachment against him. By not acting in this manner, this country runs the frightenly real risk of permanently subverting the world's most powerful democratic document.

That thought makes me physically ill.

The reference to Jon Lovitz is most appropriate were this farce of an administration not so tragic. When Nixon claimed the 18 1/2 minute "gap", the public's understanding of technology--and its tolerance for political chicanery--was raw and much less sharpened in comparison to what we see from this inept and corrupt bunch. Extending Senator Leahy's "the dog ate my homework" reference, perhaps a stint in Congressional and legal dog obedience school is in order.

After following the Duke Cunningham indictment and imprisonment a while back, the idea that this sort of political criminality was systemic struck me hard. What has happened in this case makes clear to me that the primary reason for the stonewalling coming out of the White House is that these attorneys have ALL been fired for acting on their responsibility of office. Showing US attorneys the door for political reasons is one thing; making them disappear to avoid criminal exposure demands swift and harsh action. How much more subversion of the law does it take for Congress to grow a pair huge enough to act?

Reading Joe Conason's review of Marcus Mabry's biography of Condi Rice created a direct reference for me to Brutus in Act II of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar:

But 'tis a common proof,

That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,

Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;

But, when he once attains the upmost round,

He then unto the ladder turns his back,

Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees

By which he did ascend...

If all that motivates Ms. Rice is the ascent, and if her motivationis are indicative of this administration's representatives, God help us. Brutus, at least, possessed as his driving principle the protection, at all costs, of the Roman republic. It seems as though it is too late for Ms. Rice to grow a backbone as sturdy as the one Brutus died for.

Michael Corleone, where have you been?

Apparently you recovered from your daughter's violent death on the steps of the opera house and reincarnated yourself as Joseph Allbritton, with Fred Ryan reprising the role of Tom Hagen, in charge of legitimizing The Politico as a non-partisan political microphone. Unfortunately, the pedigree has left smelly historical droppings all along the trail that underscore its clear intent: to become a Mafioso-like organ in appropriate suit and tie.

I can see why this iteration of the right's "talking points" has metamorphosed in this way. When diligent and zealous members of the blogosphere like Glenn Greenwald dust the trail for fingerprints and uncover the gruesome connections, the effort to create the appearance of fair and balanced--heard that before?--is perpetually necessary.

In some ways I see Rupert Murdoch moving in the same direction concerning the chase for Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal.. Circle the wagons, folks. The attack has exploded into the light of day.

That all 11 of the Republicans who met with President Bush voted against the bill is no surprise; that so few people understand the sleight of hand techniques that this administration employs is what causes me so much distress. It is so easy to find a willing herd of elephants to head the parade as long as their handlers apply the electric cattleprod to keep them reasonably in step and without messing the street with too much excrement. A photo op, a well-crafted (but vacuous)press release, and well orchestrated talking points distributed to politically correct media sources: Rove's Recipe for Chicken Soup of the Soulless.

It's not that we haven't seen this reportage before, but what attracts me to this one is the sense of resignation and defeat the article carries within it about harvesting anything good from our completely disasterous invasion of Iraq. In a way, I feel like this situation is akin to what occurred in the South after the American Civil War ended, haunted for 100+ years by the vindictive sting of Reconstruction. The after effects of this war, though, promise a wider, more destructive, and more dangerous world.

That American policymakers possessed NO idea what cauldron they were stirring up when they launched this sorry and sad excuse for a war stuns me day after day. It is like the First Witch prophesies in Act I of "Macbeth":

I will drain him dry as hay:

Sleep shall neither night nor day

Hang upon his pent-house lid;

He shall live a man forbid:

Weary seven-nights nine times nine

Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine:

Though his bark cannot be lost,

Yet it shall be tempest-tost.--

We find ourselves nearly "drain(ed)...dry" of the carefully constructed American ideal of democratic fairness and strength, to discover ourselves virtually alone in the world, politically and diplomatically vulnerable, and insecure and unsafe at home.

What we see here is the Vietnam Syndrome in reverse. This Administration concocted a deadly Molotov cocktail of bogus reasons for going to war, erected the dominoes, blew them down, just to find an entire new board with new rules that we had no idea how to follow. In Vietnam, America meekly declared "victory" (mission accomplished?) and walked away chastened. In Iraq the pieces of the game are irrevocably broken, we refuse to admit defeat, and continue fighting just as the French and British did against the German army at the Somme in 1916: more and more dead piling up, and for what?