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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
For the hundred`turd`dish time, shave,
bathe, observe wonders of nature. stink.
You give sick dogs cats and walrus fleas.
Cows and donkeys get a rowdy colicking.
Eat toad food, smoked Bumble Bee crabs.
Bubble Bee has canned oysters and recipe.
"What have you done with Grunwald, you fiend! Bring back Grunwald!" -- Derbig Mooser
Patience, Derbig. Obama will probably find a spot for Mandy before January 20. Before he's done, he'll have the entire Clinton administration off food stamps.
OK, I can grudgingly admit that there's some merit to the idea that one should refrain from dying a thousand deaths every time Obama hammers another neo-lib, Democratic neo-con, Zionist nail into the progressive coffin. He hasn't even taken office yet, fa Chrissake, and so forth...
That's as much of a disclaimer as I can cough up at the moment. Meanwhile, I suppose it's bad form to emerge from my Erection Year fetal position and resume my Cassandraesque screeching, my miserific vision that tragically, over the past few decades our federal political institutions have transmogrified right before our unseeing eyes into a para-corporate service delivery system occupied by a typically wealthy cadre of technocrats. The duopoly requires some degree of competitiveness, and permits a nominal amount of conflicting values and positions, but not enough to undermine the symbiosis upon which it depends for survival.
Our technocratic politicians are not "moral" or ethical in any ordinary, retail human sense, at least not while they're on the clock; every senator and congressman (and executive officer) is a wholly-owned franchise, or subsidiary, of Government, Inc. It's all about the benjamins, one way or the other-- from the wheeling and dealing to control and allocate public funds to the perpetual campaign fundraising to keep the franchise going.
Oh, ethics and morality are more popular than ever in political oratory-- it's no accident that skilled communicators are worshipped by a credulous public. We're a lip-service lovin' nation!
But, exactly as former Attorney General Gonzales implied that the Geneva Conventions were "quaint" and effectively obsolete, so do our veteran and newly-elected politicians treat Constitutional duties and the rule of law as "quaint". Everything, and I mean everything, is reduced to a political calculus; in this reductionistic Flatland, messy, inefficient, and politically risky actions are rejected out of hand.
Oh, right-- I said that I wasn't going to mount that well-worn soapbox again. Sorry about that.
Instead, I'll resort to my penchant for a tedious personal anecdote to make a dubious point: True story-- for a few years I worked for a state gummint agency director who had been kicked way upstairs from humble origins into a regional directorship because he was supposedly a wunderkind. He was personable, articulate, seemingly intelligent, and even charismatic to many.
His deputy, my boss, was a firm believer in old-school "loyalty". But others in our small staff hinted from the outset that the director's unique management style was not exactly as advertised. He very much played his own game, and was in fact amazingly erratic and outright wifty in the way he handled-- or not-handled-- his administrative responsibilities.
Let me be clear: I'm not in any way insinuating that Obama is a bozo or a fraud as far as his abilities. I am, however, noting that during the many months of the director's golden honeymoon, that a majority of managers and supervisors believed that he not only knew exactly what he was doing, but that he was way over our heads, way ahead of us, etc. Even when his actions-- or more typically, inactions-- resulted in negative and even destructive consequences, most of his subordinates followed the lead of my boss, a consummate spin doctor. The director was treated like a master chess player; he's thinking twelve moves ahead, and if you don't appreciate that, you just don't understand chess.
Eventually, if fairly suddenly, this confidence and admiration just... evaporated. There was no Master Plan, and he wasn't expertly playing the system to quietly but firmly revolutionize the agency. His moves were exactly what they seemed to be. And his disciples just stopped claiming that things that seemed wrong-headed and troubling were actually part of some grand design. Yes, this man was clearly inept, but the groupthink he generated would've been the same if he had been ept.
I keep hearkening back to this experience as I listen to inside-politics pragmatists justifying and applauding Obama's Clinton 2.0 proto-administration, e.g. that Obama is shrewdly killing Lieberman and the other Republicans with kindness.
Oh, me of little faith. Sigh.
I'll take your suggestion about changing the ToD under advisement but I only have so much bandwidth to play with. So many trolls....so little room.
Meanwhile, Pedinska is busy washing her sneakers and ironing her tutu for her recital on Duval St. Saturday night. Oh, Lordy!
A young Bob Dylan singing, playing guitar and harmonica, to the song 'Man of Constant Sorrow' as he stands in front of a drawing of what I guess is supposed to look like a windill.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvrHfiRq8wg
"Meanwhile, I suppose it's bad form to emerge from my Erection Year fetal position..."
I have to ask......
was that a typo or wishful thinking?
Greenwald: "Moreover, Bush's appointments of judges were barely ever impeded, resulting in a radical transformation of the federal courts. Other than John Bolton and Steven Bradbury, not a single significant Bush nominee was blocked. Those who implemented Bush's NSA program (Michael Hayden) and authorized his torture program (Alberto Gonzales) were confirmed for promotions."
Greenwald:
Do you even know what bipartisan means? Bipartisans COOPERATE. On nominations, it means that Democrats and Republicans get together and work toward naming people both sides can agree on.
It has NOTHING to do with whether or not partisan Democrats succeeded or failed in blocking the "appointment" (they're nominations actually) of partisan Republicans.
On NUMEROUS, probably HUNDREDS, of occasions Democrats VOTED BY AN OVERWHELMING MAJORITY to REJECT Bush nominations. More than 80 percent voted against Judge Samuel Alito. More than half voted against John Roberts. There were innumerable judges that Democrats opposed by landslide majorities. Off the top of my head, I believe that the overwhelming majority of Dems DID vote against Gonzales.
The fact that Bush pushed through extreme conservatives proves the OPPOSITE of your argument. There was NO BIPARTISANSHIP. None. Zero. Nada. Zilch.
On the flip side, Clinton DID consult Republicans before he nominated Ginsburg and Breyer to the Supreme Court. Bush did NOT consult Democrats.
Do you see the difference? On judges, there was bipartisanship in the Clinton administration, NOT the Bush administration -- contrary to your ludicrous claims.
In summation, TOO LITTLE BIPARTISANSHIP led to extreme appointments. The nominations succeeded because the GOP had a MAJORITY, not because Democrats and the GOP cooperated.
Again, the OVERWHELMING evidence is that there was NO BIPARTISANSHIP during the Bush years.
Shalom,
ZWrite
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
