pointed to by kmusser

[winterbadger]

a very insightful blogger

on Libby

"Scooter Libby pays no fine, he suffers no damage to his employment prospects or his reputation among people he cares about. Jail was the only thing that would be any sort of payment for lying to a grand jury and obstructing justice. Now it's gone. I don't care how conservative you are -- that's just wrong. If you're down with this, you are way, way deep in the Crazification Factor."

and on the administration

"Our representatives -- and to a great degree we as a culture -- are completely buffaloed by shamelessness. You reveal a man's corrupt, or lying, or incompetent, and what does he do? He resigns. He attempts to escape attention, often to aid in his escape of legal pursuit. Public shame has up to now been the silver bullet of American political life. But people who are willing to just do the wrong thing and wait you out, to be publicly guilty ... dammmnnnn.

We are faced with utterly shameless men. Cheney and the rest are looking our representatives right in the eye and saying 'You don't have the balls to take down a government. You don't have the sheer testicular fortitude to call us lying sonuvabitches when we lie, to stop us from kicking the rule of law and the Constitution in the ass. You just don't. What's beyond that abyss -- what that would do to our government and our identity as a nation -- terrifies you too much. So get the fuck out of our way.'"

Comments

[azbound.livejournal.com]

I think where I get tripped up is that I don't think McCain/Kyl/Flake would be very happy if I called up and said, "Motherfucker, you work for ME and I expect you to find your balls and deal with this." Because I'm beyond the place where I can say this tactfully. Not to mention that Kyl was on NPR this morning DEFENDING what W did. Fucking two party bullshit system.

[winterbadger]

What I don't understand is how the administration has managed to short-circuit the checks and balances structure. Even when people are from the president's own party, like Kyl and McCain, they should as senators be outraged by the way the president (well, the VP really) has recreated (and built upon) Nixon's Imperial Presidency. If they aren't motivated to stop the criminals on moral grounds, why aren't they outraged that these guys are stealing from THEM? But they aren't.

And, in the end, the people are to blame. It's like in a soccer game when you hat the officiating. Why didn't that guy get a caution? Why did he give that free kick? But it comes down in the end to who scores more goals. Bush and Cheney benefit from huge amounts of election money, and cronyism, and a cooked SCOTUS, and cheats in voting machines, but in the end, they got elected and then got elected again. Over 60% of Republicans polled still support them. HOW? WHY? I just don't understand. It's one of the things that makes me think I'm living in the wrong country.