Cliff's Corner

The Week That Was 02/03/06

Another week. More preposterousness to report.Well those cagey Republicans decided to go and choose themselves a new leader this week, this time preferably going with one who doesn’t snap to attention whenever Das Deutschlandlied is played and won’t soon be welding license plates with Jim Traficant until lights out. So to clean themselves of the “taint” they have acquired from treating our laws and customs like a 14 year old girl alone with R. Kelly, the GOP went with… Ohio Rep. Jim Boehner, a man whose name looks suspiciously like he has a pistol in his pocket or is very happy to see you.

Rep. Boehner, a man who gets campaign contributions to rip off students for the private student loan industry and used to hand out tobacco checks on the floor of the House to corral votes, benefited from the fact that it takes a DeLayean effort to crack the inner circle of corruption in today’s Legs Diamond version of the GOP. As much of an all around douche as he is, Boehner still just couldn’t quite match up to “acting” Majority Leader and paragon of family values Roy Blunt, who had an affair with a Phillip Morris lobbyist, left his wife of 30 years for said lobbyist, tried to sneak Phillip Morris legislation into a Homeland Security Bill, has a son who lobbies for Phillip Morris and another son who became Governor of Missouri with the help of Phillip Morris.

Let’s face it, this is the guy who could have literally “smoked bin Laden out of his cave.”

Of course the other big news this week is that Judge Alito is now on the Supreme Court. For life. And is worth approximately 11% of any decision regarding whether the Bush Administration can insert a metallic chip in your skull to determine whether you’re even contemplated making an international phone call to someone living in a foreign country like Phoenix or Milwaukee. Although some Democrats did try and mount a filibuster to stop his confirmation, which still has Alito’s wife crying.

Speaking of the Supreme Court, Ann Coulter apparently devised a way to watch television around her Adam’s apple and take a page from The Pelican Brief this past week. Showing that trademark wit that has landed her many a man after dark all the way through a brunch at Denny’s, she publicly mulled over the merits of assassinating Justice Stephens. Our sardonically funny Ann thought it might be humorous if he somehow swallowed rat poison. Now I would recommend that Ann do the same, but we all know that her meals all come surging back up through her system like GOP talking points through Tim Russert’s gargantuan oral cavity, so why waste perfectly good rat poison. That was just a joke for the media by the way.

Finally there was our Supreme Leader’s gifted oration known as the State of the Union. Apparently, we’re not going to Mars anymore. We haven’t polluted this planet quite enough to leave just yet. We are, however, getting off the oil addiction that made Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and pretty much everyone they know rich by not conserving, not changing fuel-efficiency standards and not putting any real money into alternative fuels. We do any of that, and the Saudi Princes said they will no longer hold George’s hand during their skipping breaks on the ranch.

The Bush Administration did achieve one important thing, however. They threw Cindy Sheehan out of the Capitol, illegally, for wearing a T-shirt they didn’t like. It was apparently critical of Bush’s favorite TV show, Survivor: Mosul. He loves that show, where he gets to watch as troops, who only wanted a way to pay for college, go fight a war he lied about — without body armor — while his good friends Ken Lay, Tom DeLay, Tom Noe, David Safavian, Mike Scanlon, Jack Abramoff and Randy “Duke” Cunningham get unlimited tax cuts for defense lawyers and dainty French commodes.