Cliff's Corner

The Week That Was 8/11/06

Another week. More preposterousness to report.

I really resent Republican blowhards. I was all ready to use my exalted space on America’s favorite liberal blog (that’s gotta get me a raise from John) to point out the sheer idiocy of the cocktail-weenie crowd, who apparently spend their nights wishing it was they, and not our president, who got to slurp in just a tad of Lieberman’s jowly soft-tissue after the State of Union speech in 2005.

I mean just during last week alone, Cokie’s hair-helmet, Marty and the Lieber-Loving TNR gang, Lanny “blogs are the most treacherous development since The Bubonic Plague” Davis and much of the rest of the crowd who decry incivility, except when they’re smearing Ned Lamont, his father, ideas offered by people who’ve actually won an election, Daily Kos, those who were right all along about Iraq, Michael Moore, African Americans, George McGovern, George Soros, Moveon.org, Howard Dean, liberals, Connecticut voters, 60% of the country who oppose the war in Iraq and those of us who don’t need to project our middle-aged “issues” into support for firing rock-hard projectiles at people to prove we've still got it, pulled the curtain on what a pitifully insular establishment of elitist jabber-dicks are running things in DC.

But with the recent turn of events in England (and the interesting timing of their release to the public), once again the lilly-livered, War: What Is It Good For-Absolutely Everything! GOP and their mouthpiece, the missing member of the politically-bizarrro Village People, Ken Mehlman, had to go opening their yaps and rejoicing. In fact, some of them began to quite literally get up and dance. Well, like prep-school white guys do.

Because terrorism to the Bush people is that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the political gift that they can keep exploiting, while quite actively doing things to undermine our safety. Osama who? 9/11-Report whitewash, what? Bernard Kerik, where? Well, not in jail like one might expect for most people who plea guilty to using their offical position as head cop to protect suspected mobsters who gave him $165 K to renovate his home. Which sadly kept him from running our nation’s agency that was presumably set up to be our first line of defense against terrorism—or from which to troll for fresh meat during the midnight hour—which is where Bush wanted him.

But no matter that these people have been as judicious on the world stage as Dick Cheney with a shotgun, a bottle of Jack, a large donor lurking nearby and the smell of fresh quail in his nostrils, they’re still gonna tell you that Iraq is Eden, they’re winning the war on terror and Ken just hasn’t found that special someone yet. And if you say differently, you’re aiding the terrorists.

Which is why Rudy Giuliani, when not committing adultery within rolling-distance of his young kids, is now quite willing to send out emails exploiting this most recent incident WITHIN HOURS OF THE ARRESTS. And then blame it on “low-level staffers.” Just like the young soldiers who apparently thought up all those methods of torture to employ at Abu Ghraib, without the help of say, anyone higher up in the chain of command. Yup, somehow those who snake toilets and jockey coffee at NRCC headquarters also run their online fundraising operation and faked Rudy’s involvement.

It is nothing short of remarkable. It would be like if a plan to fund the Contras in Nicaragua and arm Iran were run out of the White House and the former Director of the CIA and sitting vice-president didn’t understand exactly what was going on.

In a hypothetical world of course. Where it would even matter, because Iran would be considered dangerous enough to disembowel with a preemptive nuclear assault by many of the very same people.

Those “low-level” sons of bitches! Besmirching the good name of the GOP! What will they do next without their superiors knowing? Put together a PowerPoint presentation on how to use the War on Terror for political advantage or out a CIA agent trying to expose their mendacity regarding an unnecessary and America-weakening war?

Oh, right.

Please go to mms://youngturks.wmod.llnwd.net/a591/o1/8-10Cliff.wmv for my weekly appearance on The Young Turks as we examine Republican Sexcapades