GoldbergBlog

Held In Contempt

I believe the Bush Administration has a new strategy when dealing with scandal: another scandal. If it wasn’t how badly the War in Iraq was going, it was “Scooter-If I Was Going To Real Prison I’d Have To Worry About My Nickname” Libby getting convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. If it wasn’t Scooter, it was yet more evidence that when it comes to Supporting Our Troops, the Administration would only go as far as just saying it and then let them rehabilitate in fucking squalor at Walter Reed. If it wasn’t Walter Reed, it was discovering that the FBI abused the Patriot Act to obtain wiretaps without a warrant and invade people’s privacy. If it wasn’t the FBI, then it was Attorney General Alberto Gonzales other fuck-up, firing perfectly qualified U.S. Attorneys because they weren’t loyal enough to the party. I know George W. Bush talks to Jesus and right now he’s asking for another celebrity to drop dead under mysterious circumstances or at the very least, have a pop star get a crazy haircut. I wouldn’t put it past these guys to kill Tom Cruise and then have his body found with a dead male prostitute. That would at least buy them a few months of letting them do what they do best: ruining the country.

While the firing of the U.S. Attorneys is the hot scandal right now, I’m not sure where it’s leading. Can anyone be impeached for it? Would anyone resign in shame? I doubt it. It took the Democrats winning both houses of Congress to get Donald Rumsfeld to resign and he was King Fuck Up (I believe this was emblazoned on his coffee mug). But you have to love the poetic justice of this scandal because it hits to the heart of one of this administration’s chief attributes: arrogance.

Their response to this scandal hasn’t been one of cooperation, of accepting that they don’t run congress anymore and they don’t have power over the committees. No, their response has been a hearty “Fuck You.” First it was “these Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President.” No one said they didn’t. Hell, he could fire every single person with a government salary, but that’s not the point. The point was he fired people who were good at their job because they weren’t pleasuring him enough. And why was he unfulfilled? Because despite being Republicans, they were believed in justice, regardless of party affiliation. And of course, with Katrina and Iraq and pretty much everything this administration does, it’s always Loyalty > Competence. And we’ve all seen how well that works out.

So after that whole “serving at the pleasure of the President” thing didn’t take and Congress approved the issuing of subpoenas, the line became that chief aides Karl Rove and Harriet Miers would happily talk to Congress…behind closed doors…not under oath…and without a transcript. And the Bush Administration has the arrogance to tell us that this is a “reasonable response”. Like we’re all too stupid to realize that Rove could just fart for two hours and then come out and tell the press that the Democrats called him a variety of ethnic slurs and then ate a Hispanic baby. Prove him wrong!

The closest they can even come to a half-way decent argument is to say that having such high-ranking officials testify under oath would jeopardize the advice given to the President. But if your advice is something you don’t want repeated for the record, then maybe you should rethink that advice. Would it be the greatest tragedy if people advising the Leader of the Free World (whatever the hell that means) had to think before they spoke?

What’s most upsetting about this scandal is that it’s really not a big surprise. The unethical behavior of this administration has no longer become a question of “what” or “how” or even “why.” It’s simply become a matter of “when.”

No comments yet.

Leave a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.