It seems to me that whatever details may emerge from all these hearings and investigations into the high crimes and misdemeanors of the Bush administration, there is one thing becoming painfully clear, but it requires a broader view than those who devote so much of their time to examining those details generally take.
This is not to say that the examination of those details is not key to unraveling the veil of secrecy and lies behind which the Bush administration operates, it is just to point out something that deserves to be recognized. And it is something that I think will actually be easier to impress upon the voting population next year than the detailed account will be...people's eyes glaze over and the fine print gets blurry, eventually...
The broader view reveals a fundamental set of patterns that reflect extremely poorly on this administration, whether or not any actual illegal activity is proven out. They reflect that the priority placed by the administration on party and personal loyalty and adherence to a fundamental philosophy is much, much higher than that placed on public service. Sheila Jackson-Lee said it best today, that Goodling was good at serving the President, but would have been much better off serving the American People.
The Bush administration is interested only in its own self-preservation and the furtherance of the policies for which its benefactors paid. The Democratic Party is scarcely better, and although it has the tools to overturn the policies in question and drive the monstrous criminals from office, it can't do so and survive intact. Maybe the thought is that turning over the wrong rock will release something so insidious that the country itself would not survive it. There is a necessity to maintain the illusion of America, the great experiment in Democracy, and that illusion is necessary because it arms the capitalist globalization project and protects it from the People.
The Goodling testimony today threw one thing into sharp relief, and that is that a person who probably ought to be a bank teller somewhere, or at most an assistant to your mayor, was delegated the authority to screen the principals of our country's system of justice and to help coordinate the firing of those who didn't pass political muster. Any of the US Attorneys fired by those doing Rove's dirty work would have been a far better choice to run the DoJ than Gonzales, Sampson, McNulty and Goodling. Goodling's primary qualification for being entrusted with the hiring and firing of US Attorneys was that she was her college class president. These are people who won't recall important decisions they made six months ago, who won't remember knowing things they knew, who don't feel like they said things they said but are very careful to avoid implicating the White House in making decisions they all seem to agree are the White House's decisions to make.
The reason, as near as I can tell, is that if the truth were finally told, it would reveal who's making the decisions in or even for the White House, and that it isn't who all those good God-fearing, patriotic Americans voted for. It would highlight that fact that Bush is little more than a spokesmodel chosen for his appeal to the ignorant masses to sell the morally and ethically bankrupt policies of the project.
A "unitary executive" is necessary if real democracy is to be constrained. Every decision made by this administration and its appointees has been to further the consolidation of power in the executive branch. The lack of oversight by the other two branches has been ensured by the former rubber-stamp Congress and the weak, pliant, current one. Our supposed representatives in most cases are bought and paid for by the same interests who pull Rove's strings, and the Judicial branch was stacked.
The illusion of balance in the Congress created by the 2006 midterms simply means that America is on a slower, somewhat more humane train to fascism rather than on the express. Our nation, as an ideal, died a while back, probably with the granting to corporations the rights of personhood, but possibly before that. I remain optimistic that a new one can eventually be created from the ruins of this one when it's finally and inevitably pulled down
The single greatest threat to the capitalist globalization project is global collaboration against it organized through the only mechanism in place to effect that collaboration -- the Internet. And the corporate world is as busy as it can be coopting it, choking it with garbage and generally attempting to render it useless for disrupting the established order in a way that can create real change for the great masses around the world.
I don't think its power can be contained, however, and that it remains the last great hope of humanity in its struggle to become something more than a labor pool. Those of us engaged in the practice of those things which raise us above the other primates, at least occasionally, MUST take advantage of the power it gives us all. I realize that on DailyKos, I'm preaching to the choir, but most of us have extended families, coworkers, friends and colleagues that don't feel capable or qualified to take part in these emerging kinds of exercises in real democracy.
It is our duty to encourage them, harangue them and help them do so. Please do something proactive this week, and enjoy your Memorial Day weekend...
T.