Given the incredibly putrid examples of governance provided by Republicans in the last few weeks, I, like many of you, have been in an unpleasant mood. Therefore, maybe I can be forgiven for reworking the Francis P. Church classic, "Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus," as the vehicle for expressing a few thoughts about Republican governance and corruption.
So, I take no pleasure in answering thus prominently the not yet received communication below, expressing at the same time gratification that its author could be numbered among the friends of the DICTA blog:
Dear DICTA:
I am 48 years old. Some of my Republican friends say there is no Republican "culture of corruption." My father told me, "If you see it in DICTA, it's so." Please tell me the truth, is there a Republican "culture of corruption"?
Virginia O.
Somewhere, Wisconsin
Virginia, your Republican friends are wrong. They have been severely infected by the contemporary conservatism that seeks a thoughtless age. They cannot believe what is not decreed by those who "think" for them. They know that nothing can be which is not said by Rush, Rove or O'Reilly. Everything else is not comprehensible in their frozen little minds.
All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge. Yet, the evidence for a Republican culture of corruption is so overwhelming that only the petrified brains of your Republican friends cannot know it: Republicans ignoring the warning signs that led to the deaths of 3,000 Americans on 9/11; Republicans lying to lead America to war in Iraq where we have destroyed tens-of-thousands of lives; Republicans abusing the power of government for the sake of religious fanatics who demanded the right to control the life of Terri Schiavo and her husband; Republicans outing a CIA agent for political gain; Republicans changing ethics rules to protect Tom Delay; Republicans who authorize political hacks to rewrite scientific reports; Republicans who cover their hate for God's natural gifts with Orwellian names like "Healthy Forests" and "Clean Skies"; Republicans failing to find enough compassion and courage to help hurricane Katrina victims; Republicans providing government access and influence to a cockroach lobbyist like Jack Abramoff; Republicans who support despicable elected officials like Duke Cunningham and Bob Ney who don't give a damn about their duty to serve the public interest; Republicans trashing basic principles of American democracy with legislation that sanctions torture of a human being by our government and that rips the right of habeas corpus out of our constitution; and, Republicans using their positions of power in government to protect a Republican member of congress who preyed on children for sexual gratification.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Republican culture of corruption. It exists as certainly as injustice, hunger and pain, and you know that they abound and give every true Democrat motivation to fight against conservatism and its proposition that these are not the responsibilities of government. Alas! How wonderful would be the world if there were no Republican culture of corruption! It would be as wonderful as if there were no J. Dennis Hasterts, Bill Frists, George Bushes, Dick Cheneys, Donald Rumsfelds, Condoleeza Rices, James Dobsons, Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells in America. It would be as wonderful as if there were no Mark Greens, John Gards, James Sensenbrenners, Paul Ryans or Sheryl Albers in Wisconsin. There would be new hope for fulfillment of the universal ethic to love thy neighbor and the resurrection of reason as the guide for government policies to make more tolerable this existence. If we should have no enjoyment, except under Republican governance, the external light with which America might fill the world would certainly be extinguished.
Not believe in the Republican culture of corruption! You might as well not believe that Barbara Bush is a soulless mass of cells. You might get your spouse to hire men to watch every minute of Fox News to learn about the Republican culture of corruption, but even if you and they did not hear of such things on Fox, what would that prove? Nobody sees the devil, but that is no sign that he does not applaud with fervor when Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh speak. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see on Fox News. Did you ever see a real journalist on Fox News? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not real. Your Republican friends cannot possibly conceive or imagine a Republican culture of corruption because they are sure that Fox News is fair and balanced and George Bush is a strong moral leader.
You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, that is what makes you different from your Republican friends, a desire for knowledge. They live with an insatiable appetite for Republican distortion, spin, and untruth that provides a comfort known only by men and women too lazy to think for themselves and which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could hope to remove. Only reason can push aside that curtain and view and picture the ugly state of corrupt Republican governance. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else more real and abiding than the Republican culture of corruption.
No Republican culture of corruption! Thank Ronald Reagan! It lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, it will continue to exist and threaten the great American promise as long as there are people who continue to think that it is a good thing to elect Republicans who despise our government to be in charge of our government.