Okay, so Scooter Skates. It's unquestionably a travesty of justice, a particularly toxic icing on a radioactive (yellow) cake. Bush and Cheney are displaying what, in another era, would be a shocking disdain for the justice system.
Honestly, though, after the so-called election in 2000, the USA PATRIOT Act, after making a mockery of the counterattack in Afghanistan, after Iraq, after the actual outing of Valerie Plame, after the so-called election in 2004, after Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, after 'extraordinary rendition,' after illegal wiretapping, after Katrina and Rita, after Walter Reed, after the war on science, reason and facts, after the firing of the US Attorneys, after their butchery of Habeas Corpus -- the fundamental bedrock of the Western concept of liberty -- after all that and a thousand other ways, great and small, in which this vile, inhuman lot have wiped their collective asses with the Constitution and 225 years of struggle for a better nation and world...this is the straw? Seriously?
I'm not one to complain, exactly, about more people getting more active in fighting this freedom-hating pack of dung beetles -- and I say that with apologies to dung beetles everywhere. The more outrage about this unspeakable gang of thugs, the better. And yet...how many deaths can be directly traced to the actions of these traitors to humanity? How many more are they indirectly responsible for? How many hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost to their greed and hubris? How many millions more have been shattered by the misery they've spread?
Everyone remembers that awful day in 2001 -- I'm a native New Yorker, by the way, and my uncle was a block from Ground Zero when the planes hit -- but how many really remember the outpouring of generosity and support America received in the wake of those murderous attacks? The RWNM loves to flog the memory of that day's horror and death, but it doesn't suit their narrative to remind the dittoheads that on September 12, Le Monde's headline was "We Are All Americans," now would it?
They like to sweep the memory of George W. Bush's promise of being "a uniter, not a divider" under the rug. Well, I remember. I was a Green for Gore back in 2000, having already seen the signs of Dubya's down-home authoritarianism. (I became a Democrat when I realized my party had lost its collective mind.) On September 12, 2001, I set it all aside, like the vast majority of Americans, in the naive belief that even this pResident, even George W. Bush, couldn't possibly abuse this terrible moment. The so-called uniter had been given, amid the horror, a golden opportunity to do something great. It was a chance to heal a nation of wounds both old and new, to genuinely bring Americans together, to unite a world behind a noble ideal, to take an act of singular hate and turn it into a better tomorrow. It was all there in the palm of his hand.
Instead, he made a fist.
To the nation he swore to unite, he took a sword and clove right down the middle, creating a new division of color -- red and blue. When the world reached out to us, he slapped it in the face. "We Are All Americans" became "Freedom Fries." A global alliance was tossed aside for the vapid labeling of an "Axis of Evil." A nation that cried out for our help was perfunctorily ignored once the photo-ops were complete, and a nation that had done nothing to us was systematically reduced to a partisan experiment, then to a living nightmare. Our proud military, the mightiest in history, has been thrown hobbled and half-blind into a pit of vipers and left there to salve the pride of a petulant boy-king.
A great American city was left to drown because of its citizens' color and politics. People died squatting in their own waste while this administration's agents sat within sight of it, doing nothing. American democracy was undermined at every opportunity while the dauphin spouted platitudes about "freedom" for other countries through his sickening smirk. Not just opposition was relentlessly assaulted, but the right to oppose, the very validity of the concept of opposition reviled and ridiculed. Heroes were casually betrayed and villains raised up as heroes. Truly, we were ruled by the Legion of Doom, only with less style and more absurdity. It was Karl Rove as Spinestro, George Bush as the Scarecrow, and Big Time Dick as Lex Luthor himself, the Evil Genius in the Corner.
The thing is, the only cards they had were fear, fear and more fear, and last year -- finally! -- the last shreds of good will they'd extorted from the American people expired. Their house collapsed, and at last Democrats had some power to restrain them. Not a lot, but some. Their evil has not been stopped, but it has at least been minimized.
Yes, the Democratic Party has been craven when it comes to the war. Yes, they could be hitting Bush and the Rethugs harder both rhetorically and legally. Finally, yes, yes, and holy gods YES, write to your Senators and Congresscritters, hold their feet to the fire to keep them on the offensive.
Really, though -- Scooter Libby? That's the bridge too far? Let's take a brief look at our options:
- Now it's impeachment time? News flash -- the Rubber Stamp Losers still have FAR more than enough votes in the Senate to make conviction an absurd pipe dream, and the Pander Brigade known as the Republican primary candidates would love to neutralize the Bush Liability. Can you imagine the cries of "partisan witch-hunt" if Congress tried to impeach Dubya over a commutation of sentence? For the love of the gods, we have the smoking gun -- it's called the Downing Street Memos. Bush. Will. Not. Be. Convicted. And, as he just proved, he'll get anyone else we nail off the hook as long as he's the Resident. Reality-based community, remember?
- Commutation is our Secret Weapon in 2008? Please, folks, it's still over six months before primary voting begins. Paris Hilton will star in a bootleg sex video in an orange jumpsuit or something in October and no one will remember poor little Scooter, except for his buddies in the Wingnut Welfare program.
- Shame? F*cking shame?! Bush played the guitar while the Big Easy screamed. Cheney lies about the war and death in Iraq while America weakens and Iraq bleeds. Rove assaults the voting process all but openly and winks at his buddies in the press about it. I love Keith Olbermann and recognize that his call for Bush and Cheney's resignations tomorrow is symbolic, but even at that -- we know the answer to that decades old question. They have no shame. None. Zero. Zip. Nada. Less rhetorical flourish and more ruthless rhetorical curb-stomping, please.
So what do we do about Bush? Well, the ugly truth is there's no good answer. The best solution I can see is to keep picking off Republicans in Congress, politically speaking. Tie them to that anchor at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue until they pitch him overboard and vote for sane policies. Keep infusing our presidential front-runners with spine. '08 is going to be a war, and we need someone who can fight to take point. I'm not going to promote one candidate over another here -- I think most Kossacks can tell who's showing guts and who's just showing belly.
Most importantly, make the memory hole throw up. That's the whole point of this diary. It's easy to get buried in the sheer mass of corruption and destruction this mis-administration is responsible for. We need to remind everyone. Some folks could pick a scandal and pound away with it. Others could cycle through them regularly -- Constitution-shredder Mondays, Our So-Called War Tuesdays, Domestic Disaster Wednesdays, Diplomatic Madness Thursdays, Voting Fraud Fridays, lather, rinse, repeat. Whatever works, as long as someone does it so that Americans hear it.
In the end, Scooter Libby is the political Paris Hilton -- juicy schadenfreude, but ultimately very small potatoes compared to the mass of crimes and betrayals committed by Cheney Administration, aided and abetted by the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. His only real use is as ipecac down the aforementioned memory hole. We need to hit them with their real crimes, then keep hitting them until they're buried under the weight of their own evil, stake the zombie lies so they don't rise again, and salt the earth with reminders so they can never again grow from the land of Entitled Wingnut Resentment.