Dirty baker's dozen

Salon summarizes the case for some domestic high-value detainees. No, not a case for torturing them, only the case for detaining them.

Two sets of books

Shorter Condi Rice: I was a Bushist, but I'm also a nice person in my family life.

Bipartisanshit

A friend writes:

Seems like your kind of book...

THE SECOND CIVIL WAR: HOW EXTREME PARTISANSHIP HAS PARALYZED WASHINGTON AND POLARIZED AMERICA by Ronald Brownstein. A veteran political reporter provides a shrewd election-year assessment of the growing partisanship in American politics, looking at the roots of this polarization and its alarming consequences for the country at large.

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My intemperate reply, slightly edited but not to make it more temperate:

God, if only Washington had been paralyzed by partisanship during the past 7 years! Partisanship should have saved us from the authoritarian tendencies of the Bushists, but alas the Democrats were weak.

The review reads as though Brownstein is paying obeisance to the faux bipartisanship so popular among the Broderist pundits of the Beltway, the stuff that gives us Lieberman endorsing McCain. It amounts to Democrats meeting Republicans 90% of the way to the right, no matter how extreme the Republicans become. Of course, that’s what Congressional Dems have done on almost everything but Social Security.

I’d argue with several points of conventional bullshit:

• The country is not evenly divided any more. We’ve concluded that the Bushists are bad for America.
• Social Security’s baby-boom-related shortfall was addressed in a bipartisan compromise (when that phrase actually retained its literal sense) in 1983. There’s only a problem if the Treasury reneges on its debts to the program.
• Lock-step party discipline is primarily a creature of the GOP. There is still significant dissent within the Democratic caucus, which is one source of weakness when confronting the ideologically homogeneous Republican caucus.
• We’re more partisan now than we had been, but not more than in times past – and not just the run-up to the Civil War.

What we need now is not to paper over our differences with bland centrism. We need to lurch back to the historic center from the path we’re on, which is the path to fascism. You may think I’m extreme, but where are we headed, if not toward militaristic, xenophobic government driven by corporate interests? Really, the Republican ideology contains all the elements of fascism except anti-Semitism, which played the pseudo-populist role in the 1930s that abortion and gay rights play now. Oh, and domestic violence from the far right has only been minor to this point.

Instead of a center defined by Joe Lieberman, I want a clear polarization because that’s what’s needed to marginalize the Bushists. I think a passel of ‘em ought to do time for Iraq, FISA, and torture, though I don’t really expect that. Duhbya and Darth deserve impeachment. Rummy, Gonzo, Rice, Tenet, Goss, Yoo, Addington, and Scooter (again) should be prosecuted. Oh, and don’t forget Rove. I’m sure there are many more.

For now, we have a far right party and a centrist party (with liberal rank and file); I’d like to see us get back to center-right and center-left before we rely again on bipartisanship as a good thing. Right now, compromise without accountability and transparency is a pig in a poke or worse.

Price of freedom

I have no problem with vigilance, nor with continuing international pressure. But, seriously, it's a warning sign that Iran suspended its nuclear program? You'd think Duhbya was the first one ever to recognize that proliferation is a bad thing. I suppose I should stop complaining and just be glad he has finally come to understand that.

So, Iran has/has no nuclear weapons program, and "nothing's changed". Yep, that's about right. No facts could ever make a dent. Of course, Condi still justifies going into Iraq because of decades-old behavior. Any day now, I'm expecting Duhbya to rescue the Tutsis in Rwanda.

Of course, Iran, like Iraq before it, wanted its adversaries (including us) to think it has WMD, especially nukes. They're trying to take on protective coloration so the price of attacking appears too high. Then again, even without their having WMD, attacking Iraq proved too expensive in blood and treasure. Hey, how about Sudan! Ha.

Karl Rove's dream

Vladimir Putin has done what Karl Rove wanted to do - create a permanent majority. Condi Rice has been expressing the Bushists' dismay, but they're really only jealous.

Bush v. Gore, part deux

"Josh, get me Wilhelm Rehnquist."

"Mr. President, it is a privilege and an honor to serve you today, but Mr. Rehnquist has gone to that great vote-suppression paradise in the sky."

"Yeh, right, I remember appointin' that Roberts guy, the one who actually made it through Harvard on his own. Y'know, nevermind Roberts just yet. Get me Jim Baker."

Ring. Ring.

"Uh. Hello."

"Jimmy White Shoes!"

"Mr. President. Is there a geopolitical crisis?"

"You're durn tootin'."

"Did you bomb Iran?"

"Nah, not yet, but I like the way McCain sings the Beach Boys. I need your help with another recount thing."

"Sir, you're not running for anything."

"But that damned Al Gore just won a Nobel Prize! There's gotta be something I can do about that. I own the damn Supreme Court."

"Mr. President, they don't have jurisdiction. The Nobel Committee is in Norway."

"Damn Norwayians. And after we rescued them from ..."

"From the Nazis?"

"Right."

"Sir, I recommend that you issue a statement that says you're happy Gore won the prize. You can't let the media see you when you get churlish like this."

"Good idea, Jim. That Dana Perino can look as girlish as she wants, but I can't. I'm the decider and the protector. I have to look stern but confident, and Karl's not around anymore to remind me."

"Mr. President, if I might change the subject: About the recommendations of the ISG..."

"Jimmy, gotta cut you off and get to my morning weight lifting."

"No twelve-ounce curls, I hope--"

Dial tone.

"Mr. President, you have a call from Henry Kissinger."

"Should I tell him to call back later, much later?"

"Nah, I'll take it. Just give him five minutes to listen to that klezmer hold music he hates so much."

Duhbya admires his manicure and peers vacantly out the Oval Office window. He wishes Laura hadn't made him send Condi off to State. He thinks he'll arrange a visit to Foggy Bootie soon.

Ring.

"Hullo, Herr President."

"Hey, Hanky Panky. What can you do for me?"

"Alvays right to the point, Mr. President. I called to cheer you up. Remember that I never became President, even after my Nobel Peace Prize. You are still dear leader of the free vorld."

"Who was that guy you shared the prize with? The Big Tho or something?"

"Le Duc Tho, sir."

"Don't sound very appetizin' if you know what I mean."

"Sir?"

"Nevermind. You got anything, Hanky? 'Cause I gotta go."

"Mr. President, have Condi declare that peace is at hand, then find someone to negotiate with, and maybe you can win a prize, too. Or you could continue the true legacy of Alfred Nobel."

"Come again. You lost me."

"Nobel invented dynamite. You could just keep blowing up evildoers."

"There you go, Panky. That's the nicest thing you ever said to me."

Dial tone.

"Josh, get me Petraeus."