The Fall Of The House Of Bush

Even The Dour Poe Looks Happy Beside The Besieged Bush.

“And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.

But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch's high estate.
(Ah, let us mourn!–for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him desolate!)
And round about his home the glory
That blushed and bloomed,
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.”

“The Haunted Palace” poem from Edgar Allen Poe's “The Fall Of The House Of Usher”

Patience is a virtue. So too can one's being incredibly busy. Both of those factors figure into this story, as I'd actually begun to write this tale two weeks ago . The main “arc”? Merely the brutally obvious unraveling of the world around President George W. Bush like it was a stray thread-yanked whirlwind of revelation to even his staunchest defenders that his presidency was not the lovely burnt sienna toned painting they'd deluded themselves into believing it was,...but rather, the earthy, brown bed-shit of a two-term disaster.

The bullet points of the tale?

T'was to begin with the embarrassing, five-hour FBI raid on the home and Office of Special Counsel, Scott Bloch, whose “job” was to investigate federal whistle-blower complaints, and other deeply internal Federal probes of in-house wrong-doing. Issues like digging about for “Hatch Act” (of 1939) violations by one Karl Rove, who in his possible (and patently obvious) law-breaking was using federal monies and employees as a taxpayer financed, campaign workforce—patently illegal under the “Hatch Act”.

And then some...via TPM:

Federal Bureau of Investigation agents raided the Office of Special Counsel here, seizing computers and documents belonging to the agency chief Scott Bloch and staff.

More than a dozen FBI agents served grand jury subpoenas shortly after 10 a.m., shutting down the agency's computer network and searching its offices, as well as Mr. Bloch's home. Employees said the searches appeared focused on alleged obstruction of justice by Mr. Bloch during the course of an 2006 inquiry into his conduct in office.

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Bloch's agency is a little known one that is charged with investigating whistleblower complaints, Hatch Act violations, and the like -- but who is himself being investigated for retaliating against whistleblowers and politiciang his office. The Office of Personnel Management's inspector general has been conducting that investigation since 2005. The feds are apparently investigating whether Bloch tried to obstruct that investigation by deleting his hard drive, among other things.

To give you an idea how fraught this investigation is with unique issues. Bloch is not only busily investigating the White House for political briefings Karl Rove and his aides made to various agencies, but he's also conducting an investigation of the politicization at the Department of Justice and issues related to the U.S. Attorney firings -- a probe that he complained was being blocked by the DoJ. Of course, he can't do much to block the DoJ investigation of him.

When Eliot Ness and his G-Men roll up into a Bush appointee's office, shut down the in-office network, knock out the e-mail system, and grab everybody's computer and the file server, then hit his house and grab his shitty Dell Inspiron with every piece of porn and Pure Prarie League music in it because they caught wind that he'd been clumsily calling “Geek Squad” guys to purge files from all of his and his staff's computers—that is a big-ass deal. This is the kind of stuff that was dealt with in the heady “We are the grown-ups!” years, in the dead of night, by shady people called in on the Red Cheney-Devilphone™ to bring the shredders and lead-lined safes to clean up a messy situation.

Those days are long gone, as months are short, scores left unsettled are coming a' cropper, and fewer and fewer seem to fear the hoarse, feeble quack of our crutch-wielding duck of a president.

Feds bustin' in the door and snatchin' ever'thang from a Bush appointee?

Could that have possibly gone down in 2003? '04? '05, '06, or even early '07?.

Yeah, I thought not.

The story's second bullet point was to be the odd, open-air bus-crushing of another Bush-picked toady-in-trouble, one Lurita Alexis Doan. You remember Doan, don't you? She was the Powerpoint-hypnotized head of the Governmant Services Administration busted for the aforementioned crime of using her office as a de-facto arm of the RNC as opposed to a free-standing government agency. When caught out there on her CLEAR violations of the “Hatch Act” she was reduced to a laughable, spluttering paranoid mess in front of Henry Waxman's congressional committee. She was a textbook case of Bush's “Heckuva Job” cronyism exposed at its worst. Unable to be defended. Rank in its stupidity. And of course...tolerated up until this month in spite of clear evidence of wrong-doing, even after being told to resign or face criminal charges. This is the kind of person Bush used to snigger at us all about as he backslapped them and told the world how Jonas Salk and MLK weren't fit to wipe these people's posteriors. No more.

It's the Bush administration's special approach to accountability: stand staunchly beside an administration official as the allegations pile up and his or her credibility dwindles to nothing, and then months later -- long after the administration could derive any credit for the deed, and it is widely assumed that they are content to let the official fester in office for the duration -- the official abruptly and inexplicably resigns. So it was with Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales. And yesterday General Services Administration chief Lurita Doan stepped down.

But Doan, who gained mucky prominence for her clueless cronyism, wants everybody to know that she's not stepping down voluntarily. She was fired. And not only was she fired, but she was fired because she refused to cave to political pressure. Or something.

“I would rather get fired for something I believe in, and a cause I was willing to fight for, rather than to believe in nothing worth being fired for.” That's what Doan told Government Executive Magazine in an email last night. It's far from clear precisely what this "something" she believes in is.

Under fear—and that's really all it was—of deeper, more embarrassing investigations as he fades into the post-power phase of his presidency, Bush canned Doan's ass like Aunt Luberta's syrupy peaches. What made the firing doubly damaging was its un-typically messy handling. Normally the members of Bush's “Losers Brigade” are eased out the door, borne aloft on a sedan chair with rose petals and florid lies strewn before the press eunuchs carrying them out. This was an ugly departure, missing only building security flanking her on the walk-out and a pat-down for filched Post-Its™ and boxes of Sharpies™ at the front door. Although, it wouldn't surprise me if there's a shitty Xerox of Doan's White House ID card photo with a hastily scrawled “Do Nott Let In Bildeng!” on it behind the security desk at 1600 Penn.

Those two recent incidents were my main bellwethers indicating the spreading cracks in the foundation of “The House Of Bush”. Then there was to be a window-rattling return to the newly smoldering potboiler of Karl Rove's legal troubles with the resurgent Don Siegelman case as handled by our own Hubris Sonic:

WASHINGTON -- The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday subpoenaed President Bush's former chief political adviser, Karl Rove, to testify about whether the White House improperly meddled with the Justice Department.

Accusations of politics influencing decisions at the department led to the resignation last year of Bush's attorney general, Alberto Gonzales.

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Let the 45 day countdown begin. It was a mistake for Rove to leave the White House, he has little protection now and can get no help from the president's lawyers. They didn't release Siegelman because they thought he was guilty, it must have been really obvious to the appellate judge that he was railroaded.

Rove has since tried to hide behind plans for a legalistic stall, and even been forced to do his favorite thing in the whole wide world—outside of skulking about maternity wards for wriggling, downy-haired snacks—which is to go back and re-tell a story when his web of lies tightens about his scrotum.

While watching him flinch and squirm from those constricting canards pinching at the short n' curlies, other Bushian roof tiles and siding have begun peeling from the edifice at an alarming rate.

We saw the brutal volleys from the Obama camp, and most shockingly—the press—after Bush's noodle-armed serve of the “appeasement issue”, idiotically injecting himself into the presidential campaign. Obama's verbal nad-kick crossed Bush's eyes something fierce, and then doubled over Dubya's reluctant pal McCain with the deft tying of ol' McGollum™ to his previous statement regarding diplomacy, and to the electoral boat-anchor that is Bush. Worse still, it even prompted a few reporters to go punch up “the Wiki” where they found out about Grampa Bush's “Charles Foster Kane”-ish craven cuddling up to history's murderous little paper-hanger. Accounatbility? Ow! Owwww! Owwwwweeeeeee!

I dashed out of the house yesterday morning, watching only the local all-news station for the weather, so I missed much of the morning's TV, although while walking east on 23rd street to an appointment, the big screen TVs in the appliance store had an interesting and additional depressing Bush news flash that made me laugh, and probably made Bush chuck a Moussy bottle at the ol' Philco.

Apparently John McCain was so deathly afraid of being seen by the wider public with the two-term tragedy Bush at a downgraded fundraiser in his home state! (moved to a private home in Arizona making it a gold-plated “Tupperware” party instead of the planned big-room event), that the only extant visual evidence evidence of it was blurry “Bigfoot”-grade video of Bush and McCain sitting in the back of a limousine at the Phoenix Airport.

About 15 seconds worth, thank you very much.

How embarrassing is that? It's “What's Eating Gilbert Grape” embarrassing, that's what. With McCain in the neurotic Johnny Depp role and Bush in the part of the house-bound, “Oh-my-God-we-can-not-be-seen-with-her-she's-a-mess!” mom. Minus mom's good-hearted-ness and any reason for sympathy, that is.

And then I stopped at a diner for a light breakfast and almost Danny Thomas-ed my coffee over what I saw on the large TV screen near the door.

Little Squatty McMelon's incendiary new book “What Happened” was being discussed—in grave tones as the tome evidently gives Mr. Bush the grand, slow tour of the chassis-view of a Greyhound Americruiser.

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan writes in a new memoir that the Iraq war was sold to the public with a “political propaganda campaign” led by President Bush, aimed at “manipulating sources of public opinion” and “downplaying the major reason for going to war.” McClellan said Vice President Cheney was “the magic man” who steered policy while leaving no fingerprints.

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News of McClellan’s tell-all book seems to have soured White House officials’ impression of him. Current Press Secretary Dana Perino said McClellan was obviously “disgruntled”, while Fleischer said he was “heartbroken”, and Bartlett called the book “total crap”.

MSNBC’s Kevin Corke reported this afternoon that White House officials, on background, went even further, calling McClellan a “traitor” and likening him to Benedict Arnold. He said the White House was “upset,” substituting that word for a word he said he could not repeat on television:

CORKE: I have heard on background they are upset. I’m using the word upset because that’s not the word they used, and it is not the word I can say on TV. Another person said they are flat out angry about what transpired here. I heard the word “traitor” and “Benedict.” I think another person said to me, not far from here, it was like a shot to the gut when you are not looking. […]

O’DONNEL: Quickly Kevin, a White House staffer said to you on background—they used the word “traitor”?

CORKE: “Traitor.” Absolutely. And I raised my eyebrows, and he said, It is what it is.

That sound you heard wasn't thunder. It was the fucking chimney on the house falling down. “Boom!”

Not the roof just yet—but a major part of “Manor Bush” is severely structurally compromised.

McLellan's rough Sacajawea-dollar dropping on his mouth-breathing boss, wasn't totally out of the blue. We caught wind of this last November and dealt with it when juicy details about the book leaked out.

What—if I may paraphrase Mr. McLellan—the fuck happened?

I think it was this:

McLellan was put out in front, every day for months without so much as a fly-swatter to fend off questions about the veracity of his boss and peers at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. His job was to beat the wolves back, and to change the tenor of the story around the leak and the subsequent lies about it.

I believe he knew he was lying for the boss, but that they were “good soldier” lies of necessity.

Unfortunately, the sordid mess he was tasked with smoothing over was impossible to finesse, and he became identified personally with the stumbling and bumbling in the cover-up. He was clearly frustrated with this particular project, and on several occasions pretty much threw his hands into the air in exasperation and resignation over what was a hopeless situation for him. He of course, left before the Libby trial and its negative verdict, but the damage had already been done. His inability to spin bug-eaten straw into 14-karat gold was held against him, I think. His being unable to stand and lie with the cool authority of Tony Snow—and thus take some heat off the White House—made some in the White House not like him. “How dare he not effortlessly play the 'true believer' role as we need him to!”

“Fuck him. He's dead to us.”

Note that McLellan got no hook-up at FOX, or at the Journal, or any other bastions of walk-in wingnut welfare.

And even before that, but it didn't take a genius to see it coming. Just a casual student of political history and human-fucking-nature:

(LM) I too, have come to if not a belief in "cyclical" patterns, a belief at least in "the law of averages". So much skullduggery -- and yes, patently evil acts have been perpetrated by this administration, particularly in the name of this war and all of the wrangling of people and facts involved in it that THEY'VE GOTTEN AWAY WITH, that the law of averages just seems to be coming into play now. They're the lean whip of a guy who had the fast metabolism seemingly forever, snarfing down burgers by the bagful -- shakes by the gallon, and now thirty-plus years old, BOOM!, the jello-shaking gut appears, he can't get up the steps anymore, and his chest is always hurting him now. Bad news is on the horizon for this "fella".

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3.) A major whistleblower who produces documents detailing Bush admin misdeeds. Call me an optimist, but there's always somebody who just...breaks under conscience's weight.

There is always somebody who gives it up. Always. If not necessarily for conscience, at the very least to cover one's ass. McLellan was pooh-poohed as hyping the book based on a juicy editor's pull-quote or two at the time. Now? Not so much. He's got people running around the West Wing with their faces a rich “Buchanan Purple” in rage. Got 'em tossin' around words like “Traitor!”, “Benedict!”, and “Shot in the gut!”. It severely damages Bush's desperate legacy rebuild as he staggers drunkenly into the political sunset—brass-knuckle-clad cock-punching the reasoning for his horrific war from the deep, deep inside, and it also pimp-slaps John McCain's campaign dead in the grille as he's running on the prosecution of this heinous, misbegotten conflict. It ties McCain to Bush as surely as if he were Slim Pickens' Major Kong lock-straddling that big, dumb bomb all the fucking way down to the white-hot heart of a doomsday mushroom cloud.

This is NOT the way Bush wanted this thing to end. He was hoping for a “skate”. He wanted to ride out on a sea of platitudes, shaded by an election involving personalities that would distract from him. Steve back in the day always spoke of how he expected Bush to go out spittin' and shittin' with teeth a' grittin' as the hounds tore at his ass. I never believed that. Now, I'm not so sure. I think the skatin' away ain't gonna happen. And while I don't think there'll be an episode of “Cops” featuring a sweaty, tank-topped Bush being dragged off to the hoosegow, he will almost certainly not leave 1600 Pennsylvania intact. There will be bruises and scars.

Picture the belligerent drunk stumbling out of the bar at closing time.

He's on his way out at least. Loud and stupid, yes. But thank God that son-of-a-bitch is almost out the Goddamned door.

Then you catch a whiff of something awful, and realize he's shit in a booth. Not the bathroom—but a booth in the bar proper. Some heinous shit—pardon the pun. So instead of letting him just walk out the door on his own, the bouncer kicks him dead in the middle of his back as he staggers out for good measure. “Boom!”

McLellan's book and its subsequent firestorm is a bouncer's swift Size 13 in the back. A vicious move by a one-time friend. A one-time right hand man. And a sure sign added onto the rest of the exiting drink-tosses, face-spits, and leg-out trips that the end won't be pretty. He'll leave with his popularity at Nixonian levels. Nix-fucking-onian. His original posse, gone—save for Dick, and who the hell knows where his ass is these days. I'll bet there's a layer of dust on the swivel chair in his White House office. It leaves only a lonely “Baron” in a tumbledown manor. With parapets leaning and stones pulled free—letting in a chill wind. Echoes in an empty house. “The centre cannot hold, and things fall apart”.

The Baron sits bolt upright—there's a dagger in his back. Who would do such a thing?

There are numerous “Poe”-isms from his works that'd cap that off. Stuff from “The Raven”, or “The Premature Burial” come to mind. I like to close things like this out with musical codas. The obvious musical punchline would be The O'Jays “Backstabbers”. But I think another tune from the “City Of Brotherly Love” seems more apt...

There's more...

What's a Gaggle?

Briefing v. Gaggle

Definition: gag-gle /'gagel'/n,, a flock of geese. informal a disorderly or noisy group of people: the gaggle of reporters and photographers that dogged his every step, Middle English (as a verb): imitative of the noise that a goose makes; compare with Dutch gaggelen and German gackern.
--The New Oxford American Dictionary

Ever wonder how a White House Press Gaggle differs from a White House Press Briefing?

Haven't we all?

Washington Monthly (Jan 2003)

According to an email from an "ex-White House grunt":

"Gaggles" historically refer to informal briefings the press secretary conducts with the press pool rather than the entire press corps. They used to happen in the morning, they were more or less off the record, and their purpose was mostly to exchange information - the president's schedule and briefing schedule, from the administration side; heads-up on likely topics or early comment on pressing issues, from the news side. Briefings were what everybody knows them to be.

In previous administrations, when the President traveled, sometimes the press secretary would hold a gaggle with the press pool that travels on Air Force One - not every time, but sometimes, and always informally. In this administration, Ari does a gaggle on the plane every time the President goes out of town, and a transcript is made available for press corps members who weren't on the plane. These mid-air mini-briefings are the "gaggles" you can find transcripts of on the White House website.

He goes on to note that "Now you have one additional bit of wholly useless information to find space for." Hell, that's practically the definition of blogging....

What could I possibly add?

There's more...

Licensed To Lie

“I say what's the time? It's time to lie like hell!
Said, what's the time? It's time to lie like hell

Perks.

Who doesn't love "perks"?

Many times, they're the reason we take one job over another, or why we put up with bullshit about something we otherwise wouldn't. The perks. baby...the Goddamn perks!

And there are a load of really neat "perks" you get when you're the President or work in the President's cabinet. There's the cool, free travel. There's the way-clearing security detail. You don't even have to deal with intemperate people/folks who disagree with you--just label 'em dangerous and they can be spirited away from the building, area, or country to a local holding cell, or as far away as Guantanamo, so you're no longer troubled by 'em, if that's how you want it.

Free, high-quality medical care beyond what Johnny Lunchpail has access to, is yours to be had. No one with questions has to know your comings or goings--you can purge visitor logs, or block access to your phone records. Shit, you can even drunkenly shoot a dude's face off and get away with it. And...the slow-movin' bastard who didn't duck your random, Rumplemintz-fueled shotgun blast will even apologize for causing you to waste valuable buckshot!

Yes, Bush administration "perks" are Peeps-dipped-in-honey-and-rolled-in-confectioner's-sugar-and-flaked-coconut schweet. Yes, indeedy-doo.

But the "perk" that's the most awesome of all, the one that makes a Wall Streeter who gets a ten-figure bonus because of lucky-fuck rolls of the financial dice, as jealous as Josie & The Pussycats' Alexandra is the seldom discussed, License To Lie.

"The wha?"

I said, License To Lie.

I know. You haven't heard of it. It's kinda like that secret executive washroom you just found out about after six years on the job...or the undiscussed stipend the bosses get that covers expensive parking in-town. But The License To Lie is real, baby. Real, and as Al B. Sure used to say "In Effect Mode", too.

So who's got it? Who's rockin' it? Can I/you get it?

No, we can't. Because we aren't the President, and don't work for him, or have ever worked for him, or have tangible, tactile evidence of wrong-doing on his and his cronies parts--so no. We don't get the "license".

Although, I suppose I could refer to the "license" by its technical term, without having to use the scare quotes, huh? Okay...I will. It saves me keystrokes and HTML coding for all those funky bolds n' itals.

They also call it Executive Privilege, okay?

Ohhhhh, now you get it. :)

That's right, people your (somebody's--not mine) President yesterday trotted out that shattered-leg lame excuse for not allowing the "Dots-her-I's-with-hearts" Harriet Miers, and vapid, goggle-eyed, Administration Batshit Blonde Number 372, *Sara Taylor to testify under oath in the ugly, fired attorneys scandal. Note that these two so-full-of-Kool-Aid-that-they-trundle-around-screaming-"Oh Yeah!" loyal Bushies are no longer administration employees. Both booked up from their gigs to respectively spend more time taking belly dance lessons so as to finally entice "The Decider" away from that mean, old wife of his, and to finally count up that glass unicorn collection.

These people don't work for Bush anymore. But somehow, in spite of their now being private citizens, they can magically be transformed into examples of Bushus Employus Emeritus via Executive Privilege, and never, ever have to comment about the shady shit they engaged in and covered up when they were actually in employ at The White House.

Now, I know what you're thinking--above and beyond picturing Sara Taylor's counting glass unicorns as old Amy Grant tunes drone in the background--you're thinking, "Can Executive Privilege go that far? Should it?"

Well...let's take a look at that, shall we?

Here is what White House Lying Fuck (I'm ditching all the euphemisms now) Tony Snow let slither out of his reptilian mouth in March on the subject during a press gaggle on the matter.

Q: “Just to follow up on one point earlier, yesterday the President said, and you've repeated, that the principle at stake here with executive privilege is that the President needs to get candid advice from his advisors, right?”

MR. SNOW: “What the President has talked about is privileged communications with close staff members, that is correct.”

And here's what Bush's White House Lying Fuck Counsel Fred Fielding said about it in the last 72 hours:

"Executive privilege protects "a fundamental right of the presidency," Fielding wrote in Monday's letter, allowing Bush to "receive candid advice from his advisors and that those advisors be able to communicate freely and openly with the president."

Fairly clear. All legal-like and what-not. The president should have that right, one would suppose. The right to get "candid and unfettered advice" from his people without the fear of them being brought up before everyone to discuss those sensitive conversations.

But let's go back to that gaggle in March for a the immediate follow-up to Snow's statement:

Q: “But earlier you were saying that, when I asked about, well, was the President informed of this decision, did the President sign off on U.S. attorneys being fired, you said the President has no recollection of being informed of all this?”

MR. SNOW: “Correct”.

Q: “So were his advisors really advising him on this? Is this really privileged communication involving the President and his advisors, if the President wasn't looped in, you're saying, on this decision? So it was other people --”

MR. SNOW: “Well, that also falls into the intriguing question category.”

Hmmmm.

Let's go back to more of the record for some, well...clarification on that. Say, this past June 28th:

Reporter: “Is the president saying ... that he himself personally was in receipt of advice about the U.S. attorney firings, and that's why he's invoking the privilege? The documents went to him; that his staff provided him with advice, and that's what he's protecting?”

Senior Administration Official: “Oh no, no, that would be a misconstruction of the breadth of the executive privilege ...”

Reporter: “So, he is still maintaining that he had nothing to do with the actual discussions between White House staff, meaning [former White House counsel Harriet] Miers and [former White House political director] Sara Taylor, and the Justice Department related to the attorney firings -- that he had no direct involvement?”

Senior Administration Official: “No, there's no change in our position at all ... He has no personal involvement. Our position has never been any different than that.”

Okay...got it. The president was NOT apprised on these decisions as per the attorneys, and nor was his right hand of dispensation of evil, Karl Rove--according to Administration officials.

Now, let's look at what sort of information Executive Privilege is supposed to cover-- just for, you know--shits and giggles, okay?

"In the Supreme Court case of United States v. Nixon, Nixon's lawyers argued that executive privilege should extend to certain conversations between the president and his aides, even when national security is not at stake. They argued that in order for aides to give good advice and to truly explore various alternatives, they had to be able to be candid. If they were going to issue frank opinions, they had to know that what they said was going to be kept confidential.

In the opinion, the Supreme Court conceded that there is indeed a privilege for "confidential executive deliberations" about matters of policy having nothing to do with national security. This privilege is constitutionally based, deriving form the separation of powers. However, the Court held that this privilege is not absolute but can be overcome if a judge concludes that there is a compelling governmental interest in getting access to the otherwise privileged conversations, as in the case of the Nixon tapes."


Between the president and his aides.

Common ground here. Except for one simple thing, if you read the White House's reasoning--not even terribly closely, you see that there are tacit denials of having even discussed the attorneys issue. The most Bush has "said" he had to do with it is to having heard some of the "complaints about certain attorneys", and mentioning that to his toy consigliere Alberto Gonzales. No involvement. No discussions.

So...if he supposedly had no discussions on the matter with these people--Miers, Taylor, and Rove--then why, oh why is executive privilege--and the mantra of "candid discussions with aides" being invoked here?

Cue a busted, flustered Ralph Kramden.

Mark Green, former NY Public Advocate, and present top dog at Air America was on Hardball yesterday, and as smart as he is, he usually isn't very good at putting talking points across with his on-air demeanor. But he simply fucking nailed it on the executive privilege bed-shit:

MARK GREEN: “Now, president Bush has said, he had no role in it. Okay? Taking him at his word, then why won't he allow his aides to testify since there can't be executive privilege?..........”

MATTHEWS: (To GOP apologist/lying fuck pundit) "Lemme go to you John. The point--I think Mark made a good lawyer's point there, which is that if the president's claiming confidentiality of relationships with his aides, which makes sense, and then he denies he had any confidential conversations with them about this--what's his point? What's his claim of executive privilege if he wasn't involved?"

Now, in fairness...at this point, I should've included the GOP apologist/lying fuck pundit's response defending the policy...but for the sake of not embarrassing him, I won't--because he didn't even give one. He couldn't begin to answer that simple question put out there by Mark Green and yes, Tweety. His response is here, and it basically consists of him nervously chuckling and saying 'Bush feels he's got a strong case, he's got two chips left to bet, and what has he got to lose?'.

That's it. There is no substantive answer. The same way there was NO substantive answer when Cheney faced a similar question mere days ago over his claim that he was not a member of the executive branch in an effort to block access to information. He'd claimed executive privilege to duck releasing the minutes and attendee list of his first term energy meetings five years ago. Arguing this on the merits for these people is a no-win situation. It's like a one-handed three-card monte dealer lamely trying to fleece you. Except when you bust him and pick the obviously correct card, he simply says "Uh...nope, try again, and adamantly refuses to flip the damned thing over. So, the question remains--why..do they invoke this executive privilege thing on a fucking whim?

Answer: It's not on a fucking whim. A good lawyer friend of mine discussed this with me the other night and said,

"You don't buy an top-of-the-line safe to store dust bunnies in. It's for your valuables...stuff you don't want anybody but you to ever have access to. Executive privilege is a safe...a super-vault...fucking Fort Knox. You don't use it for just nothin'. It's for hiding away the most valuable, precious stuff you have. Stuff that would break you if it was in someone else's hands."

And thus, Executive Privilege becomes that ultimate "perk"--oops! There I go with the scare quotes again--it becomes...A License To Lie. The most super-absorbent Depends™ adult diaper, ever--capable of holding as much vile shit you can fill it with. But eventually, it stinks-- in spite of its absorbency, the deodorant in it can be overwhelmed. And while yes, it can hold an endless flow of shit, that doesn't mean the Depends™ doesn't actually expand to accommodate it.

Eventually, it becomes quite evident--"sniff!"--that someone...or something is totally...full of shit. :)

Vile image, yes--I know. Here's the PG version you can use on you gossamer-eared fundie "friends".

Ever have the superhero fantasy? You know, the one everyone has at some point in life? Where you imagine you've woken up with super powers.

What do you do with 'em?

Maybe you do some good...save a tree-ed cat.

Free a pinned construction worker.

Stop a mugging or two.

But at some point, human nature takes over in the daydream--and self-interest comes into play. You consider the ways, and just how much you can enrich yourself--how to use your powers for personal gain. Press coal into priceless diamonds maybe, rip boulders of gold from the very ground. But once you're on that track, the imagination moves on...you muse on how to rob a bank and get away with it. How to surreptitiously get back at people who you want revenge on. And so on and so forth. But sane folks almost always come back to reality, realizing that one would have to temper those powers to live amongst regular people. You can't really abuse that kind of power. It's the Spider-Man mantra writ large. "With great power, comes great responsibility"...and all that.

What we're looking at here--the Bush administration--is a group of stunted, spoiled fantasists who never have that moment of clarity that brings the absolute power daydream back to earth. These are people who actually don't realize that the power isn't absolute. It doesn't make you immortal. It's not the ultimate cheat code that gives you unlimited lives until you "beat the game". It has consequences. Effect. It sets precedent. Nixon tried to abuse it, and got smacked down. Clinton as well, and he got cock-punched (which is the "yang" I suppose, to getting cock-something else-ed). Will the judiciary pimp-slap Bush on this greased, rocket-driven slide down the icy, slippery slope? Odds would say, "no.", based on how he's managed to stack the court. But what he HAS done with this naked, ass-covering act is claw hammer the barely operating cerebrum of an already paralyzed legacy of a presidency to the point that the Florida shenanigans of 2000, the Katrina debacle, and even the "Mission Accomplished" moment will probably start to look like lesser events in the eyes of history. History is notoriously "Ike-on-Tina" unkind to instances like this from a president--and always will be. And when his party...his party, backs him up on this, tacitly, implicitly or benignly via silence, they run the monstrous risk of being judged on this act in elections to come. Get yer elephant bells and dynamite-plunger radios out of mothballs ya'll. We're on the verge of 1974 2.0. The backbreaking events leading this trip down memory lane probably being LibbyGate, and this craven act.

This cowardly act.

This unconstitutional act.

This solid de-marcation-on-the-historical-presidential-timeline-of-stupid-as-hell, act.

But it's the mega-"perk", this Executive Privilege. It's access to the secret corporate Olympic swimming pool. Meant to be used quietly, with little or no spectacle. And the President has brazenly...left a steaming, Caddyshack-esque turd floating right in the middle of it.

And abused it, twisting it into, a flat-out License To Lie

But I suppose one just "has to fight...for their right...to cover their a-a-a-a-asssssssss!"



*We'll see just what happens on Wednesday with homegirl's "testimony"---don't hold your breath, ya'll.

There's more...