I like Thanksgiving as a holiday; it's my favorite one after the storming of the Bastille. However, I've been having trouble feeling grateful recently.
I'm disturbed by the state of the world, and the state of the country.
As William Wordsworth wrote, "The world is too much with us." The "us" referring to all of us; or just to me, in which case it's the "royal we."
Grateful, let's see.
I am grateful that Scott McClellan said that Libby, Rove, Caird, Cheney and the president himself were "involved" in misleading him on the outing of Valerie Plame; and that they all participated in misleading the American public through telling him non-truths. Otherwise known as lies. I am grateful for that admission from him.
MSNBC though later reported that the publisher says McClellan did not mean to imply that Bush lied to him, only that Bush "participated" in encouraging McClellan to believe the others because Bush believed the others too. "Heck of a job, Libby. Thanks for the info, Dick! Doin' good, Andy!"
I don't know that I believe that cover for Bush, do you? I believe Cheney-Libby lied first, but Bush couldn't figure it out? Of course in the public arena, lies are very hard to prove as lies. Though Bush and his whole administration long ago turned into the Boys Who Cried Wolf. (Or Who Cried Wolfowitz, ha ha.) It's remarkable when they say anything true; I always begin by assuming it's a lie or manipulation.
The leaves turned color a full month late this year in PA. Climate change, fellas.
Grateful. I am grateful for the existence of old movies on DVD. I am grateful the trees are so pretty in the fall, though worried they turned so late this year.
I think Congress should subpoena McClellan and demand he make clear what he knows. I assume he'd obey a subpoena. Unlike Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolton.
How is Harriet Miers? Is she back in Texas? Has she found another incompetent but dangerous man to idolize? Or is she still sending Bush little greeting cards saying "you're the best" and signed with a smiley face over the two i's in her name?
Oh -- I am grateful that Harry Reid and the Democrats are keeping Congress technically in session so Bush can't once again use Congress' vacation to make his pigheaded, political "recess appointments." Good for them!
And good for Senator Jim Webb, who I saw on CNN after he both opened and closed a session, all by himself. He seemed in good spirits, and glad to block the President on this. Remember Webb? He's the one who refused to make small talk with the president when the president wanted to show faux concern about Webb's son over in Iraq. The president was real offended. Poor Bushie.
McClellan's story put Lewis "Scooter" Libby back in the limelight. I find his nickname idiotic, and it's annoying to see it over and over.
Scooter Libby, Scooter Libby. Told a lie, a great big fibby. Shove, push, shove, push -- you tell a lie if you work for Bush. That's what schoolchildren all over the country are chanting now, right before they rush inside to check their email on Myspace or Myface or Mypudenda.
Thanksgiving. I am grateful for this corn, otherwise known as maize.
I am grateful I am not one of the characters in the film Damage.
My dog woke me at 3:30 a.m. Normally he gets me up at 6, which is okay with me. Lately he seems to need to go out in the middle of the night. I blame Bush. And Scooter Hooter Booter Libby.
Anyway, I couldn't get back to sleep, so I turned on the TV; and I, my partner John and the dog saw the last 40 minutes of the Louis Malle film Damage on the Independent Film Channel.
The on-screen Dish Network description of Damage said this: Damage (1992), with Jeremy Irons, Juliette Binoche, Miranda Richardson. An English politician embarks on a catastrophic affair with his son's girl friend. (1 hr, 31 min.)
(Don't read the rest if you plan to see the movie someday.)
Catastrophic is right.
Jeremey Irons is in Parliament, and his son is engaged to Juliette Binoche. However, she's a bit of an enigmatic oddball (I missed the beginning, so I don't know what psychological nuttiness she's acting out of), and Irons and she have an affair, keeping it hidden from Jeremy's nice son and his nice wife.
Then Binoche's mother comes to tea and picks up what's going on immediately, and warns Jeremy to stop it. So he tells Binoche they have to call it off, it is his son she's supposed to marry after all.
Her response is to send him a key to a lovely pied-a-terre she's just rented for frequent sex with her father-in-law. Jeremy can't resist, and for reasons that made sense when you were watching, he by mistake leaves the key in the door.
The son shows up, hears orgasmic sounds, and walks in on his father and his fiancé having sex. The poor young man looks deeply upset, and backs out of the room, oblivious to the fact he's on the fifth floor, and he falls over a guard rail by the staircase, and splat he's dead. Naked Jeremy cradles his son's dead body, while Juliette goes off somewhere, without so much as an "oh my." Jeremy resigns from Parliament, and returns home to his distraught wife who appropriately asks him why he didn't kill himself.
This film made me grateful.
I'm grateful I didn't have an affair with my son's fiancée. I'm glad I didn't inadvertently cause my son's death or destroy my wife's life. And I enjoyed seeing Leslie Caron's brief appearance as Juliette's mother.
Ms. Caron seems charming, and I hope to have Thanksgiving dinner with her next year. Though would she come to Pennsylvania or would I have to go to France? Where is France exactly?
Oh, and I'm grateful for my partner and my dog and the maze and DVDs and fall even late. And I'm grateful that I use food for comfort, or rather I'm not grateful I use food for comfort. I need to contact Kirstie Alley and Valerie Bertinelli and go off to Jenny Craig meetings with them.
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P.S. I agree with the Wilsons' post today that it is outrageous that the New York Times did not run a single story on the McClelland comments in his upcoming book. What is the matter with the New York Times? Something sure is. And the Washington Post buried the story.
And why, in all the times I've heard the story of the outing of Valerie Prame as a covert agent, has no one ever said that aside from anything else, what kind of idiot rebuttal to Joe Wilson's report is it to say, well his wife recommended him???
It turns out, according to what I've read, she didn't recommend him, she wasn't the "cause" of his being chosen. But even if she had been, what kind of f-ing point is that?
Mythical Reporter: "Vice President Cheney, Joe Wilson went to Niger and he found NO evidence of Saddam having tried to buy uranium to make a nuclear bomb." Cheney: "Oh yeah? Well his wife recommended him for the job!"
And... so what?
Wilson's findings are meaningless because of who recommended him? WHAT ABOUT THE CONTENTS OF WILSON'S ARTICLE???
What about the fact that Cheney and Bush and Condi-Scooter-Rice went on tv and whipped the American public into a scared fury that Saddam was going to drop a nuclear bomb on us, and dragged us into a war that had nothing to do with 9/11, though Cheney said it did, and all the other Bushies either said it did or mussed the issue up... and now we're still there. What about the fact that the documents supposedly proving a Niger-Saddam connection were an obvious, obvious forgery? Who did the forgery? That helped send us to war. The Bush administration has no interest in that, they just want to keep saying "Oh yeah? Well his wife recommended him and so we win! Our point wins!"
I don't know if they CONSCIOUSLY chose to out Valerie Plame, but it's clear they knew she was in the CIA and they had no interest in checking on her status in their rush to say their "brilliant" rebuttal. It was a VERY SERIOUS omission. The CIA itself requested the Justice Department investigate it.
And yes, Bush talked all tough about punishing whoever outed a CIA agent... and then never brought it up again once it became clear it was people around him he did.
If Clinton's administration had leaked a CIA agent, either knowingly or sloppily, to sell a war, the outcry from the right would have been enormous. And it would have been correct to react with an outcry, no matter which party did something like that.
But the Republicans in this country are enormously hypocritical, and they have done nothing to face up to the disgrace and danger that is the Bush administration. Or to protect us from it. And the Dems are trying, but the Republican Senators are threatening filbuster on almost every single issue, demanding 60 votes that the Dems just don't have. Remember when Bill Frist was going to do away with the filibuster to punish the Democrats for threatening its use for judges? And now the Republicans use the threat CONSTANTLY, so that majority rule is now meaningless in the Senate. It has to be 60 votes.
The mainstream media acts like "the outing of an agent to send us to war" story is yesterday's news. It shouldn't be treated that way.
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P.P.S. The New York Times finally ran a piece today (Friday, Nov. 23) on the Scott McClelland statement implicating Cheney-Rove-Libby-Caird-and-in-some-way-Bush in misleading both him and the American people on the Valerie Plame outing. The story broke on tv news and many newspapers on Nov. 20 and Nov. 21st. It was reported by the BBC, for instance, on Nov. 20.
The Times article today is actually an Associated Press piece, and does not focus on McClelland's accusation -- no, that's not news, is it? -- but is a mini-think-piece about how the tone of books press secretaries have written about their work with various administrations have changed over the years. The actual paragraphs written by McClelland and leaked by his publisher are not quoted in the article, as they are quoted in most other coverage of the story. Thus if you only read the Times you would not have that information. (Online it's buried in a Times "blog.") How the Times loves their think pieces. All the news that's fit print.