Giving Thanks, Giving Way to a New Drama

Today, I give thanks that in January, Arlen Specter will no longer be head of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Why?

Because I want to see Alberto Gonzales testify under oath.

It was a detail, in a small drama, but it seemed to me to capture the full collaborative dementia of the last several years. Specter talks tough. Like he's going to defend the constitution. Like he's going to stand up to the executive branch. Like he's going to ask real questions of judicial nominees, about torture, about wiretaps without warrants. Then, he goes out of his way to tell the Attorney General of the United States, who has volunteered to testify under oath, that he does not have to do so.

That will give way to a new drama. In which Gonzales will have to answer truthfully or lie and face perjury charges, or refuse to answer and be charged with contempt of congress and perhaps force a constitutional conflict between congress and the White House.

That will be just one of many confrontations. All headed in the same direction.

We are headed for a period of grand public drama and fabulous political entertainment. Ploys and counter-ploys, confrontations and threats, and courtroom moments that will top the Nixon and Clinton impeachments combined.

I am grateful, therefore, to every voter, every blogger, every writer, every reporter who made that possible. I am grateful whoever leaked the Mark Foley's IMs. I am grateful to the gay Colorado prostitute who came out about Pastor Haggard. I am grateful to the people who gave money to the campaigns and to the Democratic candidates who ran.

It has been a long and treacherous nap.

I want to give thanks to the public school system. I have two children. At various times they were in private schools. I thought the private schools were pretentious, inept and sometimes destructive. The public schools have done much, much better by them. My daughter is currently studying in Prague through the State University of New York. It's affordable. It reminds me of when I was growing up and the city colleges were free and tuition at SUNY was so low that the smallest Regents Scholarship covered it. It's not as good as that, but it's good.

I want to give thanks for having such wonderful children. For their growth and progress through life. For their health and safety. For their good luck and good fortune.

I want to give thanks to my parents, both dead, who gave me so much and gave my living family so much.

Most of all I want to give thanks for the beautiful and extremely intelligent woman I am married to. For loving me and helping me with everything I do and for sharing our children.