Vaudevillainy

As Messrs. Addington and Yoo held the line the other day against any intrusion upon their heavily fortified domain, the question of the administration's fealty to secrecy and proprietary governance became ever more clear.

In BushCo's version, America is an island unto itself and all those who seek the truth about what goes on behind the palm fronds and razor wire are threats to its sociopathic sovereignty. From the start, secrecy, obfuscation and road apple-kickin' swagger have characterized the way it does its business, actually taking pride in its disdain for sophistication and diplomacy, as a kind of cowboy charm -- their chaps are covered in blood but they git 'er done.

David Addington and John Yoo are the latest hoofers appearing in the BushCo burlesque, bucking and winging their way through the most recent House Judiciary Committee hearing and bringing into the spotlight yet more maddening breaches of protocol and common sense. They and their ilk are nothing like the patriots they paint themselves to be. In fact, they bear a startling resemblance to the sneering, clubfooted propagandists and sieg-heiling deviants the allies spent their blood and souls battling in WW2 and, later on, the even scarier cold war miskites who sent their betters to gulags and oblivion, their current incarnations just as true to their ideology but less sartorially fetishistic.

The point is, what are these men protecting and from whom? What have they ever demonstrated to be in anyone's interest but their own? That once again these members of the petroleum politburo are allowed to brazenly mouth off to the constitution, to its citizens and to the memory of all who fought for the country when it deserved to be fought for should provoke brain-bursting outrage.

It should but it won't. We already know and have known the answers but just have to go through the moldy theatrics. The House subcommittee hearings were just the latest reality TV offering about the Bush years: "Extreme Fuckover: Torture Shmorture!"

And there's still that pesky war. Funny how that's slipped several steps back to the just-get-it-over-with position. Funny how so much of what we should consider important grays into the background and joins the neo-concaphony. It's all so disposable: war, ethics, education, the middle class, poverty, health, the environment, history, senior citizens, the environment, a right wing activist supreme court, other people, other cultures, a plan. It's all a fait accompli since the guardians of freedom -- the citizens -- are too busy being distracted by the garish capering of pompous apparatchiks, undernourished starlets or overmedicated athletes, all dripping with ignorance and bling and all calculated to draw the collective gaze away from the ruin taking place outside the theatre.

And the last act of the BushCo Follies is on next. We'll kill 'em in Tehran!

Comments

[kjdwyer]

Searing, biting, utterly perfect read.

It leaves me with a mouth full of bile, a broken heart and a mind on fire.

Exactly what the present state of affairs demands.

I'm relatively new to this site and I had no idea you could write like that. Brilliant.

Keep writing.

[TRYKER]

Oh Steven, you're just too good!!

[hippynanainblingland]

"we'll kill 'em in Tehran..."

Or in Amerika! Don't discount a possible election invalidating false flag incident!

"It's all a fait accompli since the guardians of freedom -- the citizens -- are too busy being distracted by the garish capering of pompous apparatchiks, undernourished starlets or overmedicated athletes, all dripping with ignorance and bling and all calculated to draw the collective gaze away from the ruin taking place outside the theatre. " Priceless!!!! Steven, your train or thought never ceases to amaze me with your on-the-spot observations and your word choices! Would that I had such a mind...

[CaptainObvious]

It's people like this that make me wish there was a Hell. Sure, I'd probably end up there myself, but at least I could have some satisfaction in knowing that they're finally suffering too.

[holeybuybull]

Back in the US, back in the US, back in the USSR!

[flatus]

If you want air time then sex, violence, or outrage is required. These committee members should know that. They should be pounding the gd table.

[Sundialsvc4]

You've read the story correctly.

Now, what are you (or any of the 300+ million of your good friends) actually going to do to, for example, "bring Impeachment back onto the table?"

Knowing what your "enemy within" is doing is one thing. Forcing a significant change to occur is quite another.

[DasBoot]

I had the "pleasure" of listening to John You for full two hours at an event last weekend (thank god he was paired up with the great lawyer John Cole, who said everything that needed to be said). It really makes you think about Hannah Arendt's take on Eichmann as personifying the banality of evil. Such a nice man, such good intentions (we are meant to believe). But if you go behind the facade, it's sheer nonsense or rather insanity: They claim the president has the right to declare a state of war, and once in a state of war, as Commander in Chief the president can do whatever he wants.

[Durango]

Isn't that bizarre.

The Constitution clearly gives ONLY Congress the right to declare war. And wouldn't War Powers be absent without a Declaration of War by Congress?

They claim unlimited powers for the Presidency yet it is obvious from even the barest notion of the Founding Fathers that they would NEVER reestablish a monarchy. NEVER!

In fact the whole premise of the Constitution was to LIMIT POWERS.

And the Founders had just gone through a long and bloody war WITH NO EXECUTIVE.

I think your conclusion is correct. The only explanation is that they are INSANE! they look rational on the outside. Until they start to speak.

Because their theory of Presidential powers is so absurd that insanity is the only defense.

[buckbuck11]

To quote that great political observer, Mr. T., "I pity the foo's...."

If they answer the questions and tell the truth, they admit guilt as war criminals.
If they answer the questions and lie, they risk the unpleasantness and inconvenience of getting "Scootered."
If they act truculent and imposed upon, they can put those annoying congresspeople in their places.
They choose door number three.

Even more heinous in this whole episode was that there was nary a word about it on the broadcast and cable noise machine. Not sound bites, no pundits yelling over each other trying to defend the indefensible. Nothing. Zip. Nada.

The only advantage of Pelosi and Reed's inaction in letting these criminals skate for now is that Chimpy won't be able to pardon them once he's out of office....

[TomR]

I feel like we've all fallen down the Neocon rabbit hole where the sociopaths are king and we--their captives.

- Tom

[zendem1]

That's pretty accurate.

[Robertx5]

If Messrs Yoo and Addington genuinely believed in the legal opinions they produced, they would have gone to congress and forcefully defended them. They fact that they struggled to do so makes me suspect that they knew the opinions were indefensible from the very beginning.
As more stories come out concerning behind the scene discussions over the torture of suspects, it appears everyone knew what was being done was illegal and wrong. But instead of people saying it must stop, they searched around for any sort of fig leaf to defend their actions. Bush. Cheney and their administration are rightly condemned. But surely many in congress, the military, state department, media and others are just as guilty. They knew what was going on but to protect their own careers, at best said nothing and at worst defended it.

[5150]

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition! A Believer in the Unitary denies the 3 branches of government as heresy. Thus, a Unitary conflicts with who you are and can't agree with what you say. If Truth is Unitary, there can be no division of opinion, and there can be no agreement, for this implies the possibility of disagreement. If and such Addington must concede a point, he will in fact contradict the speaker first. It's personal. Makes sense to Yoo.

[iamaperson]

Bush sought and accepted the legal justification for the president to order the torture of anyone including children.who provided this legal justification? John Yoo, and Bebee basically lied and made up statues to write the legal justification for wholesale torture. John Yoo said that there is legal basis for the President to even order crushing the testicles of children in front of their parents. And neocons Addington, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rove, Feith all signed up and agreed to it. Obviously one does not need any legal knowledge to know that there is NEVER any moral yet alone legal basis to torture children. Period.

What sick mind would even consider torture of children? Indeed what sociopath or degenerate mind can even consider a child's genitals as an object of torture? And doing it in front of their parents?! This type of thinking came from a lawyer -John Yoo- and what is reprehensible is that President Bush continues to use this as so called legal justification to torture citizens either foreign or American citizens. Yet Bush dares to lie to the American public by saying America does not torture.

A vote for McCain is a vote to continue Bush's policy where its ok to torture anyone including children and in anyway including crushing their testicles. All Americans whether Republicans or Democrats must take a stand against torture and must reject anything that supports or condone torture of children.

[Nommo]

I resent the analogy. The "hoofers", as you would have it, were artists and entertainers. No one expected anything from them above and beyond that. An act is the product of planning, rehearsal, and a certain attention to detail. The only detail that Yoo and Addington need awareness of is the one the marks the difference between their venality and that of those who would question them.

[doctormaus]

Steven's blasted-heath warnings always awaken the fear that hides behind my ordinary thoughts. Again I am thinking how Bush is counting on our sloth to continue the Iraq War. It will take great effort and will to decide to abandon the enormous Green Zone our mercenaries, uh, contractors have built there. But if we are not going to hold Iraq as a colony and rape, uh, reap its natural resources for ourselves, we must abandon a whole shitload of construction there, never mind just the machinations of getting our soldiers back. BushCo may have won. Especially since so many Americans are demanding that we get our hands on more oil, somewhere. It's easier to steal it than to develop green energy, an entire new industry.

[itmaybetoolate]

Your first line is so on point! It is exactly what I feel whenever I read this amazing writer! The best phrase of the whole piece has got to be "petroleum politburo!"

I wish Stephen was wrong! Alas, he is not, and I don't know what can be done about it at this point. I am increasingly afraid that our decline as a country is inevitable. bush was the tipping point. I mean, Obama, for god's sake, is talking about faith-based initiatives and looking away from the FISA debacle!