Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

So long, and thanks for all the spin:

It wouldn’t be fair of me to pretend that I valued Snow’s work; I’ve criticized him enough times to prove otherwise. But even as he misled reporters and the nation, I always found Tony Snow to be an affable, likable guy, who enjoyed politics as much as I do. Even more important, I always respected his courage and tenacity when dealing with his serious illness.

My condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues.

What Carpetbagger said.

If you're prone to grinding your teeth at the unending fuckery in this nation, it might be time for you to put in a protective mouthpiece:

While individual states are deciding whether to recognize same-sex marriages, the U.S. Census Bureau has already decided. They will not recognize gay marriages in the 2010 census, regardless of state laws.

The U.S. Census Bureau, reacting to the federal Defense of Marriage Act and other mandates, plans to edit the 2010 census responses of same-sex couples who marry legally in California, Massachusetts or any other state. They will be reported as "unmarried partners," rather than married spouses, in census tabulations - a policy that will likely draw the ire of gay rights groups.

The problem goes beyond recognizing couples.....whole families will be dismissed.

That's cute. Let's just have our federal government edit entire families out of existence because, well, they're *gasp* gay. Nice slap in the face from the feds, don't you think?

It's not as if our government's any stranger to slaps in the face lately. Lessee... they've edited inconvenient truths out of EPA reports, legalized warrentless wiretapping and immunized the telecoms that broke the law, and found all sorts of creative ways to claim torturing people is a-ok as long as it's America doing it. One day, this parade of fuckery is going to come back to haunt us (as if it's not starting to already), and according to Law Professor Jonathan Turley, quoted in Glenn Greenwald's searing column on torture, we might get spanked harder than we imagined:

The problem for the Bush administration is they perfected plausible deniability techniques. They bring out one or two people that are willing to debate on cable shows whether water-boarding is torture. And it leaves the impression that it's a close question. It's not. It's just like the domestic surveillance program that the a federal court just a week ago also said was not a close question. These are illegal acts. These are crimes. And there weren't questions before and there's not questions now as to the illegality. . . .

I never thought I would say this, but I think it might, in fact, be time for the United States to be held internationally to a tribunal. I never thought, in my lifetime, that I would say that, that we have become like Serbia, where an international tribunal has to come to force us to
apply the rule of law. I never imagined that a Congress, a Democratic-led Congress would refuse to take actions, even with the preeminent institution of the Red Cross saying, this is clearly torture and torture is a war crime. They are still refusing to take meaningful action.

So, we've come to this ignoble moment where we could be forced into a tribunal and forced to face the rule of law that we've refused to apply to ourselves.

You know what? He's right. How on earth could we possibly call for the prosecution of a lawless regime ever again, how could we demand other countries submit to the rule of law and pay for their crimes, if those same standards aren't applied to us? Despite what some fuckwits think, America ain't that special. She's part of the same international community she likes to think she lords it over. She's subject to certain standards of civilized behavior, just like everybody else. And those august international courts will have every right to haul America up before a judge and convict her for war crimes.

Does that idea make you wince? It should. We should have been policing ourselves. It never should have come to this.

But what else could we have expected from a ruling party that so easily leads to columns like this:

Dwight Eisenhower once said that:

A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.

...which probably goes a long way in explaining the current state of the Republican party.

Chances are, if you happen to catch a Republican talking about destruction and death, you’ve probably walked in on the punch-line of a "joke."

It's no laughing matter. The question is, how the fuck do we get moderate Republicons and hapless Dems to realize this before America gets served what she so richly deserves?