Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Norm Coleman is an incredibly sore loser:

A big question in the Minnesota Senate race has been just how long Norm Coleman and his attorneys intend to fight this whole process out in court. We now have an answer, with Coleman's lawyers filing their proposed schedule for the trial in his election contest -- a schedule that would have the contest by itself last another month and a half from today, without taking into account any potential appeals.

To be specific, Coleman's lawyers are actually proposing a series of separate mini-trials within the overarching trial, testing each of his campaign's various claims of irregularities that unfairly gave Al Franken the win. If this schedule ends up being adopted, and also if the Franken camp were to fail in their current legal efforts to secure a certificate of election in the interim, it would guarantee that Minnesota will be stuck with only one senator for quite a while.

I'm not sure whether Al Franken's lawyer is more amused or exasperated:

The problem here, Elias said, is that Coleman hasn't actually presented real evidence or much of a case so far, and is instead seeking to use these multiple trials as a venue to find something.

"We believe that Norm Coleman has a right to go to court, okay, because that's in the law," said Elias. "We don't believe that he has a right to delay, to use the process of going to court to delay the people of Minnesota from having representation in the United States Senate. Nor do we believe that he has a right to have his court challenge proceed in a multi-phase process that will span week after week after week, in an effort for him to try to turn up a rock some place and find some evidence."

I think Norm's trying to drag this thing out through the entire six year Senate term. It's classic "if I can't have it, no one can" thinking.

He's probably disappointed he won't be able to compete with Inhofe for the dubious honor of being the worst Senator in the Senate:

Some of you can probably make a very compelling case for Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.). Or maybe Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). I suppose Sens. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) and Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) probably have to be in the mix. But I still believe, pound for pound, no one is a bigger embarrassment to the Senate than Oklahoma's James Inhofe.

Putting aside the painful inanity of Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, take a look at Inhofe's bizarre attacks against Carol Browner, poised to become the Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change (a.k.a., the "climate czar"). He accused her of being "a leader of a socialist group." (She's not.) He insisted that the "most prominent" scientists reject global warming. (They don't.) He argued that we're experiencing "global cooling." (We're not.) He said Browner is a member of the Center for American Progress, which is "trying for the Fairness Doctrine" and trying to "stop talk radio and talk TV from being conservative." (The Center for American Progress actually reached the exact opposite conclusion.)

Steve Benen would like us to remember that this fuckwit "isn't just some drunk shouting at the end of a bar; he's a United States Senator, and the man Republicans chose to be the ranking member on the Senate committee responsible for overseeing environmental policy."

And yes, that's exactly why I don't take the Con side of the aisle seriously.

On the House side, we have Cons losing their souls, which is always fun to watch:

This time, SCHIP advocates were joined by six Republicans who had voted against the bill last year. Interestingly, one of those lawmakers was Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI). So what changed?
After all, in 2007, McCotter not only voted against the legislation, he was a leading voice in arguing for its defeat. When Catholics United criticized him, he called the group the “devil.” On his blog on Oct. 3, 2007, McCotter argued that unless the GOP defeated SCHIP, it would “lose its soul”:

If our Republican Party is daunted by the politics of S-CHIP and shrinks from reaffirming its defining principles, social welfare programs will never help poor Americans escape governmental dependence. Instead, the Democrats will continue their push to shackle Americans with a bureaucrat-centered health care system and other insidious forms of governmental dependence; and our Republican Party — the party of the Great Emancipator — will not only lose the next election.

It will lose its soul.

McCotter faced enormous discontent from many of his constituents after his “nay” vote, as did many of his colleagues. In fact, 11 Republicans who voted against SCHIP lost their seats in 2008. McCotter held on to his seat, but just barely — he won only “51% against a Dem who raised just $29K.”

Funny how almost losing your seat to a man who can't raise enough campaign cash to pay for a Cadillac will clarify things for you, innit?

I wonder if annointing doors will have a positive effect on reelection prospects:

I mentioned the other day that a couple of fringe religious right activists "anointed" the door Barack Obama will use in the Capitol on his way to the Inauguration platform. But the security for the event is extremely tight; how did the far-right pastors get that kind of access?

It turns out, Rep. Paul Broun (R) of Georgia escorted the religious right figures, the Revs. Patrick Mahoney and Rob Schenck, and allowed them to put oils on the door. (If Broun's name sounds familiar, it's because he told reporters in November that he fears that Obama may establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist dictatorship, adding that Obama reminds him of Hitler.)

Charming little paranoid religious frothing fuckwits we've got trying to govern this country, eh? One wonders how Obama's going to manage to walk through that door without collapsing into hysterical laughter. Were it me, I'd probably rig something that makes me appear to burst into flames as I step through. Check that - it would be more fun to walk through arm-in-arm with Rick Warren and have him burst into flames. Might make the rabid right pause for a moment, eh?

Dick Cheney probably wouldn't react much. He seems to have completely checked out of the real world and is busy watching the pretty blue birdies sing in that wonderful landscape inside his skull:

Watching Dick Cheney's latest "exit interview" with PBS's Jim Lehrer last night, it was hard not to marvel at the man's shameless, almost pathological, dishonesty. It was like seeing a master criminal at work -- you're offended by the conduct, but almost impressed by the skill.

In an exit interview with PBS's Jim Lehrer for the "NewsHour" airing tonight, Vice President Cheney repeats claims that Saddam Hussein worked with al-Qaeda. Asked if he made any mistakes in his eight years as V.P., Cheney only mentions underestimating the psychological harm Saddam had done to his own people. He said his administration bore no blame for the economic problem: "I think we had good economic policies, especially in the early years." And the terror threat was inherited because of the poor handling by previous presidents.

On polls showing he is overwhelmingly unpopular among the American people: "I don't buy that."

And he shrugged off a critical statement today by a key figure, who used to work under him -- she called the handling of one terror suspect as clear "torture."

I mean, really. What can one say to describe such spectacular mendacity? I could try to fact-check the interview, but when nearly every response to every question is either false or misleading, where does one begin? My friend Blue Girl said, "Not a single word of the interview had any basis in reality," which is about right.

If you wonder what Dick Cheney might be subsisting on in that charming interior scene, I refer you back to the pretty singing bluebirds. Which he catches bare-handed and stuffs into his gaping maw still alive.

I think it's time to check this man into a padded room. Then encourage him to take a trip to Europe. Of course the Hague's not out to get you, Dick!

Only a few more days left of these assclowns in charge, and then all we have to worry about is the burrowed Bushies and the batshit insane buggers still left in Congress.