Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Someday, somewhere, we'll dig up an obscure government agency somewhere, tucked back far out of sight of the Bush Administration, where one lone competent appointee huddles, furtively doing a good job and praying s/he evades notice. Bush tries to be consistent in his appointments, you see, and competence would buck the trend:

Bush’s Department of Housing and Urban Development has been almost comically corrupt and incompetent for years, but with Alphonso Jackson resigning in disgrace, the president has an opportunity to at least marginally salvage HUD’s reputation with a qualified nominee who can use the next eight months to get the agency back on track. It’s a tall order, given the ongoing housing crisis.

Bush, however, has decided to go in a more predictable direction. He’s replacing one loyal Bushie of dubious qualifications with another.

Wow. I am so shocked. Gee. What a fucking surprise.

Adding to the annals of assclownery, the EPA chief is apparently taking lessons from Mark Mathis:

EPA chief Stephen Johnson has deployed a variety of methods to thwart Congressional scrutiny. There's been old fashioned stonewalling. Testimonial gobbledygook. And of course fleeing the hemisphere.

But there's another recurring method: refusing to turn over internal EPA documents because they would "confuse" the public.

Yes. Just like interviewing Christian evolutionary biologists "would have confused the film unnecessarily."

Listen up, public: when buttmonkeys like this say something will "confuse" you, they mean, "it'll make you realize we're totally full of shit. We're lying to you. You know what? Your eyes would look fabulous with some wool over them!"

Speaking of lying buttmonkeys, here's McCain, proving he's not only a dirty rotten liar, but batshit insane as well:

Despite the country’s sour mood on the economy, McCain said last night that Americans perhaps feel they are better off than they were when Bush took office because “millions of jobs have been created” since then. So therefore, McCain said, “You could make an argument that there’s been great progress economically over that period of time” and that “the fundamentals of America’s economy are strong.”

Does anybody else hear an echo? I think... it sounds sort of like... yes, just like fucking Bush and his "The state of our Union is strong" bullshit. McSame, indeed. McClueless, even so.

After this, my dear friends, we need some humor. Something... witty, incisive... stabs the media in the eye with a dull fork... we need a "what if the media had been this dumb when Lincoln and Douglas held their great debates" piece... we need... PUBLIUS!

LINCOLN: In my opinion, slavery will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Excuse me, did an Elijah H. Johnson attend your church?

LINCOLN: When I was a boy in Illinois forty years ago, yes. I think he was a deacon.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Are you aware that he regularly called Kentucky “a land of swine and whores”?

LINCOLN: Sounds right -- his ex-wife was from Kentucky.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Why did you remain in the church after hearing those statements?

LINCOLN: I was eight.

I feel better. Don't you?