Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind

To be fair, Hastert has admitted that mistakes were made. He says it's the fault of the pages, for not notifying the FBI about the IMs.

Interesting, Martha-- and contradicted by the FBI saying that it had copies of the emails in July and they didn't start an investigation then.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/fbi-admits-failure-over-sex-email-scandal/2006/10/03/1159641326321.html

Well, now Hastert says it's an evil liberal plot, claimining on Rush Limbaugh's show that the Democrats have been sitting on damning evidence since 2003, just waiting for the right moment to unleash their hellish plot. Apparently the 2006 mid-terms were far more enticing to them than the 2004 presidential cycle.

What he didn't explain was how the fiendish, amoral Democrats tricked him into failing to inform the lone Democrat on the relevant committee of Foley's inappropriate actions last year, thereby creating the appearance of a politcally motivated cover-up.

Meanwhile, Dubya came out with the equivalent of a "Heck of a job, Brownie!" in support of Denny, which is pretty much the kiss of death.

Hastert will probably lose the speakership and might even lose his seat in the election, but that's small comfort. Personally, I won't be satisfied until every member of both houses who voted in favor the the Military Commissions Act (a.k.a the torture bill) is forced to resign.

Ya know, what gets me about the whole deal: The American people, the media, and our elected and selected officials are even more offended by a guy wanting to give blow jobs to 16 year olds than they were by our legislators throwing habeas corpus intro the slavering jaws of the Great Wolves of Totalitarianism and giving the president the power to identify and torture non-uniformed combatants.

It just strikes me as ironic and quite depressing, somehow.

I don't really think the public cares more about blowjobs that snowjobs. I think they are uninformed and have not been helped by educators, the media, and their own representatives to understand how the rights of a detainee in Guantanamo is relevant to their lives. The Republican Congress makes the decisions in a vacuum, just like its leader in the White House. They've disenfranchised a large part of this nation.

The religious right cares a great deal about blowjobs, particularly when both parties are male. And a large number of voters don't care about the rights of detainees at Guantanamo because they don't think the same rules apply to them -- and no amount of education is going to dissuade them from that position.

For better or worse, a large portion of this nation felt disenfranchised long before the current administration took office. If the Democrats score a major victory in November it will only be because the true believers stay away from the polls for the same reasons they flocked to the polls in 2004.

The best upside to this entire debacle and the way the Republicans have chosen to handle it is that the tenuous union between the religious right and the true conservative wing of the Republican party will be irrevocably broken.

I agree about the religious right and the conservative Republican base. I disagree about Guantanamo. I think we are seeing by the large demonstrations for immigrant rights that a critical mass is forming to blow the lid off power abuses.

Marilyn:

You lost me. What's the connection between "the large demonstrations for immigration rights" and power abuses? AFAIK, those large demonstrations are made up primarily of latinos, protesting for "rights" that don't actually exist in the constitution. The question of the rights of illegal immigrants and/or our general immigration policy has little or no bearing on the current administration's full frontal assault on the constitution -- and I don't think the citizens (and non-citizens) on either side of the immigration debate see much of a connection between the two.

You seemed to make the point that non-American prisoners at Guantanamo don't matter to most of the nation. I say that abuses of these people and demonstrations of illegal immigrants can be linked. They are guaranteed certain rights under treaties the U.S. has signed. The U.S. further guarantees a free public education to every child in, whether they are illegals or not. I see minority populations standing up to fight for each other for their rights. It's not always about the Constitution, which is not the only law in the land.

Ah, but I didn't say "non-American". Although I understand that inferring that wouldn't be unreasonable, that wasn't my intent. I have a fairly low opinion of my fellow citizens as a whole. I think they generally dismiss the plight of anyone (even their fellow citizens) who they deem "not like us" -- and they consistently assume that what happens to "them" couldn't possibly happen to "us". So if some U.S. citizen who happens also to be of mideastern descent gets hauled off to a secret prison, that's not our problem because...you know...it's not like we're Arabs or anything; so we don't have to worry, right? As Frank Zappa said: "It can't happen here..."

'For better or worse, a large portion of this nation felt disenfranchised long before the current administration took office. If the Democrats score a major victory in November it will only be because the true believers stay away from the polls for the same reasons they flocked to the polls in 2004.'

Just keep talking. Expressing your opinions the way you do is just going to make the true Conservatives come out in droves to vote, if only to make you eat your words.

Well, Ben, I guess that depends on how you define "true conservative" -- and I'm guessing your definition and mine aren't very similar. When I think "true conservative" I think Barry Goldwater, not Bill Frist. Blindly hating all things perceived as "liberal" does not make you a conservative. It may, however, make you a Republican -- and there may indeed be enough of those left to keep your party in power, even if the Evangelicals abandon you.

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