Dick Cheney. Before She Dicks You.

John Schwartz, "Attacks on Detainee Lawyers Split Conservatives". March 9

WHO th' fuck is Liz Cheney? For that matter, who th' fuck's Dick Cheney? Or Ken Starr? Or Billy Kristol, or John Yoo, or the goddam Federalist Society? A stench of liars, crooks, myrmidons, and cutpurses, and a plague of unindicted co-rodents.

Liz Cheney and Billy Kristol, two honest, hard-working Americans, put out a video (it's from "Keep America Safe"; the Timesmen thoughtfully link to both. Welcome to the Roberts Court's America, Americans) that slagged unnamed DOJ lawyers for having defended Bush administration detainees. This raised a ruckus, as I suppose it must, though one can dream of a better world, a world where "it's from Liz Cheney and Billy Kristol" would be sufficient to bury it in polite society, and/or initiate criminal investigations. FOX, learning of the controversy for the first time, shortly names names.

The uproar becomes "news", then Ken Fucking Starr emerges from whatever bridge he serves home detention under to "denounce" the theoretical violation of American legal values--which, by the way, is like George Bush joining Dick Nixon on the OUIJA phone to denounce the Imperial Presidency--and now it's news again, a "Conservative" Tempest soufflé, topped with a trowelworth of the non-dairy dessert topping of Principled Dedication to the Law from a bunch of white male squirearchs. Plus links.

Which, of course, just helps rake the manure in more completely, not that the Times might be expected to understand that with only several hundred thousand earlier examples to've learned from. Of the attendant opportunity for members--by which I mean "tiny penises"-- of the Federalist Society--an organization dedicated to turning the Constitution into a sort of shit soup of their own concoction--to pretend concern for an attack on our cherished Constitutional heritage I, for one, remain agnostic. I mean, who would Ken Starr be playing to, anyway?

Doesn't matter if it's his real opinion, or just a "clever" ruse to get a two-day extension on a story whose entire purpose was stashing more ammo and liquor for an already sated Republican base. The question is, why th' fuck is that news? Ken Starr swore--twice--to Congress that his investigation should be extended because he was about to issue indictments. Those indictments never came, but they did serve to keep it going through the '96 elections. Never mind that his office--unquestionably with his approval, if not participation--was such an open sluice to the Washington Post that children sailed toy boats down it in summer, or that he tried to peddle his job into a sinecure at the Richard Melon Scaife School of Law at Pepperdine while the investigation was ongoing. And when you look at the Bush II DOJ, Ken Starr's a first-year Teaching Assistant. Th' fuck would anyone ever talk to these people?

But if we're going to, then this: 1) it's a matter of established law and the minimum amount of common sense which should be required before you're let out in public; 2) the video was clearly a political stunt, which is Cheney's right, but it's other people's right to point out that she's a steaming pile, and the Times right to ignore it for both reasons; 3) it's the same old National Security whine from the same old white people who were responsible for the biggest failure of the National Security apparatus in our history, and who launched two meaningless, futile, and bankrupting wars to cover their first mistake; 4) this sort of wistful admiration for Nazi justice and its ability to make the crematoriums run on time is a hallmark of the Republican POV since the Lawn Order days of President Nixon and Governor Reagan; and 5) maybe the Federalist Society could spend a little more of its time coming up with a defense of Originalism/Textualism that actually uses actual words to make an actual argument. The idea that Ken Starr suddenly experienced a "Conservative" pale trampling last week is just fucking laughable. Yet:

But beyond the expected liberal outrage…

For "expected" read "discounted". Why th' fuck shouldn't everyone be outraged, excepting that minority party and its minority functionaries, flunkies, and flimflammers who're behind this, and who've demonstrated a willingness to do absolutely anything for this sort of PR? The fact that a few Federalist Society members who ought to be invisible in public--if that's not redundant--ran to divorce themselves from this--maybe--doesn't change the fact that a "Conservative" is someone for whom the System just isn't rigged enough. When does that get to be the story, Mr. Schwartz?