A Modest Fucking Proposal. Or Two.

ANNE Applebaum writes an entire thunk piece on the President's masterful handling of the PR campaign against Libya (by, basically, doing nothing, Obama assured that the French and the Brits would be on hand to hold our coats! This is, after all, Slate) while completely ignoring the question of whether we should be there at all, unless I dozed off and missed it. Meanwhile, best-selling author and worst-ever Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld is offering free advice, John Boehner is demanding to know if we'll ask for Suddenly Evil Supplemental Funding of the Illegally Undeclared Not War (which, by the way, prompts the former newspaper known as The Washington Post to announce:

Unforeseen military operations that require expenditures such as those being made for the Libyan effort normally require supplemental appropriations since they are outside the core Pentagon budget. That is why funds for Afghanistan and Iraq are separate from the regular Defense Department budget.

And this is not some puppy with no inkling of anything that happened before 1998; it's Walter Fucking Pincus, Pulitizer Prize-winner Walter Fucking Pincus, who really might be expected to know that, prior to the Bush administration hiding the costs of Afghanistan and Iraq for as long as it could by extorting blank checks from a compliant Congress, those supplemental funds were expected to be paid back, the way your plumber is supposed to subsume his "Basic service fee" in the labor costs for that $600 project he winds up doing. He's not supposed to say, "Wait uhminnit. You didn't tell me I'd get shit on my hands." What exactly is the Navy for? Okay, fine, I agree, the real point of 330,000 naval personnel, a dozen aircraft carriers, 300 other warships, 3700 planes, and enough ordnance to put Japan back where it was two weeks ago is showing off. But it's like Tim Durham's car collection. Sure, it makes you swing like you've got a big dick, but if you need some bologna, and it's Armand's afternoon off, it's possible you might have to get in one and drive somewhere), all while Michelle Rhee is a respected educational reformer, Ron Paul is Presidential timber, Mitch Daniels is competent, and Donald Trump is interviewed.

As a topper, this is a headline in today's Indianapolis Star:


I'm not from the Apocalyptic wing of Protestantism, but I could swear "Woozy" and "Tweeter" are two of the Four Horsemen.

So, look, can't we all just get over this awful political divide and admit there's nothing left here worth saving? Let's go nuts. Let's all drop acid and go skinny dipping. Instead of Tomahawk missiles, let's just give Gaddafi his own teevee show. That goddam box is bristling with threats to the existence of humankind, and we ignore all of them with no problem.

Further, since we have established, beyond dispute--again--that Republicans will say absolutely anything, and that there is no national Democratic party, or at least none that has the efficacy of the Indiana state Democratic party, once thought extinct if not wholly illusory, I'm for handing the keys to Ron Paul, provided that every Federal position not specifically mentioned in the Constitution be eliminated before he can take the Oath. What could it hurt?