When It Says Libby, Libby, Libby on the Sentence, Sentence, Sentence:
There's a million ways we can sniff at the foul stench of the hypocritical fart that blasted out of the White House yesterday.

There's the What-if-Clinton...? gambit: While she was pardoned at the end of his presidency, you can bet that the same Republicans praising the Scooter Libby free pass would have been burning down the Capital if Bill Clinton had commuted Susan McDougal's prison sentence, which she served.

There's the Are-you-fuckin'-kiddin'-me? sentence injustice stratagem: While Scooter Libby gets to stay free no matter what happens in his appeal for lying to a grand jury, Genarlow Wilson can't get bail while appealing his conviction for having consensual oral sex with a girl two years younger than him. Or you could talk about most of the people in prison on drug possession charges.

There's the George-Bush-is-just-an-asshole obvious statement: Where you wanna go with this? Karla Faye Tucker? Any of the capital punishment cases that Bush took less than five minutes to decide were just? The prisoners who'll never stand trial at Gitmo? Lift any goddamn rock in the Rose Garden and you'll find examples where mercy is ignored and/or injustice stands in the considered legal opinion of George W. Bush.

But what's so goddamned annoying about the Scooter Libby commutation is that its so fucking, tiresomely predictable. Fun as it was to imagine Libby being sold for a pack of cigarettes and a couple of old, crusty Hustlers to a large-cocked guy who's serving time for murder after coming back from his third tour of duty in Iraq, there was never a chance that Cheney was going to allow Libby to be in a position to testify to the truth of the leak of Valerie Plame's identity. A pardon would have allowed him to speak, free and clear. Commutation is just about the sentence, not the crime or any connected crimes. The real dick move with the commutation is that it's a threat as well as a reward.

And the statement on the commutation was such a pussy move - not quite a pardon, not quite a punishment. Sure, Bush tried to make it sound like there was still some tough shit going on: "The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged. His wife and young children have also suffered immensely. He will remain on probation. The significant fines imposed by the judge will remain in effect. The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant, and private citizen will be long-lasting." Yeah, and there won't be a cushy consulting job, the refuge of rogues and criminals, awaiting him. Man, the Rude Pundit wants to be punished with his work "forever damaged" by walking into a seven-figure job. It's like telling your kid that you're not gonna ground him, but, boy, you'll think twice next time he tells you he's just gonna take the car for a spin. Now, let's get ice cream while you think about what you did.

Also, a commutation allows Libby to keep appealing, which keeps the case alive, something a pardon wouldn't have done, which allows Bush and the rest of his merry band of fuckers to keep saying that they won't comment on an ongoing legal kerfuffle.

There's what we've learned: that George Bush doesn't believe in federal sentencing guidelines, that it's good to have friends with absolute power, that, as we have learned so many times from this administration, the rule of law does not matter. More chaos for our chaotic times.

Well, fuck, at least it took the British terror "plot" off the top of the news for a little while.

(By the way, if you've ever wanted to feel like beating down a man who wears glasses, check out David Brooks's column today. Yeah, it's behind the wall, but here's just a little taste: " The drama opened, as these dark comedies are wont to do, with a strutting little peacock who went by the unimaginative name of Joe Wilson." Oh, man, you just want to drop a bar of soap into a sock and head down to the Times, but we're not savages, right?)

Scooter Libby Will Not Be Raped In Prison:
So, like, let's just get this straight: a jury convicts Scooter Libby, a court sentences him to jail time, and the President commutes his sentence.

Meanwhile, regarding Gitmo, the Secretary of Defense is trying to figure out "a statutory basis for holding prisoners who should never be released and who may or may not be able to be put on trial."

Seems like justice in America's running just fine.

(Tip o' the hat to rude reader B-Mac for the Gates quote.)

The Necessity of Michael Moore, Part 2:
(Part 1 was written exactly three years ago, on the opening of Fahrenheit 9/11)
Back in 1989, in New Orleans, the Rude Pundit had just gotten off a plane and, with nothing to do for a while and a car left for him, he went to a movie theater to see Michael Moore's first film, Roger and Me. His nascent rudeness was just beginning to rear itself, and the Rude Pundit was looking for ways to articulate his rudimentary political liberalism beyond snarky college paper editorials. And then he watched Moore kick the Reagan/Bush(I)-era worship of corporate capitalists in the nuts. Was it biased? You fuckin' well bet it was biased. Was it unfair to the executives of General Motors? Big time. But such blatant, real, unmitigated populist outrage was a blast of clean air in James Watt's darkened skies. "Yes," you wanted to leap up and say, "this is what I've been thinking but didn't know how to say."

All of Moore's documentaries operate on the idea that they are correctives to everything we're told on a daily basis. See, Moore doesn't need to have "balance," which we only think of now in the Fox-ian sense. His films are the balance. A truly balanced news media would have reported most of the things in Fahrenheit 9/11 prior to the war. MSNBC would be tracking down illegal gun dealers, in addition to setting up online child predators, and instead of airing constant one-hour "specials" about this or that murder. Every day, General Motors, the NRA (and its congressional lackeys), and the Bush administration spin to us with impunity. We've been fed bullshit mythos and propaganda long enough, Moore's films say, now, how about the other side of the story.

Moore explicitly tells you that aspect of his approach. He tells you what the opposing sides have been saying, and then he mocks them and shows you how they're at best ingenuous lapdogs, at worst sickening liars. And for the people who Moore really wants to see his films - that'd be people who don't regularly check their Americablog or Media Matters - he's going to say what he has to say as simply as possible. He ain't an Al Gore-type wonk. He's a storyteller, knowing that stories, whether they are his own as surrogate "Everyman," a construction that Bill O'Reilly gets to pretend to every day, or of others, form a basis for beliefs. And that's the way to get the message to the masses.

So, sure, for Sicko, the good members of the media and we oh-so-knowledgeable citizens of Blogsylvania can say that Moore "doesn't show the other side" of his health care manifesto, or that there's not enough nuance. The Rude Pundit wanted Moore to go into one of the ghettos outside Paris to see what people there think of the French health care system, comparing the treatment of our poorest (which he shows) with the treatment of their poorest (which he doesn't). And, sure, Moore could have interviewed people who are dissatisfied with the Canadian health care system, but, Christ, we have heard that before. And, yeah, we know there's lots of bad shit that goes down in Cuba, but can there not be things that are done right? Fuck, imagine how good the Cuban health care system would be if the United States government would stop being such assholes about the country.

His point with his trips abroad is that there's something fundamentally being done right there with health care that has not been discussed in the United States because we're so fucking scared of seeming worse off than other countries. Meanwhile, the truth is, as Moore shows, that we are. Every time the Rude Pundit goes to Canada, one of the things he's struck by is how relaxed people are, even the meth-addicted homeless people. And while it can't all be the free health care, imagine existing in a place where, no matter what, if you get in a car accident, you're gonna be taken care of. If you have health insurance, imagine thinking about changing careers, of trying to be an artist or going back to school, without the burden of wondering how you'll get by without that Blue Shield card. That's freedom. No, England, France, Canada, and Cuba are not utopias. But, as Moore says, why can't we look at the things they do right and see how we can do them here?

This aspect, the most important and potentially nation-transforming aspect of Sicko, is getting lost in the whole "Michael Moore went to Cuba" bullshit. But the Cuba section, at the end of the film, is Moore at his best - outrageous, funny, moving - and he does what a filmmaker ought to be doing: he gets you to see something you thought you knew in a different way. When Moore and his American patients enter Havana Hospital, there's unspoken, palpable awe at how, well, nice it is, how not fucked up. Could this have been an illusion, conjured by the Cuban government because it knew Moore was filming? Sure. Anyone got proof of that?

The first part of the film is all horror stories, mostly from people with insurance. These are frustrating, Kafkaesque, and sad, and the Rude Pundit's audience in that crowded cinema on a lovely Sunday afternoon, was over half senior citizens, many of whom audibly reacted in agreement or talked (too fuckin' loudly) about friends of theirs, or themselves, who were treated the same way. And they hissed, really, when Moore shows President Bush signing the prescription drug benefit. And they cheered when it was over. It's bracing, isn't it, to have someone articulate what you know but have been unable to say or have been cowed into not speaking out loud.

It ain't a perfect film. Moore's best work is still Bowling for Columbine. The film's repetitious: how many times do we have to be told health care is free in the other countries before we get the point? How many times do we have to see people cry? But these are the complaints of someone who's been reading and thinking about this issue for a long time. For someone who doesn't know the health care systems of other countries, it is a truly stunning prospect, this notion that you don't pay anything for your illnesses and injuries and pregnancies (other than one's taxes, which Moore does mention).

All of Moore's films question the bullshit myth of the American dream. What he's always been asking is how to make that myth a reality, acknowledging a potential in the citizenry for change, trying to show that there's other ways to exist as a people, as a democracy, as a nation. The people who truly love America are the ones who refuse to let it ossify and crumble, the ones who want to keep its old bones moving.

Getting Dicked by the Supreme Court (Part of the "Motherfuckering of America" Series):
A few observations about the Supreme Court's recent set of decisions:
1. Fuck you, Sandra Day O'Connor. Fuck you, fuck you, and, uh, oh, fuck you. Fuck you for stepping down, yet still being able to do work like for the Iraq Study Group. Fuck you for putting yourself and your family above the good of the country. And fuck you because, even though you're a conservative who allowed George W. Bush to take office, we have to wish you were still on the court. Fuck you because you probably would have voted differently than Justice Alito on both desegregation and late-term abortion, maybe even on the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case. Fuck you, and, hey, by the way, fuck you, Senate Democrats, for not having the balls to filibuster John Roberts or Samuel Alito. Don't fuckin' crow about how you voted against them. You could have stopped them.

2. Clarence Thomas is a total dick, a thuggish asshole who has sucked Antonin Scalia's dong for so long, he may as well be an honorary Italian. In the Morse v. Frederick case (aka "Bong Hits..."), Thomas wrote a concurring opinion just to make sure that everyone knows how much of a dick he is: "In light of the history of American public education, it cannot seriously be suggested that the First Amendment 'freedom of speech' encompasses a student’s right to speak in public schools." In fact, Thomas would have overturned an earlier decision that had long-established students' First Amendment rights. So, for Clarence Thomas, not only no bong hits, but no free student press, and, since this is what the 1969 Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District was about, no black armbands to silently protest war.

And the miasma of self-loathing throughout Thomas's concurrence on the school integration case decision is just pathetic. In fact, the whole decision there is bizarro, in which the Roberts court's majority says that Brown v. Board of Education somehow is about making sure that white kids go to the right school and that America is so much more equal now. Well, sure, perhaps, but, hey, take a trip to Jena, Louisiana before you start singin' "We Are the World." The majority's decision treats whites as an oppressed people, and if that ain't racist, then we've really gone through the looking glass on what that word even means.

3. As long as we're all talking about impeaching people, shit, let's gear up for a post-2008 impeachment of Roberts and Alito for lying to the Senate Judiciary Committee by saying, without any hint of hedging, that they believed in the principle of stare decisis, or respecting precedent. Shit, the tortured way in which Roberts attempts to wedge a respect for precedent into the integration case is a genius turn of Rovean rhetoric: "If I just say I'm upholding Brown, then no one can accuse me of not upholding it." Or, in other words, they won't say they're overturning precedent - they'll just make it impossible to enforce the precedent.

4. One of the disturbing things about the court's sharp right turn is how much power it removes from citizens. This week, we learned that: unless there's a court order, school districts shouldn't try to integrate the schools; citizens don't have standing to sue the government; and students need to be seen and not heard. In other words, the impression is that unless you are a corporation, shut the fuck up and don't start trouble. But if you are a corporation? Then you can fuck with the electoral process and make sure that no one can buy your products at a discount. The Roberts court: Money talks...and that's about it.

5. Well, fuck, at least we still don't execute crazy people.

6. And if Clarence Thomas is a total dick, Anthony Kennedy is a total pussy.

Update: The inmates at Gitmo are so fucked.

The Obvious Irrelevancy of George W. Bush (Part of the "Motherfuckering of America" series):
Here some of the things President Bush has done in the last dozen days or so, according to the White House website:

The President of the United States, the Leader of the Free World, the Commander-in-Chief, the Chief Executive rededicated the Islamic Center of Washington, attended the annual White House Tee Ball Game, congratulated the Presidential Scholars, celebrated Black Music Month, met with the NCAA championship teams, attended the National Hispanic Prayer breakfast, and visited the Boys and Girls Club of Wichita, Kansas. This is not to mention the policy speeches and leader-greeting ceremonies, which seem a bit more useful. And it's not unusual or summertime fun. Choose any random month - say October 2005, and you'll find much the same schedule, although, of late, it's seemed a bit more hectic.

In other words, all the kinds of functions that one might expect a Vice President to take care of - making token appearances on behalf of the President - are now done by a man who ought not have that much free time in his schedule. It's not that a President shouldn't occasionally make the appearance at the Little League game. But roughly once every other day? Sometimes twice in a day? That seems, well, perhaps disproportionate to the position of the Presidency. George Bush seems less like our fearless leader and more like a bored, rich housewife trying to fill her time between doses of Xanax. Another Laura, pretty much.

Now, perhaps they weren't the completists that today's White House webmasters are, but a gander at, say, two and a half months of Bill Clinton's 1998 list of events and talks reveals something quite different. Lessee: on November 24, 1998, Clinton commemorated National Adoption Month. On October 21, 1998, he spoke at a Breast Cancer Awareness event. Beyond that, nothing listed about Clinton speaking at anything that wasn't directed related to a government entity or bill.

As Bruce Fein points out in his very cogent and convincing call for Vice President Dick Cheney's impeachment in Slate, this week's Washington Post series, among other sources, makes it clear that the President has ceded most of his duties as a leader to his Vice President, without following the Constitutional process for such a transfer as laid out in the 25th Amendment. The relevant section reads, "Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President." In other words, the President's gotta inform the Congress if he ain't gonna do the shit he oughta be doing as President. Not that the Constitution was ever an impediment to anything the White House has wanted to do. (One can imagine an argument that goes something like this: "In his role as Commander-in-Chief, if the President decides that the safety of Americans demands that he let Dick Cheney do the job of President..." You get the picture.)

Of course, one reason for vesting so much power in the Vice President's office is that, until now, Cheney's been able to operate under the radar, except when us wacked-out left-wing paranoiacs pointed it out. And, as has been revealed, Cheney's office has made the case that it is not subject to the same kind of scrutiny and oversight, and perhaps that works because, up until this administration, the focus of oversight has been the office of the President, not the office of the guy who's supposed to sit on the bench until he's needed to bat. The guy who should be sent out to attend tee ball games and celebrate Black Music Month. Although, really, the image of Cheney talking to children or listening to black music is more than chilling.

What this also means is that when world leaders and others make a show of talking to the President, the man who campaigned and was, more or less (less than more), elected, they're really not talking to the power in the administration. And that's another way in which this country's become a joke, another way we've been motherfuckered by them.

Sure, Bush could, in theory, say no to Cheney, but there's precious few examples of that. It's easier just to stumblefuck through to the end of his administration, knowing that, once again, he's the guy who has his job only because of who his Dad is, and, like the son who's forced to work in his father's hardware store for the summer, Dad just wants him to sit there and not break everything.

Why Ann Coulter Is a Cunt (Assassination Edition):
The great thing about attacking Ann Coulter is that you're free to say anything you want about her, no matter how dark, twisted, or violent. Because, you know, if you've constantly called on public figures to be murdered, well, shit, you kind of don't have a twiggy long leg to stand on. So the Rude Pundit can say that he wouldn't care if Ann Coulter was sliced from kooz to sternum and then fucked simultaneously in her bleeding, viscera-spilling gut by three raging rhinos until the force of their cum popped her eyeballs out. He can say that and still respect himself in the morning.

'Cause, see, the Rude Pundit still has the moral high ground, even if we discover Ann Coulter was killed by raping rhinos with stiletto horns. You could be standing neck deep in a shit filled sewer, covered with syphilis sores and shoving a crucifix up your ass, and you'd still have the moral high ground over Ann Coulter.

Here, in context (because she whines like a golden retriever hit by a car whenever she perceives she's being decontextualized), is what Coulter said Monday on Good Morning America about presidential candidate John Edwards, after bland automaton Chris Cuomo brought up her inference that Edwards was a "faggot" a couple of months ago: "[A]bout the same time, you know, Bill Maher was not joking and saying he wished Dick Cheney had been killed in a terrorist attack. So I've learned my lesson. If I'm gonna say anything about John Edwards in the future, I'll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot."

Taking Maher out of context, Coulter misses that he had asked if the world would be a better place if Cheney had been killed, not that he "wished" it had happened - a fine line that Coulter is more than willing to ask everyone to apply to her constant hopes for violence against Edwards, the New York Times, Justice Stevens, etc.

Then, deliciously, while Coulter was devouring the entire hour live on My Balls Are Hard with Chris "Where's Your Fucking Lips?" Matthews, with a fairly sympathetic crowd behind her in Herald Square, Manhattan, Elizabeth Edwards called in. Edwards was asking that Coulter stop the personal attacks on her husband, which is a little like asking a crack whore to stop blowing hobos for quarters. Coulter's tell, when you know she's been cornered, which is just about any time she's interviewed by someone who's not Sean Hannity (who must fingerfuck her under the desk), is that she pushes her long bottle-blonde hair to one side then the other, which she did almost constantly while Edwards was on the phone.

Edwards was not only confronting Coulter on her assassination wish, but because, as Edwards said, "You had a column a couple of years ago which -- which made fun of the moment of Charlie Dean's death, and suggested that my husband had a bumper sticker on the back of his car that said, 'Ask me about my dead son.'" Responding to a mother who had lost a son like Joan Crawford to wire hangers, Coulter attacked John Edwards' manhood ("Why isn't John Edwards making this call?") and instead accused Elizabeth Edwards of impinging on her freedom to speak. Then, since there's no hominem like an ad hominem, Coulter didn't answer Edwards (or Matthews) on the issue of personal attacks, using the opportunity to call John Edwards a "shyster" lawyer who ripped off doctors.

Another point here is not just that Coulter is a nasty, savage cunt-beast. It's that she's just fucking stupid. Here she is talking about killing civilians in our current war(s): "[Y]ou are destroying the society that has produced these monsters. And you win by killing the other side and not allowing your side to be killed. Withdrawal would be the worst thing we could do. We could definitely fight it a little bit harder. I mean, I understand why Rumsfeld wanted to have a small footprint. It is a little bit different since it wasn't a country attacking us, it is this ideology that has spread throughout the Middle East. Yes, that makes it a lot trickier. But the small footprint didn't really work. Americans are getting fed up. Democracies don't like to go to war, so we're going to have to wrap it up quickly and destroy the fighting spirit of the fanatics." Can you understand a goddamn thing in there? The Rude Pundit's argued with drunks at bars who've been more coherent just before they passed out.

But, hey, chances are Ann Coulter's anorexic or, at the very least, bulimic, considering the number of times she referred to Monica Lewinsky and Hillary Clinton as "chubby." And in that case, we can expect a peaking of madness as her weight drops, followed, perhaps, by a brain hemorrhage that keeps her in a coma until she finally dies under the burden of her own rot.

The one good line Chris Matthews got in: Referring to the cheering pro-Coulter crowd, he said, "My God, is this Deliverance?" No, but there was ass-fucking going on.

(Back to the motherfuckering tomorrow.)

The Motherfuckering of America, Part 2: Keep Your Mothers Away From Christine Todd Whitman:
Democracy is like sex - the messier it is, the better. There's few things as blandly dissatisfying as crisp, clean boinking, a nipple twist, a few martial thrusts, a finish with a towel handy. Sure, you got off, but it was meaningless. Now, if you start with warm massage oil and, eight sweaty positions later, you end up exhausted in a puddle of all kinds of sticky or slick fluids, celebrating the possible combinations of cocks, cunts, assholes, mouths, and fingers, well, you might have experienced something close to enlightenment. Or vicious cramping. Either way, you're gonna know you've been fucking.

Real democracy is about challenging the powerful, calling out the liars, and encouraging dissent, knowing that these are things that strengthen the nation. As The Daily Show pointed out, when Trent Lott sardonically suggested that some lawmakers wanted a British-type parliamentary system where the President was forced to come to the Senate and answer questions, well, fuck, that's not such a bad idea.

So it was that a group of high school seniors, one from each state, Presidential Scholars, were honored by President Bush. The President used the occasion to talk about the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, which had nothing to do with the success of the kids behind him. The teens used the occasion to give the President a letter they had all signed. The letter, handwritten, but thankfully without smiley faces and hearts dotting the i's, called on Bush to end U.S. policies that encourage torture, including, specifically, extraordinary rendition, and "to apply the Geneva Convention to all detainees, including those designated enemy combatants." This morning, CNN took time out of covering the release of parole violator Paris Hilton to talk to three of the scholars, who spoke eloquently about feeling that they needed to take their opportunity to express something to the President, that they would have regretted not doing it.

So it was that former EPA chair Christine Todd Whitman finally appeared before a congressional committee to answer questions about whether or not, or, really, to what degree Whitman and the Bush administration lied about the amount of poison in the air of Ground Zero and the rest of Lower Manhattan in the time after 9/11. It was one helluva lively committee meeting, with five and a half years of pent-up anger occasionally brimming over, with 9/11 responders in the room booing Whitman, with House members visibly and audibly outraged at Whitman, with Jerrold Nadler of New York outright saying that the Bush administration has been "covering up its misstatements and misdeeds in the early days after the attacks." Goddamn, for a little while, it was beautiful, if delayed, like finally getting to nail that guy you had a crush on in high school.

Yes, if these stories ended here, it might appear as if it was time to change the sheets on the bed of democracy. But, ah, the motherfuckering. See, it's not just that we're dealing with motherfuckers in this government of ours. It's that they're motherfuckerers. It's not enough for them to fuck your mothers. They wanna turn you into a motherfucker by association.

It seemed a day before that Whitman was gonna throw Rudy Giuliani under the bus, having said in an interview that Giuliani didn't want responders wearing haz-mat suits, for instance, because "They didn't want this image of a city falling apart." In the hearing room, Whitman had this thrown back at her, as well as all the contradictions in her previous statements on the safety of the air at the former World Trade Center. But Whitman wasn't there to be cowed. She belted on the ten-inch black strap on, the kind that's so heavy it needs suspenders to be held straight, and told the members of Congress, "Line up your mothers. There's fuckin' to be done." And, oh, how she went to work.

According to Whitman, whose testimony sounded like it came directly from a phone call with Karl Rove, don't blame her or the Bush administration. Blame "the terrorists who attacked the United States, not the men and women at all levels of government who worked heroically to protect and defend this country," which is a little like saying to blame smoking-related deaths on the existence of tobacco, not on the corporations who lied for years about its addictive nature. Osama bin Laden didn't make Whitman tell everyone the air was fine to suck down into your lungs.

Whitman, no noble Richard Clarke even out of office, responded to the anger against her with anger of her own. "Was it wrong to try to get the city back on its feet as quickly as possible in the safest way possible? Absolutely not," she said, not acknowledging that often "quick" and "safe" do not go together. "We weren't going to let the terrorists win." She even admitted that President Bush wanted the Financial District open on Friday, after the Tuesday attack, while Lower Manhattan was still hot from the melted buildings. One presumes it was for when Bush was doing his bullhorn-licious visit. Strong leader that she was, she convinced Bush to wait until Monday.

Backing away from her criticism of Giuliani (who must be Rove's chosen candidate), Whitman told the committee, "I don't think the mayor is blaming me, and I'm certainly not blaming the mayor," even though, just a day before, she had blamed the mayor. "I think the city of New York did absolutely everything in its power to do what was right by the citizens of New York." No, no, Christine Todd Whitman was not gonna back down, not gonna admit error, not gonna say that the Bush White House wanted the veil of normalcy in Manhattan, safety be damned. Nope, Whitman said that dissent was not proper because "In times of crisis you need to speak with one voice."

Done with her fucking of mothers, Whitman wiped down her dildo, put it away, and walked out of the hearing room, dragging the rest of us down the motherfucker road with her.

Oh, and those brave students who asked Bush to stop torturing? Instead of just thanking them for their opinions and leaving it at that, Bush had to do some motherfuckering, lying to the students' faces. Hoping to transform the teens into junior motherfuckers, he told them that "the United States does not torture and that we value human rights."

Democracy can't even get a reacharound these days.

The Motherfuckering of America, Part 1: Keep Your Mothers Away From Dick Cheney:
That new Rufus Wainwright song, "Going to a Town," has the refrain "I'm so tired of America," which, if you can ignore Wainwright's usual nasal whine, bespeaks a general exhaustion permeating this land. But it's not so much being tired of America as much as it's utterly soul-sapping to meet people from other countries and feel as if you have to apologize for your country for being such motherfuckers. On every path, on every issue, on every turn of events or crisis, the government (and fuck dividing it here between "the Bush administration" and "Congress" - we're only half a year distant from the previous four years of Republican hegemony) has jumped in the motherfucker truck and dragged us all with it.

When the Rude Pundit was in Canada in January, even though it was pretty clear that he was not one of the idiot Americans, 41% of whom still fucking think that Saddam Hussein told those Saudis to fly into those buildings on 9/11, even though there was some hope in the just-inaugurated shiny new Congress, he felt as if he had to personally apologize on behalf of all like-minded Americans, something like, "Hey, I'm really sorry we're such motherfuckers right now. But, you know, gee, things can change. Now let's get a LaBatt's and watch us some hockey."

We have been motherfuckered, forced through association to be considered motherfuckers, motherfuckered over again and again. Over the next few days, or until he gets bored with the idea, the Rude Pundit's gonna look at this motherfuckering of the US, beginning with the chiefest motherfuckerer of them all.

Our grandchildren are going to visit us at our shit-bestrewn nursing homes decades from now and ask us how, back in Aught-Seven, after everything we knew and were still discovering, why we didn't do anything about Dick Cheney. And all we'll be able to do is shake our heads in disgrace, beg them for more morphine, hoping the sweet kiss of death will finally end our pain and rage at our impotence in the face of Cheney (with the occasional muttering of "Lieberman, it was all Lieberman," as if that excuses it, but all it does is make the grandkids think that we've gone anti-Semite in our senility).

After reading the first two parts of the Washington Post's series this week on just how many mothers Dick Cheney has fucked, the Rude Pundit wonders how anyone who deigns to call him or herself human can stand to be near Dick Cheney, or anyone in his office. (And let's put aside that bean fart of a man, Alberto Gonzales, for the time being.) What the fuck? In his spare time, does he feed stray kittens from his milky nipples? Is that how anyone can stand near him without feeling the need to vomit or fake a stroke to get away from him?

Read the whole articles, read long excerpts on other blogs, but know that the series begins with Colin Powell and Condi Rice getting fucked like particularly supple house niggers back in the old days and with Cheney smirking evilly to a stupefied Dan Quayle. And know that David Addington, Cheney's butt boy, is one of the most vicious, sinister shits ever to be allowed to walk unimpeded into the Oval Office. And know that John Yoo, the sick fuck who gave the torture policies the shiny stamp of legalistic approval, teaches students how to become sick fucks just like him.

What we get so far is that Cheney's whole modus operandi is the accretion of power for the executive branch, not, ultimately, for the good of anything but of himself and, by default, President Bush. And the seeming reasoning behind this expansion of presidential power is just because he can. Seriously. Read about the way that Cheney's office orchestrated the complete degradation of American moral authority: "Cheney and his allies, according to more than two dozen current and former officials, pioneered a novel distinction between forbidden 'torture' and permitted use of 'cruel, inhuman or degrading' methods of questioning." It's chilling and telling that the Post article never says why exactly these methods were needed, only leaving it to the vague "different kind of war" reason, as if there was ever a time when wars were simply a homogeneous bunch of actions. For shits and giggles, do a Lexis-Nexis search of "Vietnam war" and "different kind of war." It was a constant refrain throughout that nightmare.

The truly hilarious part of this whole debate on how much cruelty is legal is how weaselly it all is - how to find the one space in the cave to wriggle through to the caverns of depravity. Christ, at least Saddam Hussein just fuckin' ripped people to shreds and then said they were "enemies" after tossing their pieces to dogs. Cheney and his crew actually spent time figuring out how much savagery they could inflict before someone might say, "Whoa, whoa, one more broken finger and we may have to stop."

Finally, the use of the war powers of the Commander-in-Chief as legal approval for anything the Chief Executive (with Cheney's hand in his sphincter) wants to do, any law he wants to ignore, is a frightening masterstroke. If you feel that war gives you the right to unconstrained power, then what motivation do you have for ending a war? Or perhaps you create a war paradigm that allows it to never end, like a war on a concept or vaguely aligned group of individuals instead of a nation.

Motherfuckers should be in jail for motherfuckering us so badly.

Palate Cleanser Saturday:
The Rude Pundit dragged himself out of an amazing whiskey dream where he was some kind of crazy killer avenging...well, let's leave that there...and he got to read this: "President Bush's office is not allowing an independent federal watchdog to oversee its handling of classified national security information." Goddamn, these guys are such motherfuckers. More on the motherfuckering of the government on Monday.

Instead, cleanse your brain with the mockumentary of Troy the Tornado. The Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest - one more reason they must have to hate us so.

Six Other Things the Office of the Vice President Actually Is:
Dick Cheney has decided that his office is a free-floating radical in DC, not quite an executive entity, not truly a legislative one, but some unholy Reese's cup of evil. Here's some other ways the Veep has untethered himself from mortal binds.

1. Because his office is not an entity in the executive branch, but actually a Native American religion, Cheney and his staff are free to smoke peyote at the start of every morning meeting.

2. Because his office is not an entity in the executive branch, but actually a breach in the space/time continuum, Cheney is free to enter at will his own dimension, the realm of Cthulhu and the slime beasts.

3. Because his office is not an entity in the executive branch, but actually a motorcycle gang, Cheney is free to beat Senators with chains and blackjacks.

4. Because his office is not an entity in the executive branch, but technically an executive bathroom, Cheney is free to wipe his ass with whatever documents are handy, memos, executive orders, Constitutions.

5. Because his office is not an entity in the executive branch, but actually a freak show, Cheney is free to bite the heads off chickens. And nosy members of Congress.

6. Because his office is not an entity in the executive branch, but actually an insane asylum, Cheney is free to rain bedlam down on the whole of government.

Why Does Conservative Spooge Bucket Kevin McCullough Fear Women?:
Here's a line from conservative columnist Kevin McCullough that just screams, "I need cock, lots of cock, now," from a piece from last week: "Feminists cower in fear at the picture, the symbol, and the meaning of a strong father today." It's in McCullough's charming Father's Day celebration titled "Why Feminists Fear Fathers," and this little bitch, who had to publish a book called The MuscleHead Revolution to appear masculine, uses as "evidence" his own powers of observation.

McCullough, one of those so obviously closeted Christian-spouting queens that you just wanna buy him a half-shirt, drop him onto a Fire Island dance party, and ask him, "Where is your God now?" just before he drops to his knees to worship what will really fill his soul or, at least, his mouth, says that fathers are part of God's plan, endowed by their creator with their manly manliness that makes them protectors over weaker women and children.

No, seriously, he writes, "Opening doors, allowing women to proceed in front of them, assisting a woman up a flight of stairs, across a busy street, or escorting them to their side of an automobile are also simple symbolic gestures of manly protection." In just about any other context, that would be called "camp" or at least "ironic" writing. But not with McCullough, who likes his fathers to be rough and tough, especially on him. One can imagine McCullough weeping for his Daddy to beat his ass, hard, because he intentionally did something wrong and he loves the smacks from Daddy's calloused hands so, so much, as well as the slap-worthy hard-ons he gets from it.

But it doesn't end with feminists preferring to open their own doors, those whores. Oh, no. See, rebellion against fathers has a larger meaning, and why wouldn't it? "It is rebellion against God - the ultimate father," McCullough says, because...oh, who the fuck cares, but "Feminists wish to subvert God's plan, order, and instruction in order to create a world that they see as the ultimate reality. A reality that is made in their own image. Scripture refers to that as idolatry." Man, you gotta love it when the line is crossed from fervor to fanaticism.

It doesn't actually matter that the National Organization of Women routinely praises men who take on the role of strong fathers (maybe not door-opening ass spankers, but still, you know, fathers), saying things like "The good news as Father's Day approaches is that more and more men are sharing duties on the home front." That might require McCullough to go to the NOW website and type the word "fathers" into the Search space, maybe even clicking on a link or two.

Why bother when you can base your column on something that some Fox "news" reporter told you (which is what McCullough did) about research into creating sperm cells so that men might not be needed in the conception process. Especially if it allows you to write, "What a strong father represents to this time, life, and world has never been more underestimated and modern feminists have taken it upon themselves to attempt to eliminate the need for them all together."

Of course, McCullough is all about figuring out why liberals do things. Yesterday's column was about "Why Liberals Loathe 'the People,'" which apparently has something to do with gay marriage and some idea of Michael Bloomberg's. And motherfucker has figured out "Why Rudy Is Striking Out" (hint: it rhymes with "schmabortion").

McCullough, though, hates him some feminists, in that vicious way that only latent, lying-to-themselves homosexual men can. In April, in his column, "Why Feminist Mommies Are Like Pimps," he used as his models Kim Basinger and Keira Knightley's mother to conclude, "For some time the modern feminists of our society have done all they can to minimize the influence of men, assuage their own conscience for the break-up of their homes, and have turned to sexualizing their children." And, in the explains-it-all-to-you titled, "Why Feminists Fear Men," he opines, "It has to be obvious to the angry feminists today that in fact the happiest women in America are those who have a caring, life giving, spiritual, emotional, and physical relationship with a man they are married to."

And what comes through most strongly in McCullough's writing is that that's what would make him happy, too.

America the Cruel: Missing Soldier's Wife May Be Deported:
So one of the American soldiers missing in Iraq for over a month is Alex Jimenez of Lawrence, Massachusetts. Back in May, conservative attack dragon Michelle Malkin wanted to make sure "the rest of the country" was not taking the soldiers "for granted." For the most part, Malkin's blog is a document of her journey across the fenced border that separates the mad from the sane over illegal immigration, with Malkin coming down firmly on the bugfuck crazy side, especially if an illegal drinks and drives.

One wonders what Malkin and all the other taint-licking nutzoids that comprise the right-wing punditry are thinking about prospect that Alex Jimenez's wife, Yaderlin Hiraldo, faces deportation because, yup, she's illegal. The woman pictured cuddling with her Army hubby may be sent back to the Dominican Republic, where she would have to stay for ten years before she could apply to come back. Her status as an illegal immigrant was discovered because, yup, Alex applied to get her a green card and legal status. The cruelest irony, if there isn't enough here, is that because Alex Jimenez is missing, a judge has put a hold on a hearing over her status. So now Yaderlin Hiraldo gets to wait for the inevitable news that Alex was treated like a beef cow in the slaughterhouse and whether or not she's allowed to continue to live in the country that her husband suffered and probably died for.

And what if Yaderlin is granted a green card? Is her situation any less extreme than a parent whose child was born here, those abstract "anchor babies" Neil Boortz, Rush Limbaugh, and others are fond of deriding? Someone give Lou Dobbs a call. "Amnesty," as he orgasmically spews about any immigration legislation less than disembowelment, means something concrete to actual people, not a darker-skinned, bean-smelling amorphous blob.

The Rude Pundit would like to see Malkin and Dobbs and Tom Tancredo standing at an airport, watching Yaderlin led to a plane to take her back to Santo Domingo. Maybe they could manipulate the corpse of her husband, an all-American puppet hero, so it waves good-bye and good riddance, that no sacrifice is enough to get into their special club of citizenship.

Rude at Bonnaroo Concluded:
The Rude Pundit's adventures at the Bonnaroo Music Festival are concluded over at Rude at Bonnaroo.

General Antonio Taguba Gets Reamed By Abu Ghraib Politics:
One of the more interesting aspects of Seymour Hersh's New Yorker article on the Defense Department's ass reaming of Army Major General Antonio Taguba for daring to try to tell the truth about Abu Ghraib is that all the officials opposed to Taguba's diligence were such dicks to him. They didn't just want to stop Taguba; they wanted to humiliate him.

Look at what Taguba says about his first meeting with Donald Rumsfeld and various generals: "'Here . . . comes . . . that famous General Taguba—of the Taguba report!' Rumsfeld declared, in a mocking voice." Man, you get the gut-wrenching paranoia in that remark? See, you don't have to be a dick when you're assured in what you're doing. In poker, the worst kind of bluffing is to puff yourself up when all you're holdin' is jack-high. Then, in the amazing realm of plausible deniability, Rumsfeld kicks out the dick jams again, flat out lying to Taguba in order for them to get their stories straight, like any bunch of gang bangers: "Rumsfeld also complained about not being given the information he needed. 'Here I am,' Taguba recalled Rumsfeld saying, 'just a Secretary of Defense, and we have not seen a copy of your report.'" Goddamnit, even though he's like 900-years old, don't you just wanna kick Rumsfeld's ass on principle, like he's a date-raping frat boy, not feeling bad at all that those bones'll never fully heal?

All Taguba was telling Rumsfeld and his bootlickers, including Paul Wolfowitz, is that the United States had been torturing prisoners: "In the meeting, the officials professed ignorance about Abu Ghraib. 'Could you tell us what happened?' Wolfowitz asked. Someone else asked, 'Is it abuse or torture?' At that point, Taguba recalled, 'I described a naked detainee lying on the wet floor, handcuffed, with an interrogator shoving things up his rectum, and said, "That’s not abuse. That’s torture." There was quiet.'"

Even in the gym, Rumsfeld's lackeys couldn't help but try to bitchify Taguba. "Later in 2004, Taguba encountered Rumsfeld and one of his senior press aides, Lawrence Di Rita, in the Pentagon Athletic Center. Taguba was getting dressed after a workout. 'I was tying my shoes,' Taguba recalled. 'I looked up, and there they were.' Rumsfeld, who was putting his clothes into a locker, recognized Taguba and said, 'Hello, General.' Di Rita, who was standing beside Rumsfeld, said sarcastically, 'See what you started, General? See what you started?'" Beyond the cold sweat-inducing image of a nude Donald Rumsfeld, these assholes couldn't miss an opportunity to treat Taguba like shit.

And isn't that the whole key to what happened at that Hussein-era hellhole remade into an American-controlled hellhole? It wasn't enough to imprison the people there; they had to be made to regret ever having dared to think about opposing America. What Hersh's article tells us is not just that the decisions about the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib came from the highest levels of the Defense Department (and the Bush administration). It's that the very nature of the men who were creating the policy led naturally to the abuses. It's what they know. It's what they do. It's who they are. For if they can treat an American two-star general like a syphilitic camp follower, what chance did Iraqis have?

Photos That Make the Rude Pundit Want To Smash His Head on an Air Hockey Table:


This is President Bush playing foosball at the Boys and Girls Club in Wichita, Kansas. He said of the place, "I like the idea of mentors reaching out to children to set good examples and to encourage them to achieve big goals in life." It's really not unlike saying, "I like pie" or "I like my nipples twisted during cunnilingus," just one of those charmingly self-obvious things Bush says as if they're amazing revelations of hidden truths.

One assumes that those girls, like the rest of us, realize now that Bush as goalie is not the best idea.

The Rude Pundit Returns:
The Rude Pundit is in the Nashville airport, about to board his plane to leave the state of Bonnaroo and return to the states of blue. The Police rocked better than they had any right to, the Flaming Lips fucked with everyone, the Black Keys kicked ass, and Gogol Bordello's just goddamn insane. All that, plus excellent weed, bare breasts, and real honest-to-god activism with the Rude Pundit's guerilla theatre workshops.

More later - back to rudeness.

More Rude at Bonnaroo:
Head over to the Rude Pundit's other blog for details on his nightmare experience at the Bonnaroo Music Festival.

True Confessions: How Political Enragement Led To Disengagement...and Back Again.

(By special guest pinch-blogger, Manny Mota John King.)

This writer is no Rude Pundit, but he knows a thing or two about Republican asshattery. In fact, that might be why the erstwhile Rude One left the keys to the blog before heading off for a weekend amid the damn dirty hippies: a weekend of billboard-sized sheets of acid, dancing to "Roxanne," singing those high notes like Eddie Murphy in 48 Hours, and then -- ah, yes, then -- engaging in anonymous, sticky, pleasurable activities in the sea of tents and grilled cheese sammiches, and not remembering shit. Here's hoping.

However, in terms of political engagement, this writer has been off the radar for a while. Like a lot of people, this writer turned off the television after the 2004 election, watched as the United States of Canada separated from Jesusland, and he said (while shaking his fists at the heavens -- you know, for effect), "Ah....motherfuckermotherfuckermotherfuckermotherfucker!"

Let's back up a bit.

In grad school, this writer took a job at the college paper and got all politically engaged and shit, like a lot of people, post-9/11, suddenly awake and aware and keen to issues, real issues -- not just the war, but other shit, too.

He wrote columns, and he swung hard. One of the highlights: He wrote a column defending homosexuals, and it might be the best thing he'll ever write.

Then he voted for Kerry, and we all know how that shit turned out.

Since then, this writer had to tune out, or face ulcers and ruined relationships and sleepless nights and pretty much everything else lefties have dealt with daily since, oh, November 2000-ish. And maybe this writer is a big pussy for not hanging tough, but that's how he ended up rolling.

He stopped reading the damn paper and getting pissed off every morning, and he thought this was good. He stopped allowing obtuse Republican views to enrage him on a daily basis, and he stopped having "spirited political discussions," which basically became code for "dealing with fucking douchebags who think all brown people are eeeeevil."

Once in a while, yes, while among like-minded people, the John of Old would surface, but only among friends who pretty much saw things the way he saw them, and if there was a conservative in our midst, well, we just laughed away our differences. Haha, motherfucker, let's agree to disagree. Hardeharhar.

But this mingling was rare. This writer knew the dangers of too much engagement when the 2008 election was so far away. This writer had made himself fucking miserable, playing pundit, and had to knock that shit off.

Miserable? Man, that's no fucking way to live. This writer didn't want to be the guy who woke up every morning and cussed the newspaper, bashed the television, kicked the dog. For others, this is normal and fine. For this writer, lacking such iron constitution, not so much.

But ya know, that was then. This writer can't just ignore shit now. Barack Obama and/or Hillary Clinton might be the real deal. A woman or a black dude for president? Holy fucking shit.

And maybe this writer is on crack, and maybe the left's best bet is neither of the above, but maybe someone else.

Whatever the case, it's worth risking enragement to watch. It's something different.

It's hope, and that's a way to live.

If you dug the pinch-blogging, pop over to King's Eye Land. If you're one of those who just wants to argue, don't bother. I'm like Stalin with people who disagree. You'll be disappeared in the night and end up in my basement, ball-gagged and ready for the badgers.

Your regularly scheduled rudeness will return next week. 'Til then, check out Rude at Bonnaroo and prepare for the zombie holocaust.

Rude at Bonnaroo Blog:
Check out the Rude Pundit's hellish journey through the concentration camp that is the Bonnaroo Music Festival at the Rude at Bonnaroo blog. Stay here for the bloggy stylings of John King 'till Monday.

Dennis Miller: Shit-Tossing Monkey of Cultural Detritus
(By pinch blogger John King)
Listening to Dennis Miller is a lot like [unfunny reference four people get, perhaps mentioning Spiro Agnew, John Sununu, or Keith Richards] at a [moderately related and/or comical scenario, possibly mentioning a pie-eating contest with Carol Channing, Bob Barker, or Telly Savalas]. I'm telling you, he's like [unfunny reference four people get, possibly mentioning Joan Crawford, Kate Chopin, or Henry Kissinger] at a [moderately related and/or comical scenario, possibly mentioning a Klan rally, Star Wars convention, or Wally Lamb booksigning].

You get the idea.

People on the left sometimes bemoan the loss of Dennis Miller, remembering some bygone version of him that was once rebellious and funny, questioning authority -- a precursor to your modern day Jon Stewart, if you will, skewering Reagan and Bush on Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update," blah blah fuckin' blah. Yes, they mourn quietly -- there's not much left to say once someone is lost -- as this modern version of Dennis Miller goes on, a pale shadow, a right-wing bootlick, a parrot of neocon talking points, all couched in his mamby-pamby, oh-shit-the-brown-people-gonna-get-me, post-9/11 admission of fear, and talking right-wing smack for Bill O'Reilly, who (yep, stealing the joke) really should be sodomized with a microphone. Fucking jackass.

But y'know, kudos to the guy for finding a job post-SNL, because there's a lot of former SNL castmembers who ain't doing shit these days. Even A. Whitney Brown has trouble finding and keeping work. So where can a guy make a buck when his biggest career move since SNL was Bordello of Blood? Hey, there are plenty of rebels on the left...but there's a dearth of creativity and hilarity in neocon political punditry, post-9/11. Enter Dennis Miller.

Is this not transparent? Should we be at all surprised? Did you not see this coming? He was bright, he was insightful, he was ascerbic, but he wasn't alone or even a standout on the left. He was just Dennis Miller, another rebel in the rabble.

But on the right...this dumbass is an erudite motherfucker, heads above any other entertainers the right can claim. So Bill O'Reilly co-opted him.

Here's Miller, bag of douche that he is, on "The O'Reilly Factor," June 6, 2007:

"To me the left is like Margaret Dumond, the old Groucho Marx films used to be, vis-à-vis terrorism? It's like, 'Oh, I never!' You know, and at some point we got to go out and we've just got to engage these people. And we have to — it's like 'Cool Hand Luke.' Somebody's got to force their will on the other person. They've got to get their mind through it."

Mind you, if the left is Margaret Dumond, is Miller implying the right is like the Marx Brothers? Taking that a bit further, didn't Duck Soup satirize fascism, and didn't Dumond play a character who was seduced by Rufus T. Firefly, who later declared war for comical reasons? Ah, the parallels, the easy parallels, and the mayhem, the hijinks, the mirror scene, wakawakawaka. Whither thee, Zeppo?

Ah, but sensing the clunkitude of the Marx Brothers comparison, Miller switches gears before anyone calls him on his shit (not that anyone would on Fox "News"), and jumps to a Cool Hand Luke reference -- you know, the Paul Newman film in which George Kennedy nearly ejaculates in his pants while watching a woman wash her car. Take it off, boss?

And fuck, even that reference contradicts Miller's point, because Cool Hand Luke ends not with Newman's character succumbing to the will of his oppressors, but smiling as they drove him away, all bloody and fucked up, but smiling. Motherfucker never caved to fear and control. Unlike, y'know, Dennis Miller.

Then, dumbshit goes on:

"To me, Gitmo is like Vegas. What happens in Gitmo should stay in Gitmo. You know? I mean, there are simple things that we should know in this war."

WTF? Doesn't this guy pretty much defy scrutiny because his ignorance is self-evident? Can I do something else with my day now besides listen to this fucker? No, wait:

"Here's my feeling on these interrogation techniques. If you know that somebody knows something about something — and they always tell you it never happens. But I saw Tenet on your show, said it happens. Said they give information.

"If you don't waterboard him, to me that's evil. If you know this guy knows something about innocents being killed within the next couple of days and you don't do that, that seems evil to me."

So if you torture them, it's evil, but if you don't torture them, it's...evil-er? What fucking Orwellian shit is this?

Miller's clunky quips of faux intelligence barely made me chuckle when I was 14, and they sure as shit don't now, especially because they're formulaic, panicked, and barely stand up under the slightest scrutiny. Shit, anybody can fake cultural literacy with a few minutes spent on the Internet or reading tabloids or watching old movies, and anyone can draw nonsensical, unfunny comparisons using names and titles conjured at random.

Hell, put a monkey in a room with the walls covered in photos of famous people, and the monkey's bound to throw his shit and hit two faces -- say, Walter Mondale and Cheech Marin. It doesn't make the fuckin' monkey some kind of genius laugh riot. A lot like the aforementioned monkey of yore, he's just throwing shit.