What a Scandal!
Stuff below on the complex of scandals washing over Washington. You are warned. More after the cut.
I’ve lost track of them all. There’s a whole constellation of them in the Department of Justice (ha!) and another with the VA/Walter Reed, and still another with COntracting in Iraq, and so on. Not to mention the whole Plamegate affair.
The short version for me is that none of this really surprises me, except that they’re getting worked over about it all - at last. Tons of this was apparent for a long time, but the accretion of mismanagement, lies, deceit, incompetence and authoritarian wet dreams is finally reaching a point to which major league investigations can take place.
Bush hasn’t governed for the last six years. He’s played at PR, and done a ton of double shuffling and BS, but the man and his people simply aren’t good enough at this to be able to fool all of the people all of the time, and at this point, there are going to always be that 25% that Just Can’t Buy That Their Guy really meant to mess up. The same people that stayed with Nixon to the end.
Yes, there will people who will not be able to accept that that’s Bush and Cheney and Gonzales feeding kittens to a wood chipper on live TV. You can’t convince everyone.
Over and over, I have heard - they wouldn’t be dumb enough / arrogant enough to do X, would they? Well, yes, yes, they could.
These guys weren’t looking for people to staff things to govern competently. They were looking for clever fellows, but only in ways that could ensure their power would stay intact and that the other guys would stay buffaloed. But what they wanted, over and over again, was blind, overwhelming Loyalty to the Party Line.
Everyone is faithful to the Leader’s wishes. He twists, you twist. He turns, you turn. He says apes are apple butter, you agree. He wants Democrats to stay a minority party, you make it so.
If you’re Loyal, we’ll look after you and we all look after each other. We keep our supporters happy in many ways - contracting out the government to them, letting them raid the treasury for tax cuts, subsidies or preferences, not to mention many Congressional earmarks and gooshy funds. The wingnuts and the theocons need to be kept happy, but really, they’ve got no place to go. There’s a line, boys, get in line.
Remember that some of these guys may be immoral thieves and child molesters, but at least they’re not Democrats. Perish the thought.
We like the idea of promises. Promises are a good way to shut people up when they ask you for something, like levees or someplace to live, or jobs. They’ll forget, or the media will forget, and you can always shift the blame or deny things later. Who’s going to call you on it?
Good governance is not as important as good PR. People have short memories, and good PR will do a lot to erase bad news. When in doubt, shout them down. Repeat the story we want until it either takes root or blanks out the other side. Never apologize, never admit, never explain.
What has the little guy done for us? Nothing that we didn’t tell him to do. So don’t worry about them. Planning for real events, for consequences? That’s for sheep. If we can throw our weight around, kick some butt, and so on, nobody will try to take us on and we can do what we want. Just state this is the way it is, and that’s it. Who’s to say no?
Who’s to check up on us? The media loves a steady stream of news access, and they hate to do the digging around that might torque one of our people off. Congress? They’re either in on the gravy train, or Karl has explained to them what happens to people not with the program.
We will create our own reality, and we’re strong minded enough to do it. End of discussion.