It's been said I've been 'blinded' by my hatred for W...

[sspadowsky]

I generally try to avoid wishing any kind of ill or misfortune upon others, but I hope this vile, contemptible piece of human garbage suffers the most horrifying case of ass cancer that the world has ever seen. If you told me five years ago that there was someone coming down the pike who would make me long for the days of John Ashcroft, I would have called you an idiot, but, by God, this douche makes Ashcroft look like Patrick Fucking Henry.

[mburbank]

See, to me, Ashcroft is simply emblematic of the administration. He's just doing what he was hired to do, which is tend exclusively to political goals and lie.

That to me IS the Chenney/Rove/bush administration. One goal: Amass power. Every decision feeds that goal. Nothing, not justice, not safety, not the law, nothing is seen through any other lense. Then you lie about it, to protect the power you've amassed. And as the administration has aged, the plausability of the lies has seemed to matter less and less. At this point they no longer care if you believe them.

The outrageousness of the lies becomes a way of saying what Chenney said to Leahy a few years back, "Go fuck yourself", except the number of people they are saying that to, and the bluntness of how the choose to say it has grown dramatically.

I'm not a fan of politicians and never have been. But I maintain that I have been right for six years now to hate these bastards as much as I do, that they are META-politicians, absolutely shameless, absolutely amoral, absolutely superior. They are not in any sense at all public servants, they believe this is their country, property they can do with as they please. These are people who would make Nixon blush.

And even more than the executive branch itself, I am AMAZED at the Republican party. Because unless the administration is planning a military takeover (and I don't think they are) there is a very real possability that they will take this theory of the unitary, royal, anticonstitutional presidency and hand it on a silver platter to Hillary Clinton.

[Preechr]

While I disagree that showing disrespect for show and tell hearings like this is the same thing as showing disrespect for America or the Constitution, I agree that political theater has grown increasingly appalling over the years. I think it started farther back than Nixon, though... I'd once have taken it back to Kennedy, but Television probably just over-turned the rock and exposed the Washington filth to the public visually. Wasn't Buchanan a complete scumbag criminal or something?

Point is, even though you are conveniently not mentioning Clinton, Max, I know you've indicated plainly that he'll never be invited over to your house for dinner. Carter proved and is still proving the blackness of his heart. Corruption and power-grabbing is not just a fundamental aspect of the GOP. It is the goal of ALL government to "amass power." Government itself is unalterably and fundamentally wasteful and always hungry for more, no matter who is running it. We will always need some government, just a little, to accomplish the things we cannot do individually, but only just as much as is absolutely necessary to bear.

The civil purpose of government is to suspend what our Founders called God-Given Rights selectively for the greater good of all. Politicians deserve no more inherent respect than public executioners when they revel in their power, because every official action they take removes someone or some group of rights our Constitution says were supposed to be inalienable. That's power that should only ever be wielded with the utmost prudence and moral judgment.

We are witnessing the Jerry Springer Show acted out on Capitol Hill, and it takes two to strip off their wife-beaters and pull as much hair as possible before Steve can get in there to break it up. At the end of the day, we rely on Rush Limbaugh and Michael Moore to tell us how we are supposed to think about it all. That's what Joe Six Pack wants, so that's what he gets.