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For the week ending 9/23/06:

"Information Transit got the wrong man. I got the right man. The wrong one was delivered to me as the right man, I accepted him on good faith as the right man. Was I wrong?" – Jack Lint, Brazil

Bitter, moi?  Oh, you bet.  Disgusted?  More than you can possibly imagine.  Ashamed of my country?  Wooo cow. For [mumble mumble] years, I lived in a place where rule of law and respect for humanity was supposed to be the norm, not the exception.  One day, all that changed.  No, not on September 11, 2001, as so many of today’s bloodless, questionably elected officials and fatuous, preening pundits would have you believe.  The only things that changed on that day were the horrible (and quite possibly avoidable) deaths of nearly 3,000 citizens of the world and the destruction of some buildings.  No, everything changed last Thursday, September 21, 2006, when three Republican senators agreed to sign away the last vestiges of this country’s greatness to the one person less qualifed than a half-digested Almond Joy to be President. Vesting the power to decide issues of torture and the rights of prisoners in the Boy King? It’s like Warner, McCain and Graham put a bottle of Bombay Sapphire in front of a wife-beating drunk and said, "Use your discretion."  In fact, it’s very, very, very much like that.

And the Democrats? The Democrats, whose idea of "political judo" is to fall down and pin themselves on the mat before their opponents have even donned their gis?  Well, they thought they were being clever to keep mum while the Three Amigos gave up the farm.  Oh, they were probably just trying to keep their powder dry.  At this point, the Democrats have enough dry powder that their courtier wigs will never go wanting when the United States reverts to a 17th century monarchy.  

Had the week just been limited to the demise of habeas corpus and the "non-gutting" gutting of the Geneva Conventions, I might have been a little less nauseated. But alas, that was not to be. Bush went before the United Nations to condescend to people far, far smarter than he. The human metro(g)nome once again delivered his call to war, masked as a lecture on Iran’s history lifted straight from Encyclopedia Britannica, in his "three words at a time because that’s all I can read on each teleprompter, given the fact that I have a ball bearing for a brain" cadence to an icy cold audience.  Yes, I’m sure the people of Iran are proud of their ancient culture, you supercilious, facile dickhead.  They’d rather you not blow it back to the Stone Age, which you’re clearly itching to do.  Christ, all the world’s just a giant frog patiently waiting for you to jam a stick of dynamite up its ass.

And then there was George "Ham Sammich" Allen.  But I’ll leave that for last.  Heh.

Onward.

As is usually the case, the Rude One grabs the truth by its ears and twists.  Hard. 

The fact that anyone thought for two seconds that we were watching honorable men confront the evil wrought by a president from their own party is a pathetic statement on just how debased politics has become in this country. . . .For if John McCain actually gave a rat’s ass about torture, then he would not have voted to confirm Alberto Gonzales or Samuel Alito. If Lindsey Graham gave a happy monkey fuck about the rights of detainees, then he wouldn’t have authored an amendment limiting their rights of appeal. And Warner, despite his reputation as a moderate in some of his statements, almost always goes along with the herd, so, you know, fuck him, too.

Charlie Pierce at TAPPED then kicks the limp body of the Democratic Party to the curb:

The national Democratic Party is no longer worth the cement needed to sink it to the bottom of the sea. For an entire week, it allowed a debate on changing the soul of the country to be conducted intramurally between the Torture Porn and Useful Idiot wings of the Republican Party, the latter best exemplified by John McCain, who keeps fashioning his apparently fathomless ambition into a pair of clown shoes with which he can do the monkey dance across the national stage. 

Michael Berube offers up an innovative new game to celebrate the death of the United States. "Let’s pretend there’s an opposition party!"

D r i f t g l a s s, that hopeless optimist, holds on to the slightest glimmer of hope for the Credo . . . I mean, Democrats.  Brad R. at Sadly, No! begs the Democrats to stop acting like . . . well, the Democrats we’ve come to know and loathe.  (P.S.  The accompanying photograph is enough to make me run off to a Renaissance fair.) And Stranger at Blah3 tries to lure the Dems away from the poisoned bait.

TBogg engages in some incredibly sastifying pundit-pounding, while Billmon proves that brevity = wit.  (Given the subject matter, I opted to leave out the "soul.") And Quiddity at uggabugga establishes the Broder Matrix. It’s quite the handy guide for interpreting the calculus of right wing punditry.

Norbizness gives us the Cliff Notes version of the Preznit’s U.N. yawner. And while we didn’t get a good look at any of the Preznit’s bathroom break requests, Attaturk at Rising Hegemon found some of his doodles.

Hairy Fish Nuts acquaints us with a hardcore Bush supporter, someone who probably has no problem with the disconnect between "being a good Christian" and beating the crap out of detainees.  Shame about that kiddie porn, Coach.

And then there was the Pope who, like George Allen, doesn’t know when to stop digging.  Attaturk discovered an open letter from the Pope to the people of Islam.

Okay, I can’t hold out any longer. George Allen out-macacaed himself this week with his stunning revelations that his mother, despite being a closeted Jewy Jew, makes really good pork chops. Georgie, you meshugeh you!

Somebody named watertiger at Dependable Renegade provides a "How to Be a Jew" primer for Mr. Allen, while Lindsay at Majikthise goes all trafe on his ass. Jesus’ Favorite General sends a message from the Son of God to George.  

And elsewhere, Cervantes at Stayin’ Alive gets inside the minds of the 33 Percenters, while Kieran Healy of Crooked Timber made me laugh.  Out loud.  Actually, I wound up spitting out the coffee I was trying to drink.

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