[UPDATE: Not three hours after posting this, Denny Hastert reversed his decision. Do I get results or WHAT? I’ll leave it up, however, because a) I think it’s funny, and b) Hastert’s initial take on the issue probably came from a discussion much like this. Verbatim, perhaps.]
From The New York Times -
WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 — The Senate is expected to approve legislation within days to extend the life of the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, with commission members and Republican lawmakers vowing on Thursday to press Speaker J. Dennis Hastert to drop his plans to block the measure in the House…
“We want this report out as soon as possible,” Mr. Hastert’s spokesman, John Feehery, said on Thursday. “The recommendations only really work if they come out quickly. And any delay will only make this become a political football.”
Mr. Feehery said Mr. Hastert had spoken on Monday with the White House chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., and made clear his opposition to any extension. Asked if there was any chance that Mr. Hastert might change his mind, Mr. Feehery replied, “I don’t think so.”
________________________________________
CARD: Have a seat, Denny.
HASTERT: Thanks. Are these peanuts for just anybody?
CARD: Help yourself. Now, you’re probably aware that the White House has endorsed extending the 9/11 investigation.
HASTERT: Yeah, that’s a little bit of a confusing thing right there. Mmm, honey roasted.
CARD: Confusing? Why?
HASTERT: Well, I thought you guys wanted to get this over with, you know, before convention season.
CARD: Oh, we do, we do.
HASTERT: You’re out of nuts. Anyway, so…
CARD: However, the White House feels that it’s vitally important that we respect the bipartisan committee’s unanimous decision that they need more time and access to get to the bottom of what went wrong.
HASTERT: Uh huh. Yeah, that sounds reasonable. Okay, I’m with you. Say, are those M&M’s on the mantle just for show?
CARD: Please, have some. But I don’t think we’re really communicating here, Denny. See, it COULD be an awful inconvenience to have this stuff come out over the summer.
HASTERT: Right, but -
CARD: But the White House feels that it’s vitally important that we respect the bipartisan committee’s unanimous decision that they need more time and access to get to the bottom of what went wrong.
HASTERT: It’s amazing how you guys can say the exact same thing word for word like that.
CARD: Thank you.
HASTERT: So, the White House feels its vitally important yadda yadda yadda…
CARD: Right. But if a wrench gets thrown in the legislative works and such an extension is NOT passed, well, our hands are tied.
HASTERT: Like a fillibister, you mean.
CARD: Yeah.
HASTERT: Some damn sneaky Congressman delaying the work of the nation and defying the people.
CARD: Sort of -
HASTERT: Making a mockery of our democratic process by gridlocking the wheels of justice, and in this case forcing us to rush to judgment in a necessary investigation into the single defining event of the new century!! The bastards!!
CARD: Um, that’s not the -
HASTERT: Well, don’t worry, Andy, I’ll make sure that nobody on MY side of the aisle delays the extension! I’m just gonna grab a couple more M&M’s here and then head right down to the floor to-
CARD: Denny, sit down!
HASTERT: What?
CARD: I said: Sit. Down.
HASTERT: Can I bring the bowl?
CARD: [Sighs] Yes, you can bring the bowl. Okay, let’s go over this one more time…
Fanny Roborat
16 comments
lovable liberal
February 27, 2004 at 4:17 pm
1Thought I was in the Twilight Zone until, It’s amazing how you guys can say the exact same thing word for word like that.
Bust-a-gut funny!
G-man
February 27, 2004 at 4:56 pm
2Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. As in Denny Has Dirt. Rather, Deny (the committee) Has Dirt on the Adminstration.
Hey, Deny, just take the initiative and float a bill in the House that requires “A COMPLETE, FULL, AND EXHAUSTIVE INVESTIGATION THAT SHALL PROVIDE AN UNFLINCHING ASSESSMENT OF ACCOUNTABILITY AND RESPONSIBILITY OF ANY AND ALL PARTIES REGARDING THE GRAVE ATTACKS ON AMERICA ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, AND WHOSE COMPLETE, FULL, AND EXHAUSTIVE ACCOUNTING WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED COMPLETE, FULL, AND EXHAUSTIVE UNTIL THE FIRST WEDNESDAY IN NOVEMBER”
Johnboy
February 27, 2004 at 6:07 pm
3Your delightfully humorous way of putting it made me wonder: are they taping in the White House again?
Nah, not this group. Unlike Nixon, these people are totally corrupt. That’s the last thing they’d want. Never thought I’d say that abut Nixon, but if you live too long, you know things can get worse.
June
February 27, 2004 at 7:45 pm
4So funny, I’m surprised Dennis Hastert posted it!
tess
February 27, 2004 at 9:40 pm
5so in another 30 years will they make a comedy out of this?
Ras_Nesta
February 28, 2004 at 3:16 pm
6Tess, it’ll only be a comedy if you think “Titus Andronicus” is funny.
Bush as Chiron and Cheneyburton as Demetrius? Kerry as Titus?
Corwin Haught
February 28, 2004 at 6:04 pm
7Minnesota-North Dakota Area “WWDTM” Anti- Pre-emption League Update
They did it again. MPR pre-empted “WWDTM” for a special fund-raising edition of the “The Splendid Table” This time, they’ve gone too far. If they wanted to have a fund-raiser, could’ve hay just put in the tape of the fund-raising edition? I suggest direct action. Withhold donatons until something gets done about “WWDTM”. (People in the ND or SD Border Regions: Give Money to the public broadcasters in your states with the intention of getting “WWDTM” of their schedules.) Protest at your nearest MPR affilate. Write editorals. Minnesta Public Radio is now, to quote Education Secretary Rod Paige, “a terroist organization”.
Or you could spend your time doing real things.
You have the Power!
I said I wouldn't come back here
February 29, 2004 at 1:04 am
8Exactly what are we investigating again? Our failure to prevent people from buying box cutters?
Or we were somehow supposed to know that the next group of plane hijackers was going to fly planes into buildings so our longstanding policy of saving lives by cooperating with hijackers was wrong…
Oh I know, the crime was that the wrong president was in office when something bad happened and we need a way to pin it on him.
If there honestly isn’t anything to investigate, exactly how do you stay on your high horse about keeping the circus running?
adam
February 29, 2004 at 2:26 am
9“I said…”
You raise a pretty good point, so I’m gonna lay my cards on the table.
I think that the whole investigation thing is NOT going to prove that the 9/11 attacks were avoidable, for the simple reason that I don’t believe that they WERE avoidable.
But the administration’s reluctance to let the investigation happen tells me that the results will probably be fairly damning from a political standpoint. there’s a lot of evidence that the outgoing Clinton administration was trying really hard to convince the incoming Bushies that Al Qaeda was the biggest single threat to America, and that the Bush administration chose to disregard this and focus instead upon Iraq and missile defense and whatnot.
Had the Bush administration listened, I think they’d probably still have failed to prevent 9/11: It was an outrageous and unprecedented mode of assault. But my guess is that they’re trying to quash or minimize the political fallout from the disclosure of further evidence of what we already know: The enmity and disrespect between the incoming and outgoing regimes resulted in some very important things getting shelved, sidelined, or ignored.
This isn’t all idle speculation - there have been many journalistic explorations of the mutual contempt that marked the roughest, angriest transition in the history of the White House, and more than a few specific pieces about how this relates to the Islamist threat (Sidney Blumenthal wrote some fascinating things about it in The New Yorker, if memory serves).
So it’s not the non-existent possibility of shielding ourselves from the 9/11 disaster that incites my ire, it’s the administration’s clear desire to shield themselves from a political disaster. Unlike the Iraq war, I don’t think there’s anything ’shady’ in the administration’s pre-conflict conduct; it’s the rather desperate desire to whitewash it afterwards that gives me pause.
Bob
February 29, 2004 at 1:33 pm
10I said I wouldn’t come back here -
When did we as a nation decide that there honestly isn’t anything to investigate? How’d I miss something like that? Perhaps I forgot to tune in to Rush that morning?
Take a look at Maureen Dowd’s column in this Sunday’s Times, and read how George Tenant testified before a Senate Intelligence Committee that German intelligence had given the CIA the first name and phone number of one of the 9/11 terrorists, but how that wasn’t enough information to follow up on. (Dowd’s follow-up comment: “For crying out loud. As one guy I know put it: ‘I’ve tracked down women across the country with a lot less information than that.’ “) Not very interesting? Well, this happened 30 months before 9/11, during the administration of the, uh, previous president. Now, that’s fascinating, right? Well worth an investigation!
How could we possibly justify not investigating everything that led up to 9/11, in hopes that we find something that puts us in a better position to fight terrorism in the future, even if we end up concluding that 9/11 itself was not preventable? How could we not thoroughly investigate that, but think it OK to investigate Whitewater, Filegate, and Monicagate for seven years? What’s the higher principle that would motivate such a decision?
By the way, we agree on one thing: the wrong president was in office on 9/11. Here’s hoping you’ll help the rest of us rectify that little oversight in November.
Murray
February 29, 2004 at 6:25 pm
11Shoot!
That’s what I get.
I go away for a few hours to formulate a response and Bob takes my place, says what I was going to, and does it better than I would have.
Thanks a lot Bob.
So our favorite Liberal-libertarian scholar who loves Bush but won’t vote for him and doesn’t find Adam funny has returned. Well, welcome back JS. I knew that this site was too enticing and addictive to stay way for long.
Murray
February 29, 2004 at 7:00 pm
12Adam
Very few people can cut through an issue as well as you and write it down as clearly. I’d be thrilled to have half your talent.
When you talk about the animosity between the Bush and Clinton administration probably nothing proves the point better than the Bush people’s charge that the Clinton folks had trashed the White House before they left. You know, those pot smoking hippies, disrespecting our sacred seat of government. But when they were asked to prove it, the Bushites couldn’t, for the simple reason that it hadn’t happened. Retraction? Apology? Yea right!
When Bush I left the White House he pardoned his fellow Iran-Contra conspirators, including Cap Weinberger whose diary showed that Bush was not only in the loop but a major player in the scandal. He pardoned himself. Clinton and the democrats let it slide.
Clinton left the White House and pardoned Marc Rich a questionable person but not directly connected to Clinton, although vouched for by the Pope and several others. The Republicans pounced. It was the biggest scandal since Monica.
Clinton gained nothing from his pardon. Bush I had his record expunged. Which is the real scandal?
Katie, NOT calling MPR
February 29, 2004 at 11:13 pm
13Corwin:
MPR SUCKS DEAD BEARS!
I was all ready to enjoy WWDTM, one of my great pleasures of the weekend. I take that as MY hour. I sit on the couch with something sinful to eat, and a nice iced Diet Dr Pepper to drink, and I then procede to top the previous week’s record for ’spit-takes during a one hour show’.
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR……….
The only reason I won’t totally cut off MPR and unprogram it from every radio I own would be the Morning Show. WCAL just can’t compete with that…
However, until they stop pre-empting WWDTM EVERY SINGLE FREAKING PLEDGE WEEK; (and every single time anything more significant than a FROG FART occurs) they have lost a very nice donation, thank you very much.
(AND I’ve been donating since the phone number was 291-9190… who remembers that?!)
Maybe I’ll take the money and turn it into a campaign pledge for Adam…
i’m gonna go get my tub of Ben&Jerry’s and go to the WWDTM website to see what I missed this weekend…..
grrrrrrrr…….
Murray
March 1, 2004 at 8:19 pm
14Katie
I can see that driving a person to drink. Feel free to crack open a bottle of Jack.
I’m really lucky. I can get 2 Washington DC stations, 1 Balmer, Penn State, Frostburg U, and West Virginia Public Radio. No matter who has that pleading and crying time of the year, there is always some one who doesn’t.
Bob
March 2, 2004 at 2:35 pm
15There’s a fantastic web site with links to audio feeds from many public radio stations, as well as a complete directory of NPR/PRI shows and their air times on each station. It’s a snap to find the show you want. I’ve found it particularly useful during pledges, when our local station substitutes special pledge editions of shows for the real stuff, or preempts shows entirely.
http://www.publicradiofan.com
Katie
March 3, 2004 at 12:40 am
16Bob,
Yes, that would be the quiet, mature and passive solution.
I would much rather fling epigrammatical vitriol into the giant black hole of cyberspace, cursing a reality of publically funded programming that I especially dispise.
(However, the alternative is equally unpalatable. When I lived in Washington D.C., One of the classical stations was a commercial station out of one of the colleges in Virgina. They generally had very good programming, and some very intelligent hosts; however I could NOT listen to that station for extended periods of time.
There I’d be, driving along the NASCAR qualifying track that is the DC Beltway, listening to a wonderful recording of some incredibly moving piece of great classical music. Windows down in February, (quite a kick for a native Minnesotan) radio cranked, drinking a diet coke, loving life, and you’d hit the end of a piece, especially a really powerful piece; and almost before the last note finished reverberating, They’d jump STRAIGHT into a commercial about some totally innane product… usually accompanied by a HORRID jingle! ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!! (The one that finally pushed me over the edge was the Mahler 1st Symphony followed by a car dealership megasale commercial. SHUDDER!!!!!) At least at MPR (and therefore PRI) the announcers have the sensitivity to let the silence reverberate with the power of the music that has just passed through it for a few reverent seconds, before quietly, respectfully telling you what piece had just been played by whom.
AND the WORST insult perpetuated by Public Radio…. They have special 2 hour pledge week episodes of Car Talk, of The Splended Table, and other shows. If we HAVE to listen to pledging, why couldn’t they give us 2 hours of WWDTM?!! Even better, give us 2 hours of WWDTM’s greatest quips, and the stuff that we DIDN’T get to hear!!! I’d pledge GOOD money to listen to the outtakes and ‘cut’ remarks of WWDTM!
ok. I’ll stop ranting and frothing now and go take my medication like a good girl.