As we follow the trail of slime in the Plame investigation (which has both the mechanics and all the honor of a Grand Slug Hunt, necessary though it might be), and as the trail winds inexorably towards the top, we might want to ask ourselves what exactly we have here. Whitewater? Watergate? Heaven’s Gate? or “Heaven’s Gate?” Let’s break it down.
Watergate
Watergate’s clearly the gold standard of Presidential scandals - some guys tried to rob the Democrats’ headquarters in an effort to get the President re-elected! And they worked for the President! And he knew about it! And he tried to cover it up! And he was caught on tape talking about how he knew about it and how it had to be covered up!
Corruption and abuse of power, plain and simple.
Typical American’s reaction: “Wow. That ain’t right.”
Whitewater
Whitewater, of course, was an investigation into a land deal that took place long before Bill Clinton ran for President. If it had turned up anything on the Clintons, the result would have been politically devastating but only as far as what it implied - “These guys were crooked from the start!” As it happened, the “Whitewater” part of the Whitewater show didn’t find anything damning about the First Family, though the Season 5 plot-twist with the special crossover guest stars from an equally popular program on the same network (”What Paula Saw!”) did eventually bring about an impeachment.
It didn’t amount to an abuse of power or a corruption of our system, though.
Typical American’s reaction: “Blow jobs? I love blow jobs! But, uh, yeah, that’s wrong.”
“Heaven’s Gate”
In the late 70’s Michael Cimino was at the top of his game as a writer/director, having scored massive successes with films like “The Deer Hunter” and “The Rose.” So it seemed logical for a studio to write him a blank check for a gigantic movie with a great cast, and a revival of the Western to boot!
Cimino spent freely and had frequent on-set tantrums. The film came in way over budget and four hours long. Nobody went and saw it, and there were no video residuals to count on back then. United Artists , a proud studio, was singlehandedly put out of business by this gigantic flop of a movie. Many analysts believe this effective ended the era of the director, and launched the age of the “creative executive.”
Corruption? No. But clearly an abuse of power.
Typical American’s reaction: “Have you seen ‘Fame’?”
Heaven’s Gate
The Heaven’s Gate “scandal” broke in 1997, when a secretive and loony cult sacrificed their fashion sense, their testicles, and ultimately their lives in an attempt to hitch a ride on a UFO that they were sure was hiding behind the passing Hale-Bopp comet. How the leaders convinced the true believers to do all this is unclear (”So, I have to put on this track suit, these new white Nike’s, cut off my balls, and kill myself, eh? Wait a minute - white Nike’s?”).
Corruption? It’s pretty clear the leaders believed what they were saying. Abuse of power? Not if they’re up there chatting with superintelligent aliens in high, squeaky voices.
Typical American’s reaction: “Wow, that’s weird. Have you seen ‘Men in Black’?”
So, what do we have here?
Clearly, Plamegate isn’t Watergate, if only because the all the crimes that may have been committed took place after we’d invaded Iraq. Some of you might disagree, but to me the inciting event of the Watergate scandal was somewhat worse: Bush had already made the ill-considered decision to go to war, the invasion had happened, and we were already eating Freedom Fries. Nixon and his gang were trying to tamper with an election that hadn’t even happened yet. Still, the comparisons are incredibly close.
It’s worse than Whitewater, obviously. We’re talking about the leak of classified government intel for base political purposes, and a clear coverup, possibly of Watergate-esque proportions. Whitewater involved two possible scandals, one of which didn’t really involve the administration and one of which involved only two particular, er, members (sorry, everyone).
It’s not unlike “Heaven’s Gate,” the movie - a ton of money’s been spent, the guy at the top is widely perceived to be undependable, and the ultimate product that all this skullduggery’s been done in the name of is… a bit of a flop. Possibly even a disaster. What started out as a hearkening back to those ol’ fashioned Westerns has ballooned into something uniquely modern and unwieldy.
It’s also got a more than passing resemblance to the Heaven’s Gate cult. Our leader asked us to buy into a vision that is extremely hard to verify without jumping in, and in order to get there, some pretty dodgy steps had to be taken. The last election cycle saw Zell Miller in a track suit, Scott McClellan in white Nike’s, and John McCain utterly castrated.
Conclusion: The Scandals Plamegate is Most Like (in order of resemblance):
1) Watergate
2) Heaven’s Gate
3) “Heaven’s Gate”
4) Whitewater
[Note to Political Science professors: Feel free to use this in your classes. A study guide is available upon request.]
Fanny Roborat
42 comments
Carmel
October 19, 2005 at 5:58 pm
1I am so glad that you can do the thinking and analysis for me. Breaking it down like that was very helpful to my comprehension of the true implications of this matter. Thank you Adam!
dee
October 19, 2005 at 10:10 pm
2So does this mean we can look forward to Bush flashing the “V” sign from the steps of Marine 1 or the entire staff of the west wing covered with purple shrouds?
Either one works for me.
ice weasel
October 19, 2005 at 10:32 pm
3Nice call on the purple shrouds part Dee.
Adam, I have to admit, there are times when I have no idea where you are coming from. So rather than respond as I might if I thought someone was trolling, I’ll say this. The trail of bodies left by this administration is horrifying. Not the Vince Foster kind of tiin foil bullshit, but the senseless waste of human life we, as a nation, now seem resigned to.
Whether it’s Iraq or Louisiana, incompetence, negligence and dishonesty have cost thousands of people their lives, their homes and their way of life. I’m not sure how that stacks up in the litany of the various “gates” but I think it’s one reason I’ve tried to avoid even referring to this as “Plamegate” or “traitorgate” or any of the cute nicknames. Stupid nicknames are the province of our chief executive and somehow, that’s fitting.
Redshift
October 20, 2005 at 1:05 am
4As to whether all the crimes were committed after we invaded Iraq, that may not be so. Remember, the crimes here were committed as part of the coverup of the lying to start the war. Now, unless someone is convicted of something like lying to Congress (unlikely), all the indictments will be for crimes committed after the event, but so were the indictments in Watergate, right?
So I think that puts it right up there with Watergate, and while it’s debateable which is worse, a stolen election or starting a war, our current mobsters have done both, so they win!
Adam Felber
October 20, 2005 at 3:37 am
5Redshift and ice weasel -
I understand your feelings on this, though it’s not the focus of my piece here. As much as we might not like it, the Plame investigation just isn’t the sweeping indictment of the Bush administration’s methods and deceptions as we might want it to be. So I’m analyzing what we have, scandal-wise, without conflating it with the very real but well-shielded atrocities that got us into this bizarre war.
So that’s where I’m coming from. Frankly, Plamegate isn’t the scandal I want - it’s too far after-the-fact, and it’s about a crime committed in the name of PR rather than a crime committed during the ridiculous and falsehood-laden run-up to the war. It’s a crime of spin control.
But it’s what we have. *sigh* Redshift, I can’t quite agree with you - moving to discredit someone who’s damaging your war effort is not the same as committing the crime before the war. Even if said crime covers up some things that oughta be prosecuted. That’s simply not where this investigation is going.
So… my honest feeling, stripping away the satire is this: Going to war the way we did was dumb, deceptive, and ultimately unforgivable. But we do ourselves no good assuming that this is what the Plame case is about. It’s not. It’s only related to it.
In other words - the Watergate investigation’s source material, its incipient event, was the big crime that had had been committed. The Plame investigation’s source material, its incipient event, is a crime committed after the real villainy had already been perpetrated. The falsehoods in the run-up to the war were criminal, especially given the cost, but they were, I think, not technically a crime. Thus my distinction between this investigation and Watergate - this one can’t by its nature get at the real atrocity.
The sad machinery of governmental oversight of itself can be frustrating, and its focus narrow and incomplete. And it’s what I’m making fun of here, among other things.
Mary
October 20, 2005 at 9:36 am
6Adam,
I do see one other parallel between Watergate and Plamegate. During the rash of break-ins on Democrats, Nixon’s cronies were after the psychiatric files of Ellsberg (sp?). Clearly an abuse of a person’s civil rights, with the intent of “outing” Ellsberg as a “nut case”. In Plamegate, the Bush cronies have “outed” Valerie as a “CIA spook”. Maybe not as big a deal in the USA but overseas- proof that “all Americans are CIA agents”. Certainly a more deadly smear.
Unfortunately, Bush won’t fire himself unless he is prosecuted and found guilty. A pretty high bar for a president. (sigh)
Redshift
October 20, 2005 at 11:24 am
7I didn’t mean to take all the fun out of it, and actually I pretty much agree with you; I just think it’s a little closer to Watergate. And as a lifelong native of the DC area, I am all too familiar with the sad machinery of government oversight, which has become even more sad in recent years as it’s been deliberately gutted by Republicans. But I can dream, and one of my dreams is that if the Democrats can take one house of Congress next year, the floodgates will really open on investigations of all kinds of atrocities. Until then, I’ll content myself with ever more frequent evil chuckles at the Republicans’ legal troubles.
Old Mother Felber
October 20, 2005 at 11:53 am
8>>As we follow the trail of slime in the Plame investigation (which has both the mechanics and all the honor of a Grand Slug Hunt, necessary though it might be),
Old Mother Felber
October 20, 2005 at 11:58 am
9Whassup with that? The reply mechanism cut me off!
I was going to say, she said carefully:
Do not denigrate the Great Slug Hunt, my boy. It has both mechanics and honor. And it is necessary if the garden is to endure. You must arm yourself with beer, go out into the night, and pour a dish for the slugs, take a slug for yourself, and wait.
Now, granted it’s not exactly an active sport, and catching a great slug is almost worse than not catching one. But someone has to do it.
ice weasel
October 20, 2005 at 12:06 pm
10Geez I hate to take the fun out of it but I do also enjoy a decent serious conversation.
Adam, I guess it all comes down to how we parse the various transgressions of this administration. If all WHIG actions are discrete events or if they are all part of one larger crime. I tend to think that the crimes against the Wilson and his wife and part of a series fo criminal and unethical acts all supporting one thing, the administration’s desire to invade and occupy Iraq.
So I guess we just see it differently.
Thompson
October 20, 2005 at 1:05 pm
11(Cole Porter, were he still alive, would kill me for this…)
Wunderbar! Wunderbar!
What a perfect night for slugs!
Here I am, there they are!
With my saltshaker, Wunderbar!
Jim
October 20, 2005 at 1:13 pm
12“What kind of Gate is it anyway?”
Why a squeaky gate of course. You know, the kind that no amount of W-D 40 will cure. The kind that sits off-center and gouges a hole in your garden entry, thereby uglifying the neighborhood’s view of your property.
The kind that no amount of kicking, (usually resulting in some form of personal injury), hammering, or propping up will fix.
The kind that ultimately needs to be completely replaced….supporting posts and all.
dee
October 20, 2005 at 1:13 pm
13Momma is wise.
David
October 20, 2005 at 2:03 pm
14http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/102005I.shtml
If I did it right, this is the link to William Rivers Pitts’ “Diary of a Plamegate Junkie.” This is kind of cheating, but I just couldn’t write anything this good.
On the question of -Gates, we do not know how wide or how successful a net Fitzgerald has cast. We do know the three-judge panel included a judge who, while he favored protection of the press’s right to refuse to reveal the names of sources, was so struck by the seriousness of the sealed documents presented to the panel by Fitzgerald that he agreed with putting Judy Miller in jail for refusing to reveal her source.
The seminal transgression in this instance was far more serious than the Watergate break-in. And the conspiracy to manipulate the US into starting a war is also far more serious than the Watergate coverup.
Vinft
October 20, 2005 at 3:44 pm
15If only it resembled not Watergate, but Waterloo…
Adam Felber
October 20, 2005 at 5:15 pm
16I’ve got no objection to seriousness around here, as long as it’s here, below the fold.
To clarify - if the Plamegate thing turns out to take on pre-invasion issues, things like the yellowcake deception, that’d be swell. I just don’t think it will. At the moment, it seems to be about the illegal and dangerous post-invasion smear campaign against someone who was talking about pre-invasion issues.
Does that clarify at all? Probably not. I’ll try again, with some analogies. There are a lot of similarities between the two scandals (see my scholarly conclusion above!), but:
Watergate was like a guy beating up someone in a bar, driving away, and eventually getting nabbed while trying to throw the evidence in a lake.
Plamegate is more like a guy getting acquitted of murder on the grounds of “justifiable homicide,” walking free, and THEN getting busted for vandalizing the home of the family of the deceased. Does it call the original verdict into question? You betcha. Will he be tried again for the murder? Probably not. The best he can be convicted of is vandalism.
Bad analogies, yes, but hopefully helpful.
So, ice weasel, I really don’t think we see this all that differently. Like you, I think there IS a larger crime here. But I think we’re discussing the difference between what is ethically criminal and what is legally a crime. There might turn out to be more evidence about the run-up to war one fine day, but I don’t think that it plays into Fitzgerald’s investigation at the moment.
That’s sort of why I called it a slug hunt (with apologies to my gardenin’ momma): We WANT it to be a tiger hunt. I don’t think there’s anyone here who reads about this case and thinks “Finally, we’re gonna get those bastards who exposed Joe Wilson’s wife as a CIA operative! That was the worst thing this administration has ever done!!”
But that’s what we’ve got, and if I’m not mistaken, this is partly because Fitzgerald isn’t an “independent counsel” (that ship has sailed, me hearties), and he does not have the liberty of pursuing this matter in absolutely any direction it leads, no matter how tangential.
Pete IVDL
October 20, 2005 at 5:21 pm
17Now, if they could only find the Long And Winding Rove…er, Road, back to W. It’s silly, isn’t it - we know enough about human nature and the Way the World Works to know, way beyond reasonable doubt, that the whole nasty mess was caused by petulance and poor anger management by people who should have known better.
But of course that doesn’t matter a fetid pair of dingo’s kidneys. It’s turned into the PlameBlameGate, and it’s now been rendered into W-avoiding finger pointing. And Rove is the scapegoat. Nice of him to take a fall for POTUS.
Mother Felber - you did mean taking a slug of beer, not a slug of slug, right? (Shudder). (Mind you, this from someone who loves rollmops and smoked eel and blood pudding. Who knows, maybe beery slugs are like garden oysters?)
Pete IVDL
October 20, 2005 at 5:34 pm
18Only marginally on topic - Have you guys heard about Malcolm Kendal-Smith? He’s a Flight Lieutenant in the British Army who’s been indicted for refusing to return to a third tour of duty in Iraq (he’s a doctor, not a shooter) on the basis that the war is illegal, because the American and British governments didn’t wait for the UN to sanction armed invasion - so the orders to return to Iraq are therefore illegal. Brave man. Pointless, but brave (just the way I like ‘em).
David
October 20, 2005 at 6:00 pm
19Kind of like a hurricane - we can see the general outlines of what will occur, but it’s still a crapshoot, and in the age of global warming…
Looking forward to the Wilsons’ civil suit against these bastards. But Adam has a major point regarding the constraints on what Fitz can do, coupled with the fact that he answers to Alberto Gonzales.
Bush might be singing to himself, “We’ll go again a-Rovin when the aspens do their thing.”
warren chism
October 20, 2005 at 7:12 pm
20Adam,
Love your work. Can’t wait to hear you again on Wait Wait.
I wrote the following, not know how it might be used, except thinking that it would be perfect text for Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show. Only I can’t get ahold of him, so I’m sending it to you. Pasted in below. maybe you can make some use of it.
To get the best idea of what this is about, try reading it to someone without emphasizing the capitalized words. Sounds like a normal news report that way. Then read it again, raising your voice for the capitalized words. Has a different meaning that way.
Title: WILMA!
Jon Stewart-type person: Republicans are now saying that Democrats are accusing them–are you following this?—accusing V.P. Dick Cheney of ordering up Hurricane Wilma, to provide a distraction from the administration’s troubles—troubles coming up in Washington, and troubles in Texas and Iraq and Iran and Pakistan and South Korea. Are you kidding? The V.P. can’t do a thing like order up a hurricane! He doesn’t have that kind of authority! Just kidding. Of course, even this administration can’t tell Mother Nature what to do and when to do it. What are they going to do, say, “Hey Wilma, go hover around Guantanamo and stay there till you die?” And how would you communicate with a Hurricane. “WILMA!” Sorry– I guess you weren’t around for the Flintstones.
Anyway, the fact that you can’t order around a hurricane leads to a different dilemma, because it’ll hit somewhere. Should the administration hope that Wilma only devastates Mexico so they can pay no attention its victims? On the other hand, if it misses the U.S. entirely, then the American Press won’t even cover the hurricane. Who cares if it just devastates Mexico! But, with a Grand Jury’s findings arriving about the same time as Wilma, you know which story they’d prefer we report on. If we journalists are not showing you uprooted palm trees, and not covering local devastation and local incompetence, then what will we be talking about? Ah, you see the problem. Well, maybe Wilma can keep our attention and just, say, barely brush Florida– causing mass distraction but not mass destruction.
But are we being fair? Maybe we should willingly cover this hurricane. After all, the administration has been FLOODED with problems lately. So, in the interest of fair and balanced reporting, we’re going to give them a little break, and do like they want us to, and report on a brewing storm that really is clearly not their fault– Hurricane Wilma. And we’ll try not to treat Wilma like it is just a distraction from other things. If you know what I mean. I’ll focus entirely on the hurricane, in the fair and balanced way that I should.
For several days, Wilma has been ROVE-ing around the gulf, BEARING DOWN on us, and PROBING here and there. So WHAT’S SHE UP TO now? Does she have TRICKS UP THE SLEEVE? Any UNEXPECTED MANEUVERS COMING UP? Well, it’s moving about 15 miles per hour northward. That might not seem fast, but it’s fast for hurricane response–I mean movement. That’s about the speed of one of those new gas-powered SCOOTERs. In fact, that’s not ROVE-ing that’s really SCOOTER-ing. I mean scooting.
So what does this mean for Florida? Are they FEELING THE HEAT? What does Jeb BUSH have to say? NO COMMENT yet. I happened to see some of the PUBLIC HANGING, I mean I met some of the Public, HANGING CHAD, I mean Hanging out in CHAD County—uh, Dade County. And their plans? Mr. and Mrs. RIGHT will WING IT, and they said they’re HOLED UP in their nice fortified WHITE HOUSE, and they have RESIGNED themselves to evacuating in a couple days. They’ll travel light. JUST A PUPPET to entertain their kids. They plan to take their pets with them. They have a LITTLE PIT BULL they ad-MIER, and a mongrel named SCOOTER, cat LIBBY, and a Doberman / LAPDOG named ROVER.
When I asked where they’d TAKE REFUGE…I mean evacuate to… JUST LIKE LAST TIME THEY HAD NO PLANS but FLU PANDEMIC, I mean they flew north to TAKE COVER, CALLING ON ANY FRIENDS THEY COULD STILL FIND. But this time they’ll probably just DRIVE OUT from their WHITE HOUSE and FIND ANY PROTECTION THEY CAN. When I asked them “ARE YOU WORRIED?” and CAN YOU THINK ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE in the news, they said they NEVER READ THE PAPERS. So it’s hard to say whether WILMA IS A DISTRACTION for them or not.
In any case, maybe it won’t be A SERIOUS BLOW. I’m sure they’re HOPING IT WILL JUST BLOW OVER.
Steve
October 20, 2005 at 7:17 pm
21Assuming anything comes of the scandalette, it will be like getting Al Capone for tax evasion. Yeah, it may get some of these clowns off the street but utimately unsatisfying.
cooper
October 20, 2005 at 7:41 pm
22“Now, granted it’s not exactly an active sport, and catching a great slug is almost worse than not catching one. But someone has to do it.”
Well said, Edith, and true.
Landis
October 20, 2005 at 7:43 pm
23Sounds a lot like the OJ trial.
Murray
October 20, 2005 at 7:56 pm
24Pete, (via Momma) A slug of slugs drenched in garlic and butter served with a good Chardonnay and given a French name is truly “food of the gods”.
Adam, you are right. Fitzgerald is hamstrung. (Goddammit)
But!
As Krugman pointed out on Monday, there is a tide shift as to how the media is treating Bush. They are now portraying him as cold, petty, petulant, and unwilling to hear any opinion other than his own. None of this was news to the reporters. They were just afraid to report it to the public; the Bush administration was very good at punishing dissent. Now that the president’s polls are in the toilet, they have an incentive to pile on and finally reveal what they have known for 5 or 6 years.
Watergate was nothing but a “3rd rate Burglary” until it started to get close to the President. Then every reporter saw “Pulitzer Prize Winner” behind his own name and the race was on.
The same may happen here. As Republicans (those with brains and perhaps, [really perhaps] morality), start to jump ship like rats, it will be easier for the previously neutered press to start beating their chests and “follow the naked power grab”.
It’s possible.
ice weasel
October 20, 2005 at 10:11 pm
25Adam, I think you’re right in that we’re closer in our POVs than I implied in my first post. I’m with you on the idea that this won’t go as far it should. And as long we can agree that it should, then yes, you’re right, it most likely won’t. Hell, I’ll still be amazing if *anything* comes from this.
But I’m pretty cynical like that.
Thanks for taking the time to reply again.
Ok, someone needs to post something really funny.
cooper
October 20, 2005 at 10:39 pm
26Adam, I’m reminded a bit of “Hell’s Gate”. This is a canyon in Montana outside of Missoula on the Missouri River. In the early 1800’s, it got its name from the tendency of the warriors of the Blackfoot nation to secure the high ground near the canyon rim and wait for the hunting parties of the Salish, Nez Perce and Kutenai tribes to file through, traveling east to the buffalo hunting grounds. As the hunting parties were strung out by the narrow passage, the Blackfoot would shower down spears, arrows, boulders, and really sharp, heavy tchotchkes upon the luckless and, apparently, clueless hunters. Next would come the robbing, raping and pillaging, kind of like now, with the Republicans in charge.
Landis, you globetrotter, you’re back!! Any photos?
tess
October 21, 2005 at 2:56 am
27I really wish that I had a summary of the Watergate scandal back when I was in high school preparing for AP exams. I just wish that this was all over sooner so that we can all get a recap of what the hell is going on. Because I’m still confused about pre-war, post-war, and if we can at least see the reporters act like hyennas and tear the presidency apart at the sight of it’s injured carcass.
David
October 21, 2005 at 9:47 am
28I’m with Murray, and I love the image of the jackals suggested by tess.
Cry havoc, and loose the dogs of red meat journalism. The political damage is all that matters. A virtual media-frenzy version of what was done in the flesh to Mussolini is quite justified, and a wondrous thing to contemplate.
Harold
October 21, 2005 at 10:55 am
29Does anyone else find it ironic that the Independent Counsel statute expired on September 11, 2001?
I don’t think anyone should take heart in seeing staunch Republicans jumping ship and turning on their leader. They’re not doing this because they’ve suddenly realized that Bush is a clueless dumbass who has profoundly damaged this nation and has squandered our blood, gold, and credibility on a discretionary, open-ended war based on a false premise. No, they’re turning on him bcause he failed to appoint to the Supreme Court an activist judge who would legislate from the bench in a manner that furthered their agenda. Let’s hope all the other Supreme Court justices manage to hang in there for the next three years.
Stephen
October 21, 2005 at 11:46 am
30Don’t kid yourself. They are turning on him as a way to set themselves up for his job in a few years. Who needs Jackal Journalism when we have politics? Anyone else worried about an attempt at term limit repeal?
Landis
October 21, 2005 at 12:36 pm
31Hey Cooper - yup, I’m back, and with a couple photos. Here’s the thing - I stopped at Hell’s Gate in Rotorua. It seems everywhere has a Hell’s Gate.
Snapshots for those interested: http://homepage.mac.com/landis/PhotoAlbum10.html
So - what did I miss while I was gone?
I see Tom Delay is having some glamour.. er.. mug shots taken.
The Miers nomination is a little divisive for the hard right (I think it’s probably all a show). Anything ever happen with Roberts? Was he already confirmed? He sure dropped out of the news quick.
We’re all the way up to ‘W’ in the Atlantic Hurricane Season (an omen?). Since they don’t use X, Y, or Z what comes next?
The Plame investigation is back near the top (where it needs to be), but nothing really new about that. I expect that will change in the next week? With our luck it will be that “no crime was committed, carry on”.
Are we still at war in Iraq? Oh wait, it’s not a war it’s a conflict. Unless you say anything bad about it and then it’s “how can you criticise (spent too long in NZed - at least Pete can read it) when our troops are at war?!?”
Oh, and Google’s giving out free WiFi in San Francisco? Cool, can’t wait.
Thompson
October 21, 2005 at 4:02 pm
32Yup. Roberts was confirmed and has sat a few cases already.
And when they run out of letters to name hurricanes with, they start using Greek signs. To the best of my knowledge, this is only theoretical, as they have never run out of letters -before-.
Hurricane Omega… Has a nice ring to it…
Pete IVDL
October 21, 2005 at 5:20 pm
33<Completely Off Topic> Hey Landis (and, by implication, Kat) welcome back! No, wait, that’s not right, er, welcome away! (from my perspective). Looks like you made it back from war-torn NZ - hope the fighting in the streets during the elections didn’t frighten you too much. Those Nu Zillanders can be prutty vucious. (Fush ‘n’ Chups, cheps?) Oh ha ha. I’m killin’ meself. (For those bemused readers, New Zealand to Australia is like Canada to the Americans - quaint, they talk funny, and 90% of the shit-hangers (myself included) have an unspoken desire to go live there.
Gotta tell ya, I’m sportin’ wood with the “criticise” spelling, although cooper’s Staatsicherheit fellers will probably be banging on your door any time now. Oh - and as a dedicated computer enthusiast, I have to say that I continue to be impressed by the useability of Macs. Please don’t tell anyone…
<OK, back on topic now>
David
October 21, 2005 at 7:26 pm
34http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051021/fitzgeralds_historic_opportu nity.php
I found this article by James Moore (Bush’s Brain) to be intriguing. I think it supports Murray’s thinking, and I think James Moore is correct.
We might be in for a hell of a ride. I certainly hope so. Lobster knows we need the Phoenix of democracy to resurge (I don’t give a shit whether or not resurge is a recognized verb) from the ashes of this Banana Republican administration and its lily-livered “moderate” Republican enablers. My Democrats would do well to search their souls, too, except for our wonderful, gutsy progressive women, black men, and Russ Feingold.
And spare me any accolades for John McCain. He was Bush’s chief enabler in the last election.
hedera
October 22, 2005 at 12:31 am
35Remarkable article, David. I’ve suspected all that about Rove for years and told myself, nah, you’re making it up. You’re paranoid. Malice is less likely than incompetence. But malice isn’t impossible, and even paranoids have real enemies; and from what James Moore says, that’s what we have here. More power to Patrick Fitzgerald’s elbow.
Honest to Lobster, the James Moore article sounds like the plot of a bad spy thriller. I wish.
David
October 22, 2005 at 10:03 am
36hedera,
I’ve kept going through the “Nah,” followed by “Oh, shit, it’s true.” As the old saying goes, “You can’t make this up.”
My personal emotional savior is anything written by Molly Ivins.
cooper
October 22, 2005 at 11:13 am
37Harold, “Does anyone else find it ironic that the Independent Counsel statute expired on September 11, 2001?”
Irony is great butt biting bane of human existence.
cooper
October 22, 2005 at 11:25 am
38Landis, thanks for making the photos available. I’ve always lusted for a lengthy stretch of idle time in NZ. Did you see both islands? The photos show the climate to be cloudy, windy, cold and wet. I’m wondering if you two visited Seattle before the honeymoon, to get acclimated.
Blessings and positive karma upon both you.
hedera
October 22, 2005 at 11:17 pm
39I’ve adored Molly ever since I read Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She? Of one Texas politician she commented that if his IQ was any lower, we’d have to water him twice a week; and you know, that keeps coming back to my mind… What a woman she is.
Landis, I’m jealous because your NZ pictures came out and mine didn’t. Loved the place.
Landis
October 24, 2005 at 6:50 pm
40Cooper, we definitely should have headed to Seattle for some acclimatization before heading to NZed in the early spring. But I’ve had a number of friends who have been married and postponed their honeymoons only to never really get one. They told us to GO, and GO NOW! I’m glad we did. Rain and clouds couldn’t put a damper on it. This was just our intro and this means that the next time we go the weather will only be better.
cooper
October 24, 2005 at 9:09 pm
41Landis, my wife was driving home from work four days before our wedding and got T-boned by a drunk driver (no insurance, naturally) and broke several metatarsals in her left foot. They fitted her with a walking cast, so she could limp down the aisle. We put off the honeymoon for 1 year, but did eventually get to go on the cruise. You guys did the right thing to go ahead with your honeymoon.
free region dvd
January 27, 2006 at 3:58 pm
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