A moment spent basking in the misery of another

Last night Arlen Specter lost the Democratic primary for his own Senate seat to Rep. Joe Sestak. If I may be permitted a moment to chortle, snicker, and guffaw, I would like to take it.

Why do I take such pleasure in the man's defeat? Aside from the fact that he was an awful political hack, he represented one of the things I hate most about our elected betters... especially Senators: namely the notion that once elected to that seat, it becomes their possession, a thing that is owed to them by the voters. The Senator ceases to become an elected representative and ascends to the place of Lord, whose unworthy subjects should avert thine eyes, shut thine mouths, and continually re-elect them... never holding them accountable for anything they do. Joe Lieberman is the living embodiment of this mental disorder, but Specter was a close second.

The basic theme of his 1998 campaign was "I've sat in this seat for so long, you owe it to me to send me to Washington again for one last ride." In 2004 the theme was "Remember when I said that the last time was my last ride? Forget that. Now I have cancer and you owe me this seat as a present for having cancer and serving for so long." This year it was "Yeah, I'm nakedly switching parties with no regard for principle, but this seat is mine. Give it to me."

I guess, finally, the state had enough. The jowls are dead. Long live the jowls. Shame that he at least has the dignity to bow out now. I'd like to see him pull and intensely egotistical "Fuck it, this seat is mine when you pry it from my cold dead hands" Indy run. Cravenly attempt to hold onto this seat through every means necessary: taking hostages, strapping C4 across his chest, weeping "But... it's MY SEAT!" It's a shame, really, that he's choosing dignity now. It's so out of character. But if last night shows anything, it's that maybe Americans are sick of entitled politicians.

Unfortunately, there is no awesomely weepy picture of Specter, so I'll just re-run the photo from one of Sean and mine's favorite electoral blood lettings:


Imagine Arlen as Santorum or the little girl. Either works. Magic bullet my ass, Arlen.

Fare thee well, Justice Stevens

After nearly 35 years on the Supreme Court and 90 years on the earth, Supreme Court Justice and former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Stevens is retiring.

Associate Justice John Paul Stevens, the leader of the liberals on the Supreme Court, announced on Friday that he will retire at the end of this term, setting up a confirmation battle over his replacement that could dominate the political scene this summer.

In a brief letter to President Obama, whom he addressed as “my dear Mr. President,” Justice Stevens said he was announcing his retirement now because he had “concluded that it would be in the best interests of the Court to have my successor appointed and confirmed well in advance of the commencement of the Court’s next term” in October.

Is he going to molest children with David Souter, tour with Them Crooked Vultures, or is he just retiring so he can vie for a prestigious nomination to Judge Judy's seat on the TV Court? Who knows. All we do know is that this will invariably set off some apocalyptic struggle over his replacement. I think we all remember how classy the Sotomayor confirmation was... well that was when the Democrats had some limited measure of control over confirming her. Now?

Maybe I'm overreacting. It's not like GOP leaders talking about filibustering the next Obama Supreme Court nominee a few days before Stevens retired, is it?

The second-ranking Republican in the Senate suggested on Sunday that the party would filibuster the next appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, if that nominee were deemed to be outside of the judicial mainstream.

"It will all depend on what kind of a person it is," Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) declared during an appearance on "Fox News Sunday." "I think the president should nominate a qualified person. I hope, however, he does not nominate an overly ideological person."

And what is an overly ideological person? Anyone the President nominates. Even though anyone he nominates will probably be considerably less liberal than Stevens is/was.

Still, Kyl is at least a damn sight better than the Bachmann types who will be livid that this Obama fellow thinks he has some Constitutional power to appoint people of his choosing to vacant Supreme Court positions. The nerve! He's shoving judicial nominees down people's throats! This all sounds Maoist... or Stalinist! Tyranny!

So, just in case you thought there was a possibility that American politics would get... we won't say smarter... but.... less.... monstrously stupid, well, I hate to break it to you, but those hopes got shanked in a prison shower. In any event, this will be great fodder for Sean and myself. We eagerly await meeting the new liberal Satan who will invariably wish to bring about the destruction of this country and replace democracy with some sort of communist fiefdom where abortion is the only currency. Good times!

Fare thee well, teabaggers

Ah teabaggers, your time in our political discourse was too short. It seems only yesterday you were getting angry about taxes you didn't understand, then morphed into hating a health care bill you didn't understand, filling your protests with racist signs, misspelled placards, Hitler caricatures, and messages about socialism, the Constitution, the founding fathers, and communism that showed you didn't understand any of those concepts either. Who can forget how you were completely co-opted by the Republican, right wing media, and corporate establishment?

Then there was the whole part where you seemed to embrace every weird birth certificate and ACORN conspiracy that could be conceived and then dragged the Republican party into a frothy rage of hate, obstruction, and insanity that might terminally harm the party. We aren't so miffed about that last one.

And how can we forget the entire industry of scrotal and ball dipping jokes that the unfortunate moniker you chose opened up? Truly it was the golden age of testicle jokes.

But now you're dead, having utterly failed at your mission to stop health care and complain about the tax cuts Obama gave you. You're left to go home, rage about government in private, and reap the benefits of cheaper more accessible health care that you didn't want. Maybe we'll see you co-opted again and used to oppose regulatory reform, climate action, or a jobs bill, but it just won't be the same.

So until some of your loopier members stockpile enough guns to stage another Ruby Ridge or go back to Minnesota's 6th District to run for re-election, we'd just like to salute you. The way you made it seem like the only opposition to health care was lacking sanity and the way you made it so no one who wanted reform had to ever enter into a real health care debate, just rebut crazy shit like death panels, was a tremendous boon to reform.

Farewell and adieu, teabaggers. We'll see you on the rainbow bridge. In memoriam the Daily Show has put up a greatest hits of your exploits and their mocking of your exploits.

Farewell and adieu?

Hey remember that system the government used to keep us all paranoid and afraid immediately after 9/11? No, not Fox News. I meant the Homeland Security color coded alert system. You remember the one. It got raised and lowered depending on how Bush was doing in the polls and laughably had to two green and blue rectangles, "guarded" and "low", that we all had a good laugh about because we knew they'd never be used. Well, we might have to wave goodbye to that little bit of fear inducing brilliance, it seems the chart has outlived its usefulness.

The often-spoofed, color-coded Homeland Security Advisory System may get an overhaul – moving from five colors to three in a bid to win the public trust.

The nation has been at Yellow, “an elevated significant risk of terrorist attacks” for three years. International and domestic flights have been at an Orange “high risk of terrorist attacks” for the same period.

Just so we're clear, they've shitcanned the two we knew they'd never use and have redefined the previous three. They are now:

Yellow=Guarded - Did that Muslim just look from side to side in a shifty manner?
Orange = Elevated – Vague, non-specific threat that is going to kill us any second...WHAT'S THAT BEHIND THAT BUSH OVER THERE!?!
Red = High Alert – Barack's gone rogue, Barack's gone rogue!!! Joe Biden is dead and Osama is prowling the White House grounds. Glenn Beck was right!!

Remember them and stay fearful. In all this confusion about being afraid of socialism, you may have forgotten that the Muslims are still out there. That's why we still need this useful and effective system that Americans take completely seriously.

I'm going to miss the rotten bastard

It seems all our favorite enemies are leaving us. George Bush and Dick Cheney are off enjoying freedom, Alberto Gonzalez is begging for spare change on some street corner, and now James Dobson is exiting the scene, no doubt preparing his bunker for the coming socialist apocalypse that the gays probably caused.

The Associated Press has learned that James Dobson has resigned as chairman of the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family.

Jim Daly, president and chief executive officer of the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based ministry, said Friday that Dobson will continue to host the organization's flagship radio program and speak out on moral issues.

The departure of the 72-year-old Dobson as board chairman is part of a succession plan. He founded the group in 1977.

As Steve Benen put it:

Few modern figures on the political scene hate quite as many people, with quite as much intensity, as James Dobson. Gays, minority faiths, the First Amendment, Girl Scouts, SpongeBob Squarepants ... if you don't think, act, or believe as Dobson does, you're an enemy.

A man who could observe any event and immediately channel it into some conspiracy about how gays/papists/Muslims/liberal/lizard people/women had somehow caused the event to cause pain to the baby Jesus or we to blame for the event having angered the Lord with their gayness/Roman popery/jihadery/America hating/cold blooded forked toungeness/hoo-hahs. The man was the Babe Ruth of far right, religious based hate, how will they ever replace him? What will we do without him telling us how to live, think and act lest God hit us with a flaming climate change monitoring satellite?

Dobson, Falwell, Ralph Reed, soon Robertson. The religious right is in need of successors, here's hoping for a long fruitless search.

What happened today

44

"Sorry 'bout all that misery. Remember, my new house has guards, a moat, and an electric fence. Come and get some if you've got the stones liberals."

Is everything fixed yet? No? Goddammit. Well, at least we got our balls to the wall pomp and a face full of circumstance as Mr. Barry Popularity was allegedly enshrined as our 44th President (more on that later) and the Bush Administration finally ground to a halt. Everyone was there, from your favorite celebrities like Don King and Magic Johnson, Dennis Kucinich and Byron Dorgan, to nearly two million citizens with a high tolerance for freezing temperatures and soul legends wearing head bows that can be seen from outer space. Also there were all the living ex-Presidents and Vice-Presidents, as well as our current VP, one white cat short of full Bond villain resplendence. But what else happened?

• Gay hating evangelical phony Rick Warren made the election and invocation of the first black President in our nation's history somehow come across like an increasingly bizarre pitch to sell you a used Datsun that he swears a little old lady only used once a week to drive to his mega-church.
• Reverend Lowery on the other hand, knows a little something about a benediction, showmanship, color related rhyming, and a little thing called sincerity.
• Obama was actually sworn in today on the Lincoln Bible. Which, oddly enough, is a Koran.
  
• The White House Website got a little makeover. In case you don't want to bother to look, it's essentially Obama's campaign website with the color white replacing blue. Same font and everything. There's even a blog and they even have a fake news brief up about Washington changing.
• Chief Justice John Roberts fucked up the Inaugural Oath. Coincidentally he messed it up in such a way that it was actually the oath you have to take to become Postmaster General. Tragically Obama isn't really President now, but he does have some great ideas on shipping charges and stamps. Remember to put this in your "Crazy Right Wing Crank" file when Rush and Hannity try to claim this somehow invalidates Obama's Presidency along with the birth certificate thing, the Muslim thing, the black thing, and the Democrat thing. Historical fun fact: you don't actually need to take the oath, Obama officially became President the second the clock hit noon.
• The stock market continued to fall into the toilet. This was the first day of trading since Citibank and Bank of America announced their massive losses on Friday. Either that was the cause or everyone on the stock market floor heard a loud noise, got spooked, and decided to sell.
• Sen. Kennedy evidently had a seizure at the luncheon and had to be taken to a hospital. Sen. Byrd also had to be taken out of the luncheon due to his state after seeing his friend collapse. Both are fine and according to Chris Dodd, Kennedy was bitching about having to go to the hospital. In all likelihood both were probably just tired of hearing yet another speech from yet another President about how things were going to change, the American people were behind his agenda, and everyone needed to come together. It was all a ruse and they're both drinking in a bar right now, on their tenth round, bullshitting about whatever it is people who have been in the Senate for 1000 years bullshit about.

Karl Rove wants you to write to your emperor

I have to give it to Karl Rove, he's come up with an almost limitless supply of ideas, policies, and actions for which President Bush could and did take massive amounts of abuse for. But Crazy Karl isn't done yet. On Rove's Twitter feed (3,999 followers, not even a third of Warren Ellis) he unleashed his latest brilliant Tweet sized idea:

Send a farewell letter to President Bush—Email gwbfarewell@gmail.com [no attachments] and I'll give him your note on January 20.

So now the Turdblossom wants President Bush to feel the full brunt of the intarwubs as he is forced to read through reams of misspelled words, numbers being used as letters, and the magical rage that comes from granting anonymity and an outlet to vent towards the President you hate. So we advise out readers to do the same. If you have a message for the President take Karl's advice and send it to gwbfarewell@gmail.com by the 20th. This is e-mail so some of you will have to abandon your traditional mediums of newspaper and magazine letters cut out and taped onto a sheet of paper (no demands for cash!) or a grim prophecy scrawled in pigs blood on a wall (the heathens must know you are transforming into a higher being!). Have at it!

Tonight, Storytellers:Bush

Bush's Farewell Address Airing Tonight

President George W. Bush's farewell speech is more than a goodbye to the nation that elected him twice. It is his last chance in office to define his tumultuous presidency in his own, unfiltered terms _ a mission that will keep his fire burning even after he fades off to a quieter life.

Bush will say goodbye to the country Thursday night. He will follow the script of Presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter and many before them: Express thanks to the country and pride in the honor of serving, wish the next president well and outline what he considers to be the biggest challenges ahead.

And there will be looking back.

Oh I like that, "last chance to define his Presidency". Like millions of people are sitting home thinking "You know I'm on the fence on this Bush Presidency, if only I could hear a final argument from the man himself to sway my opinion one way or the other." Maybe Bush does have a final argument that makes Iraq OK or Katrina great or makes us understand why he had to slit the throat of the economy and toss it under a bridge. After all we've heard quite a number of times that the main problem was Bush just wasn't getting his message through to the American people, it was getting blocked out by liberals, people's own observations about the state of things, and a series of terrible messengers with hamhanded messages. Now, with a Thursday night audience hoping he isn't going to delay the new Earl or Grissom's last CSI, he'll have the chance to fix all that.

Here are some of the messages delivered by the last three Presidents to give farewell addresses:

• Clinton said in his farewell, "I'll leave the presidency more idealistic, more full of hope than the day I arrived and more confident than ever that America's best days lie ahead."
• Ronald Reagan invoked images of the shining city on the hill: "We made the city stronger. We made the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all."
• And Jimmy Carter told the nation, "From the bottom of my heart, I want to express to you the gratitude I feel."

Other famous last speeches included Ford singing the nation a song he wrote about liberty, Kennedy's famous "Hey Jackie, is that a guy on that knoll over there" speech, and Eisenhower's final speech about the need to avoid the encroaching influence of the military industrial complex that we promptly ignored. Bush? Who knows. It'll either be filled with excuses, apologies or possibly a crazy, wide eyed rant, ending with a screamed "It was like this when I found it" before George jumps out an Oval Office window and makes a break for the nearest wall. I guess we'll find out tonight.

Bush announces invasion of Thursday night programming

Mind gangster and emotional terrorist George Bush has decided to wrest command of our Thursday night airwaves to deliver a farewell address that will certainly disrupt the showing of not only Grey's Anatomy, but possibly even 30 Rock and Bones. Why is he going to give a farewell address to the nation? He has no clue whatsoever and, if you'd be so kind, he's soliciting ideas for a theme or train of thought to base his final address around. In fact he wasn't even sure he was going to do the old goodbye to the nation a few weeks ago, mostly because he didn't want it getting too real.

SCULLY: Will you deliver a farewell address in this office?

BUSH: Thinking about it. Thinking about it. A lot of Presidents have, and I’m giving it serious thought. I don’t want it to be — you know, kind of a real emotional goodbye.

You won't have any worries about it getting too emotional. Unless you meant emotions such as exultant joy or glorious happiness over the fact that you are leaving, or the extreme feelings of loathing, outrage, and disgust over the fact that you've delayed Grissom's last CSI so you could you could spit out 15 minutes worth of "Uhhh....terrorists is still out there. I didn't catch them all. Stay....vag...vigilant. See you on the flipside." before announcing unilateral pardons for everyone in your administration. As a single tear rolls down his cheek he'll tell us that he's sorry...that we didn't fully comprehend his brilliance.

So George, don't you bother getting all emotional either, we'll be all right. We've suffered through you, we can handle anything. Don't worry. Don't look back. Run, RUN~! to your new house in Dallas. You're Texas' problem again.