The Bush Pub Crawl ... Letters of Marque ... God Weighs In ... Building the Gay Bomb
Salutations, friends. Between multiple presidential debates, our ex-alcoholic "teetotaler" president boozing his way through Europe, the 3,500th casualty in Iraq, and cable news' insistence on total coverage of the Great Paris Hilton Escape and Recapture Massacre Blues, I've spent most of the last week in various states of inebriation, brought on by an excess of good vodka and cheap beer, and often as not screaming at the television in a sort of apoplectic rage, glassy-eyed and howling as the news crawl at the bottom of the screen mentions the footnote bodycount in Iraq while the anchor weighs in on the more important tale of the day, the aforementioned trials and tribulations of La Hilton.
Subsequently writing about this experience seemed a thankless task, and indeed a near impossible one. I recall the words of Elvis Costello, likely apocryphally attributed though, who said, "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture." One could say the same about writing about the state of public interest, pop culture, the media today. But now that I've had a weekend to lie in state (which is generally what I do with my weekends these days, now that I'm no longer a professional music critic — self-induced comas), a few of last weeks proceedings seem at least worth mentioning.
The two debates are not among these. The Democrats spent most of their time talking about healthcare, the Republicans spent most of theirs talking about how badly they would torture the enemies of freedom, if only they could lay hands on them. The debates nicely illustrated that, despite the protestations of Ralph Nader back in 2000, there is indeed a difference between the two parties, no matter how much we would like Democrats to better represent the opposite political view of the Republicans. The vaguely center-left position of most Democrats still beats the deeply weird philosophy of many Republican candidates, which seems to be based largely on the politics of Oceania's Inner Party.
Aside from the debates, last week also saw Bush staggering through Europe while blithely ignoring the possibility of a congressional no-confidence vote in A.G.A.G. (admittedly, meaningless). Here he is in Germany:
And here he is in Bulgaria:
Now, certainly, I'm not one to excoriate a man for getting his drink on. That would be, you know, hypocritical. But I'm just the guy for horse-whipping some jagoff who claims to be a reformed alcoholic but then tears around Europe slinging back suds with Angie Merkel and then toasting the Bulgarian president with what appears to be a glass of fine cognac.
Meanwhile, while La Hilton was the jailbird in the news, Scooter Libby seems a touch more important in the larger scheme of things. The judge in that trial released all the letters he had received regarding Libby's sentencing. I've read through them all. All 150 or so of them (more vodka, more beer, more blind rage). Everyone of them falls into one of two categories: Either colleagues of Libby who ask for leniency, or complete strangers who demand the harshest possible sentence. Obviously, I'm not surprised that none of Libby's colleagues demanded that the judge throw the book at him, but I am a bit surprised that no dyed-in-the-wool Republicans wrote in asking for leniency for a man they'd never met, despite the fact that he had succeeded in covering up for the person (read: Cheney) behind the plot to out an undercover CIA operative during wartime. Apparently, some things are below even them.
Anyway, the letters included some big names: Paul Wolfowitz, generals Richard Myer and Peter Pace (particularly noteworthy given Pace's shitcanning just a few days later, in a move by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates that can only be described as circumventing the democratic process), Henry Kissinger, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, along with a whole army of acquaintances in the fields of law and publishing. A few liberals chimed in to support Libby as well, including Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of The New Republic, and James Carville, who co-signed a letter with his wife, Mary Matalin, that signed off in mightily maudlin fashion with "My family is praying the wisdom and mercy you bring to bear in determining Scooter’s future will include a consideration of his family, the price they have already paid and what further justice would be served by additional devastation to them and the many other children who love Scooter."
Indeed. Won't someone think of the children?
Other than that, last week was especially memorable for the cameo appearance by God during the Republican debate, and the Pentagon's admission that it was no longer actively researching the Gay Bomb, something that will certainly allow the GOP base to sleep easier at night, but will no doubt cause consternation among circuit party promoters and Bravo network executives. You can't please everyone.