Ménage à Bourdonnement

Via B4B we were alerted just moments ago to an interview that BuzzFlash conducted with Senate Minority Leader and Barney Fife doppelganger "Dirty Harry" Reid. Let's crash that party...er, join the interview already in progress....

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BF: The Democrats in the Senate seem to be acting with more party discipline and more coordinated messaging since this Congressional session began....

HS: Yeah, they're all crazy.

....We particularly saw that on the Social Security debate. The Republicans were basically beaten back in their efforts to roll back Social Security for our seniors....

HS: That's a lie. The President specifically said that for anybody over the age of fifty - which includes "our seniors" - Social Security would be untouched and unchanged.

....what does it forebode for the future, in terms of the Democrats putting up a big fight against Republican efforts to take away basic social service programs and civil liberties from Americans?

HS: More lies. Unless you'd like to back up that charge with the specifics we know you don't have.

C'mon, BF, raise the ethical level of your questioning. At this rate poor old Pencil-Neck here isn't going to get to say anything, and you can just see the mendacities and insults making his back teeth swim.

REID: We really have been working together to stop a lot of the mischievous stuff and bad stuff the Republicans have been trying to jam through....

HS: Like what, Senator? Pretend for a moment that you're not kibbutzing with a fellow loony lefty and that we're more than just a fly on the wall of your imagination. Heck, pretend you're the minority leader of the United States Senate and can do better than "mischievous and bad stuff," or I'll start suspecting you haven't a clue what's going on and are borrowing lines from the legendary Artemus Gordon.

....With the Republicans controlling the Senate, the House and the Presidency, it makes it very difficult for us to push forward our own message.

HS: Well, Harry, that's what happens when you have a message that not too many American like and are not very good at disguising it.

....But at least we have the ability to let the Republicans know, and the people of this country know, what our messages are about health care, about education, about the deficit, about the war in Iraq.

HS: Oh, you mean "more government," "more government," "higher taxes," and "RETREEEEEEAAAAAT!" I think the Republicans and the people of this country - who elected them to control of the Senate, the House, and the presidency - already know what your party's messages are on these topics, Senator. Oh, yes indeedy.

BF: The Democrats in Congress have often been criticized for not having a clear agenda....

HS: They have a clear agenda, Buzz. It's what the legislative equivalent of what legendary North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith used to call the "four corners."

....Is this a problem of legislation being kept from coming to a vote? Or have the Republicans kept the Democrats so on the defensive that the news media just primarily covers the Democrats in a reactive mode?

HS: Buzz, the Democrats are in the minority; that means they will always be in a "reactive mode." If they want to move their own agenda forward, they have to resume winning elections. Which, of course, they haven't been doing because too many voters know what their agenda is.

Boy, you guys are in a frightful predicament, arncha?

REID: It's not the news media's fault. It's the way our government is set up.

HS: Democracy's a bitch, huh?

BF: On another note, what is your reaction to the now-public evidence that Karl Rove was a participant in one way or another in the outing of a CIA operative specializing in tracking weapons of mass destruction?....

HS: "In one way or another"? ROFL! That's the best you can do, isn't it - "in one way or another." Kind of like my staking a claim to having invented the Internet because I'm a "large mammal in the TTLB Ecosystem."

Even "in one way or another" doesn't cover up the fact that Mrs. Wilson was not an "operative" by the very terms of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, BTW. You'd probably save yourself gratuitous embarrassment by going back to generalities.

REID: What it shows me is that the President is not a person of his word. He said almost two years ago that if anyone in his Administration was caught being involved in this, they would be fired....

HS: No, Senator, the President said that any member of his Administration who was found to have broken the law would be "taken care of." And there isn't the slightest shred of evidence that Karl Rove ever got within a country parsec of illegality, which is why the special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, has said Rove is not a target of his investigation, and why Mr. Bush has kept his word by reiterating his support for his top advisor.

To the degree that some people think your party has no ideas, it's probably because they think that the #1 item on your party's agenda is the drawing and quartering of Karl Rove, with the garroting of John Bolton and crucifixion of John Roberts #1a and #1b. And they're all surrogates in lieu of your party having the votes in the House to pass articles of impeachment out of sheer malicious, partisan spite. If that comes across to many voters like trying to entice restaurant patrons to consume generous helpings of horse manure by marinating them in Ronson lighter fluid, you can hardly - well, not reasonably, anyway - blame them.

....The President, after finding that Rove's involved, changes his standard from "being involved" in it to having committed a crime.

HS: That's a lie. The President's standard was always "having committed a crime." You're the one that tried to move the goal posts, as it were.

BF: Senator, you were at the center of leading the opposition to what you have just told us – and we certainly agree – is a de facto one-party government on the federal level....

HS: Gee, if that's the case, what fools those Republicans must be for allowing the Democrats to even show up and take their seats. Why haven't the latter been summarily jailed? Surely you don't think the majority to be above that. Damned sure from the demented rhetoric in this very interview.

Gotta be the most bumblingly incompetent "dictatorship" in the history of mankind, if you ask me.

REID: The danger in a one-party system is that there's no ability to have an alternative message....

HS: {massive spit take} Crud, all over my monitor - anybody got a towel?

"No ability to have an alternative message"? Your "message" - basically a dozen different slices of "BUSH SUCKS!" - is just about all anybody has heard for the past four and a half years, Harry. The de facto fourth branch of government you're conveniently leaving out - the Extreme Media - disseminates that propaganda far and wide. Hell, if it wasn't for talk radio, alternative media outlets like Fox News, the New York Post, and the Washington Times, and the center-right blogosphere, your "message" is the only one the public would be getting.

In any case, ours is not a "one-party system"; it is a two-party system in which your party has been getting its ass kicked with metronomic regularity. And this interview of yours is a very good example of why.

....When we had a Senate that was "controlled" by the Republicans but had a Democratic President, we were still a force.....

HS: But then your party lost the 2000 election. And the Senate control you swindled in 2001 was taken back in 2002. And you got skunked last November. One would think even so obtuse a crowd as yours would start to recognize a pattern by this time and take steps to correct your problems, instead of trying to bluff and bluster your way out of the consequences of such a losing streak.

....One-party government is bad for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is....

HS: That your party doesn't possess it. Some of us remember the last time it did. And as I recall, most, if not all, of its members got so carried away on triumphalism and unchained hubris that they came to believe that politics had ended and they had been installed to "one-party government" control permanently.

I suppose we Pachyderms should be grateful in a sense, as it was that despicable display - and honest vetting of your party's, shall we say, "French agenda" - that was indispensible in turning the tables and leaving people like you in the bog of venomous and bottomless self-pity that you inhabit to this day.

....there's no new ideas. It's either George Bush's way or the highway. If people don't agree with him, they'll lose their chairmanships, their subcommittee chairmanships and other goodies that the President can control.

HS: No new liberal ideas, perhaps. But that's obviously untrue given his prescription drug boondoggle, his signing of campaign finance reform, his at times questionable commitment to free trade, and the abominable energy and highway bills that are headed to his desk, and which he is almost certainly going to meekly sign. And then there's his working to get Arlen Specter re-elected to the Senate last year, only to be rewarded by Specter's game-playing as Judiciary Committee Chairman.

By contrast, Specter's far more reliable House counterpart, James Sensenbrenner, has given the White House headaches on immigration policy, and somehow he's still got his gavel. Hell, what about Bill Frist's el foldo on embroyonic stem cell destruction? By your charge, shouldn't he be figuratively dangling from a lamp post?

In reality, the President doesn't interfere at all in the inner workings of either House of Congress. Unlike you, Senator, he actually believes in and takes seriously the separation of powers. But we know how close a relationship you have with reality, don't we?

REID: Democrats are the party of opportunity....

HS: {even more massive spit take} Geez, I think I wet my pants, too....

....Democrats are the party that has, over the years, cared about middle-class America.

HS: You mean tried to convert it into mass dependency, and thereby your party's constituency. Not unlike a hostage taking with an electoral ransom to be paid in perpetuity. Just look at the entitlements you go on to cite, and the massive tax levels you conveniently omit.

....The Republicans believe in the trickle-down theory – dump a lot of money in the top, and it'll trickle down. It's been established many, many times, that the trickle-down theory simply doesn't work for our country.

HS: That's a lie. Republicans - not all of us, but a majority - believe in reducing marginal tax rates for everybody in order to encourage saving, investment, and all manner of economic activity. That has to include "the top" or it would have no macroeconomic impact. And it's been established many, many times that it most certainly does "work for our country" and any other country with the wisdom and testicular fortitude to impliment it. It created the economic boom off of which Bill Clinton leeched his popularity and it's generated the dramatic rebound from the Clinton collapse and 9/11 shock that has generated the steady 4% annual GDP growth and 3.7 million new jobs that have been created over the past two years.

Your party has "established many, many times" that a nation can neither tax nor spend itself into prosperity. Apparently at least one too many times, given its drubbings in the last three election cycles.

BF: ....Why does the Bush Administration have such difficulty in leveling with the American people?

HS: Um, Buzz, you're projecting again. That's a question better asked of your interviewee and his ilk. Perhaps if they ever had to look in the mirror about their own utter dearth of integrity, it might set them on the road to a political comeback.

REID: Arrogance, abuse of power.

HS: Hey, the Senator is taking our advice without your help!

....This Administration is drunk with power.

HS: Hmm; guess not.

....They control the House and Senate and seven of nine members of the Supreme Court....

HS: When did Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas get cloned? And why were the clones made to look like Souter, Stevens, and Kennedy? And why don't they vote as their "fathers" do?

What color is the sky in your world, Senator?

....and therefore, they feel they need not compromise.

HS: IOW, surrender. I'm sure they would be more apt to offer compromises if they thought you wouldn't just pocket their concessions and up the ante of your unreasonable demands. All of which goes to show that your party has even more to learn about functioning as the minority than the Republicans do about functioning as the majority.

And that's really saying something.

....They need not communicate with the minority.

HS: Kinda hard to communicate with a bunch that dishonestly snarls and hisses all the time.

BF: You have a wonderful Minority Whip in Dick Durbin – about as smart and honest a politician as we've ever met....

HS: {The ultimate spit take} Good Gawd, I think I oolped part of a lung on that one....

Buzz, take my advice: pull down your pants, and stop talking about honesty and other subjects about which you know less than nothing.

On second thought, pull your pants back up. Please.

BF: The Republicans seem to be targeting him. He kind of flew under the radar speaking the truth for awhile, but lately they've given him a couple of hits. Do you think they consider his honesty a little bit too dangerous?

HS: He slandered American soldiers at Guantanamo Bay as SS troopers, Commie gulagists, and Pol Pot wannabes, Buzz. If the Republicans had really been "targeting" him, he'd have been censured weeks ago. And if Democrats had any integrity or even a bare-bones sense of shame, they'd have ousted him from his leadership post like the GOP did Trent Lott a few years back, and joined with Republicans in throwing his worthless ass out of the Senate altogether.

It's Durbin's dishonesty and sedition that are dangerous to the very American servicepeople that he slimed. And I'd wager that if the latter were given the chance, they'd administer a few "hits" of their own - and they wouldn't be figurative.

BF: Without asking you to discuss any classified information....

HS: Why not ask? It wouldn't be the first time Reid publicly blurted classified info - just ask Judge Henry Saad. Your interviewee should have lost his own leadership post for that little caper.

....is there in general something in John Bolton's past which has stalled his nomination?

HS: Yeah - he agrees with the President's foreign policy and is effective as a diplomat in defending and advancing it. And now he's been installed right over the top of your guest's unconscionable obstructionism, per the power granted Mr. Bush in Article VI, Section 3 of the Constitution itself.

Methinks a few more such come-uppances and the minority party's heads will start to explode, one by maniacal one.

REID: John Bolton is a person who, in his personal relationship with government employees, has been abominable, mean, unreasonable and bizarre.

HS: Sounds like a Democrat to me. You must be projecting again.

....His not producing the papers we have requested only underscores the importance of why we need those papers. There must be something he's trying to hide.

HS: Or you, as the minority party of the Legislative branch, simply are not entitled to those papers. Separation of powers and all that. Which your colleague Senator Kennedy has doubtlessly pointed out at some time or other in the past when a Democrat sat in the White House. You know, back when your party "was still a force."

BF: The Senate Democrats are also asking for papers concerning John Roberts, the nominee to the Supreme Court....

HS: To which they are not entitled, any more than the "papers" they want about Bolton, and for the same reasons.

....As with Bolton, the White House once again is only selectively giving out papers.

HS: 75,000 pages is "selective"?!?

....The Democrats are saying no – there are specific papers that we need to see.

HS: The Democrats are upping the ante of their unreasonable demands. Again. Which just underscores why the White House shouldn't have released a blessed thing.

BF: As what has become known as PlameGate or TreasonGate symbolizes, the Bush Administration believes in ruling by fear and intimidation....

HS: Can you tell us what color the sky is in Senator Reid's world, Buzz? He won't tell us, and it's obvious that you're an inhabitant of the same alternate reality.

....That's the essence of the outing of Valerie Plame Wilson.

HS: Why don't you ask the New York Times' Judith Miller who did the "outing," Buzz? If you want to get closer to the actual truth of the matter, that is. Just be prepared for the truth to not mesh with your partisan desires. After all, why would Ms. Miller clam up and go to jail for contempt if one of her sources was Karl Rove? Or Lewis Libby? And the "outing" went in the direction it clearly did not, but which you're so desperate to pretend it did?

....As Minority Leader, you don't seem phased by their bullying tactics. How come?

HS: Perhaps because every Republican is a 98-pound weakling, which is why your "powerless" guest's bullying tactics have enjoyed such a scandalous level of success.

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Wow. Remember how Boss Nass, the Gungan leader from Star Wars Episode I, would whip his head back and forth, causing his ample lips and jowels to make that "b-b-b-b-b-b-b" sound that sent his equally ample spittle flying in all directions? That's what I feel like doing right about now. 'Tis been a while since I completely immersed myself in opposition idiocy. It's good for one's system in small doses - kind of like an innoculation against disease.

But it still leaves me with an inescapable sense of disillusionment. Here we Republicans sit with control of the presidency and both House of Congress, and a roaring twit like Dirty Harry is still wielding de facto power as though his party hadn't gotten spanked three elections running.

Makes me wish that the President and GOP congressional leaders were a bit less "amiable." Or, as Dwight Eisenhower is reputed to have once said of General George Patton, "He may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he's my son-of-a-bitch."

The Democrat Party is run by SOBs. The GOP is run by the "amiable." As long as that alignment holds, election results really won't matter - as "Dirty Harry" knows most of all.