The next two years should be fun:
Rep. Darrell Issa means business! If the GOP takes back the House of Representatives the new chairman of the Congressional Oversight and Government Reform Committee will investigate only the important stuff, like ACORN (which no longer exists) and the post office! Scary stuff! I’m really glad that Democrats decided not to investigate the Bush Administration for torture, lying us into a war, and wiretapping American citizens without a warrant. It totally made the GOP re-think launching stupid investigations if they were to ever take back the House.
Why stop there? Let’s investigate Terri Schiavo and Whitewater and go through all the GOP’s greatest hits!
El Tiburon
Stay positive Cole. If this happens, imagine the the traffic numbers here. Kind of like when Scooby-Doo added Scrappy.
Punchy
Um….I hate to sound dumber than normal, but I obviously missed the big scandal at the post office. Can anyone give me the 5-second skinny?
Perry Como
Sometimes I wish we had some Darrell Issas of the left.
Darius
Considering the media’s fetish for reliving the Clinton era, I think they’d be all for that.
Earl Butz
The right needs to have their own bullshit stuffed down their throats, measure for fucking measure. You will never see any partisan issues in this country change for the better until Democrats stop being the party of the spineless and start being the party that everyone’s afraid to cross.
Like the Republicans are now.
So yeah, let’s start on America’s Favorite Vegetable, Terri Schiavo, and take it from there. It’s not like anyone in Congress has anything better to do, anyway.
Perry Como
@Punchy: The US Post Office is a gross overreach of government power and clearly unconstiusssional.
Steve
Before the 2006 election, Republicans were so successful at pushing the message that “Democrats just want to impeach Bush” that they actually got Democratic leadership to take impeachment off the table. Not that I’m grinding the impeachment ax, but the point is that they managed to get people to care about an issue like this.
Does anyone see the Democrats pointing out that if the Republicans get the majority, it’s going to be Whitewater Part 2 instead of fixing the economy and doing the people’s business? Is anyone besides Steve Benen making a big deal out of this?
Mind you, one of the problems is that impeaching Bush was unthinkable to the Village, but we all know they love Republican scandalmongering. So good luck getting the Beltway media to cooperate in spreading the meme that Republicans just plan to waste time in pointless investigations.
cmorenc
I can foresee at least ONE thicket Issa could lead a charge into that could prove potentially thorny for Obama: into the rat’s nest of Chicago and Illinois political connections. The fact that the last two governors of Illinois are indicted or convicted felons is but one clue, the traditional cesspool of Chicago municipal politics is another, which doubtless seem temptingly promising. What makes this especially true is that Rahm Emmanuel (Obama’s soon-exiting Chief of Staff) not only comes from that background as a democratic congressman but has imminent plans to jump from the White House back into Chicago muni politics.
In the end, Issa might not be able to dredge up any legitimate grounds for trying to impeach Obama, but it’s almost certain he will be able to almost continuously find enough sticky poo to fling at the wall over the next two years, and the MSM will predictably chase the poo as if it was a shiny object instead of well, poo.
General Stuck
I just want to know where that goddamn Whitey Tape is.
eric
@General Stuck: kenya.
Steve
@Perry Como: Henry Waxman has held plenty of attack-dog hearings. How about Weiner’s investigation into Goldline, Glenn Beck’s sponsor? It’s true, we didn’t get around to investigating Bush’s Christmas card list.
One problem is that useful nuggets do come out of these hearings, but the left doesn’t have a megaphone to project their scandals and pseudo-scandals into the public consciousness. Instead, someone makes a damning admission about politicization of the Bush DOJ or whatever, it gets written up at TPM and there’s lots of progressive buzz about it, and then it goes right down the memory hole.
Culture of Truth
Let’s investigate Terri Schiavo and Whitewater and go through all the GOP’s greatest hits!
I wouldn’t put it past them. But let’s not exagerrate, and to be fair to the GOP, they will probably invent a whole new set of bizarre fake scandals to waste time on.
Dork
@Punchy: Email is killing envelope mail, PDF attachments/faxes are killing business mail, and FedEx is killing overnight service. PO is bleeding $$, stamps are going up, everyone but Issa understands that it costs more than $0.41 in fuel and manpower to move white paper from Walla Walla to Lauderhill, and Issa is a f#cking idiot.
Also, they never hire any hotties to push the ‘lopes, so maybe there’s a sex discrimination angle I’m unaware of, too.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Maybe we can come up with stuff for them to investigate.
gibsojj
Well that’s that. The American Dream is worm food.
Culture of Truth
the post office delivers mail, which is used by terrorists and fornicators.
Zifnab
Man, remember back in 2006 when Nancy Pelosi openly announced that – should Democrats retake the House – impeachment of George Bush was off the table?
Oh, good times. I’m so glad Democrats insist on using gloves with the extra padding while Republicans are adding spikes to their brass knuckles.
Nom de Plume
Am I the only one not the least bit bothered by this? If the GOP retakes Congress, I can think of no better use of their time than a series of completely pointless “investigations” into nothing at all. By all means, let them hold hearings on ACORN (as pointed out, a group that no longer exists), birthergate, and all the rest of their completely nonexistent obsessions.
If they should trouble themselves to think up one or two pieces of shitty legislation along the way, those are likely to be shot down or vetoed. At worst, we’ll have two years of Congress doing absolutely nothing, which to my mind is preferable to a GOP congress actually trying to get something done.
Punchy
Fixed, cuz at this point, it’s been like 5 years.
Damned at Random
And which members of Congress are unAmerican (Crazy Eyes wants to know). Who wrote Obama’s first book? Does Michelle use slave (or child) labor in her organic garden?
Tom Hilton
Tonight they’re gonna party like it’s 1999.
J.W. Hamner
I can’t believe anybody besides Broder and/or Brooks actually thought this… but it does seem to be kind of unfair that their party is perfectly happy looking backwards, not forwards, and investigating to their very depths of their imagined conspiracies… while Democrats can’t even get motivated to examine actual criminal conduct.
I don’t think it’s going to serve them electorally however.
El Tiburon
@General Stuck:
Wrapped inside Obama’s fake birth certificate buried with the videotape of Hillary killing Vince Foster.
mantis
What do you want, the party that launches endless investigations and show trials, or the party that tries to get some things done that actually address problems the country faces? Some of you seem to want two Republican parties. No fucking thank you. The Democrats are stupid, disorganized, and tend to shoot themselves in the foot, but they try to make real progress sometimes, and sometimes even succeed. The Republicans want nothing more than to destroy this country and blame the Democrats. We don’t need another party like theirs, or we’re all fucking doomed.
Linda Featheringill
FWIW:
Scott McAdams in Alaska
It looks like somebody who knows what they are doing is trying to polish his campaign. He has an ActBlue account with actual money. He has a really cute picture on what could be printed into a poster [and cute is good]. Altogether looking better. This time last week he had very little money and a really dorky looking picture.
http://www.actblue.com/page/scottmcadams
Perhaps when Lisa decided to go for the write-ins, somebody at the DSCC thought he might be worth the investment in time and money.
We’ll see.
DonkeyKong
With the Republican turn to the deep South in the last 15 years, I think the first ivestigation will be the whole “Appomattox” thing.
“True” americans know that wasnt the end, that was half time!
Cat Lady
Casual conversations with acquaintances lately confirm my own sense that like me, people are mostly tuning out the mainstream media, and cable news. If the GOP insist on going back to the 90s and if the media insists on following them there, it will be the death knell (plz!) for cable news stations not named Fox. As much as the media love controversy, ginned up nonsense that has no possibility of going anywhere will not be publicly popular. People are frustrated with the status quo, but that doesn’t mean they want a Roman circus re-enacted on the floor of the House every day.
Ash Can
@cmorenc: Obama was essentally an outsider vis-a-vis the Chicago political machine. Blagojevich was a product of it. As for George Ryan, he was an outsider as well (he was a Republican), but he was also an old-fashioned career crook on the take.
I’m not saying that I’m convinced it’s impossible to find some tie-in with Obama. And I’m sure the dumbshit Republicans in Congress would fall all over themselves trying. It’s unlikely, though, and the number and pattern of other Illinois pols being sent up the river is not necessarily an indication of the likelihood of such skeletons being found in Obama’s closet.
lacp
Also, Who Lost China? I can never get enough of that one.
El Tiburon
@Zifnab:
Did I miss something? Did Bush get blown by a White House intern? Otherwise I have no recollection of him ever doing anything impeachable?
Allison W.
Don’t forget Jim Demints latest stunt:
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/09/28/demint-doomsday/
So uhm, who was it that said they couldn’t find a good reason to vote against Republicans?
El Tiburon
@mantis:
Yep, and this is why most of us will schlep our sorry asses to the voting booths and through gritted teeth and clinched anuses pull the lever for the dude or chick with the ‘D’ after their name.
geg6
@Nom de Plume:
I would tend to agree with your assessment. Go, Issa!
daveNYC
Maybe if Issa actually does bust out a birther investigation the media orgs will take a step back, but otherwise, yeah, they’ll figure that controversy sells.
stuckinred
@DonkeyKong: My wife if from Appo!
Linda Featheringill
@El Tiburon:
Exactly.
New bumper sticker: “Schlep your sorry ass out and vote.”
Personally, I like it.
liberal
@mantis:
But investigating the criminal invasion of Iraq is indeed “getting something done.” It might make someone in the future think twice about unnecessary, illegal wars of choice which are really nothing but wars of aggression.
Senyordave
Email is killing envelope mail, PDF attachments/faxes are killing business mail, and FedEx is killing overnight service. PO is bleeding $$, stamps are going up, everyone but Issa understands that it costs more than $0.41 in fuel and manpower to move white paper from Walla Walla to Lauderhill, and Issa is a f#cking idiot.
My feeling is let’s privatize the post office. I’m all for charging what the market will bear for delivering a letter from barrow, Alaska to Podunk, Oklahoma. I don’t want to subsidize those red state mothers anymore. I live in Maryland, and my company (which mails out 10 million + per yar) could deliver a letter from DC to Baltimore for about 20 cents per.
Alex S.
@Damned at Random:
probably her daughters, but they’re too black to count
Earl Butz
@Senyordave: It is privatized. The problem is – they can’t write their own rate structure or work constraints, all that still gets mandated by Congress.
If it weren’t, they’d be vast swathes of the country that would suddenly no longer be getting any mail at all. It’s not cost-effective to send it there.
mantis
@liberal:
But investigating the criminal invasion of Iraq is indeed “getting something done.” It might make someone in the future think twice about unnecessary, illegal wars of choice which are really nothing but wars of aggression.
First, there’s a difference between investigating something and doing nothing but investigating. The Republicans want to investigate everything, and do little else, and some think the Democrats should behave exactly the same way. I don’t.
Second, do you really think a congressional investigation of the Iraq invasion would do anything to stop even one war in the future? I don’t. But then, I remember all of our other past wars of aggression, investigations of which did nothing to stop future wars.
Biscuits
A little off topic, but isn’t George Bush’s memoir coming out soon? Could this not remind America of what we are in for (again) should republicans regain a majority. Also, what’s up with Dick Cheney? Haven’t heard from him or lizard lately. Is he done?
Blue Neponset
@Nom de Plume: Clinton lost two years of his Presidency to the impeachment. That wasn’t a coincidence. The goal of the investigations isn’t to find anything. It is to waste the time and energy of a Democratic president. IMO, that is bad.
JPL
Bring Out Your Dead
This is good news for John McCain.
liberal
@mantis:
Depends on what’s being investigated, doesn’t it, and whether the investigation is substantial or just for show.
For example, take the real estate bubble and the subsequent bailout. These are massive crimes. IMHO a well-conducted investigation would be quite useful. That Congress would likely never conduct such an investigation is another matter.
I think anything that both gets at previously unearthed facts, and disseminates facts more broadly, will decrease the chances of getting involved again.
Scott
My feeling is let’s privatize the post office. I’m all for charging what the market will bear for delivering a letter from barrow, Alaska to Podunk, Oklahoma. I don’t want to subsidize those red state mothers anymore. I live in Maryland, and my company (which mails out 10 million + per yar) could deliver a letter from DC to Baltimore for about 20 cents per.
GOD FUCKING NO.
I like being able to send mail to my sister, who lives way, way up a mountain in New Mexico. I like being able to send mail to my parents, who live way out in the most remote area of the Texas Panhandle. Privatizing the mail would be an immense step backwards for the whole country.
Please tell me you were joking.
mantis
@liberal:
Depends on what’s being investigated, doesn’t it, and whether the investigation is substantial or just for show.
This is Congress we’re talking about. They’re always just for show.
I think anything that both gets at previously unearthed facts, and disseminates facts more broadly, will decrease the chances of getting involved again.
Ah, to be young again…
Steve LaBonne
Nom de Plume @18 nailed it. Who fucking cares? This won’t exactly endear them to unemployed voters. It bit them in the ass even in Clinton’s time when the economy was good.
Maude
@Biscuits:
Bush’s memoir, what a waste of paper.
Cheney had the surgery and has been quiet since then.
Let’s look for Judge Crater while we’re at it.
Nicole
We’ll also see a bigger increase in the media pushing the GOP meme, “Americans may need to learn to get by with less.” I saw a headline along those lines a week or so ago and it made my stomach do one of those panic dances.
Because of course, they (the media and the GOP) don’t mean working for greener power sources or recycling or anything like that. They mean cutting programs that keep people from starving, in order that the rich can keep getting more.
And the trouble is, people will buy it. I can’t tell you how many ostensibly liberal friends tell me Social Security will be bankrupt in 10 years. Because that’s what the media chants at them. Hell, I was suckered into the “raise the retirement age” bullshit for awhile, and I’m not a moron.
Mnemosyne
@Zifnab:
Because having President Dick Cheney take over post-impeachment would have solved all of our problems.
jrg
I’d like to know what’s in the millions of emails destroyed/hidden during Bush’s march to Iraq.
There has to be a disincentive to lying us into war. If there isn’t, it will happen again (and again), until the Republicans bankrupt us. That matters. BJs and ACORN don’t.
The Other Chuck
@Nom de Plume:
While Clinton was being impeached, he was accused of “wagging the dog” when he tried to go after a little bunch of ragtag nobodies called Al Qaeda. Even a GOP congress fixated on grandstanding and spectacle actively harms us.
nancydarling
Former accused felon, Darrel Issa, (I’m not sure if he was ever convicted) was responsible for the recall of Gov. Gray Davis and planned to run for the office himself. Then Arnold swept in and sucked all of the oxygen out of the room. Arnold turned out to be not as bad as I had expected but certainly no better than Gray Davis would have been if allowed to continue his job. Honestly, California’s problems are beyond what any governor alone can fix. The whole legislative/budget/tax system is screwed up. There is a video somewhere of Issa shedding tears at Arnold’s win and his loss. I don’t remember where Issa’s district is but it has to be at least 50% raging loons.
fasteddie9318
@Darius:
Well, smart guy, if you can figure out a way to find out where Bill Clinton’s penis has been for the past decade, then you let the media know, OK?
Seriously, please let them know. You wouldn’t believe the DTs these people have been going through since they stopped getting hourly updates on the state of Clinton’s zipper.
Bender
@Punchy:
Yes, the Issa investigation of the Post Office is a lame lie made up by a lefty blogger to try to scare people into voting Democrat.
Good luck with all that.
NR
It’s okay. Obama will fix everything with more bipartisanship.
mantis
@Bender:
Yes, the Issa investigation of the Post Office is a lame lie made up by a lefty blogger to try to scare people into voting Democrat.
Can’t really tell if you’re being sarcastic with that.
Anyway, the deal with the Post Office is that it loses money, on the order of billions of dollars each year. However, USPS overpaid its pension by $75 billion. If the USPS were given that $75 billion back, as they should be (it’s theirs, after all), then their money problems would be solved for quite a while.
Issa calls the proposal to put the $75 billion back a bailout (it’s not) and wants to solve the USPS’s problems by laying off mail carriers.
mds
@Nom de Plume:
Ordinarily, I would point out that you’re missing the harassment that comes with frivolous Congressional subpoenas; the Clinton White House lost a lot of potentially productive time to the witch hunts. However, the new precedent, established by the Bush Administration, is to simply ignore Congressional subpoenas by invoking “executive privilege,” even for private citizens who are no longer working for the executive branch. Remember how much of a pain it was to get Karl Rove and Harriet Miers to grudgingly comply with legally-binding summons, even though they no longer worked for the White House? If the DoJ hangs tough in support of its boss (and no, the AG’s boss isn’t “the American people,” no matter what the boilerplate says), then the only thing Issa will be able to do is send the Sergeant-at-Arms to drag witnesses to the Capitol. And I suspect that this wouldn’t actually work. Especially if we are ready to leap in and insinuate that the Sergeant-at-Arms is a leftist hippie, whereupon the entire staff of the West Wing will be lined up to punch him.
feebog
Issa’s district is in North San Diego County, and they have more than their fair share of far right loons.
TJ
If they take the House, let them investigate. It’ll keep them out of trouble. It’s not like anything substantial’s going to get done in the next two years anyway.
Parrorlover77
Not that i dont think bush didnt need to be investigated, but the one thing dems are right about is that the vast majority of the public doesnt care about those hearings. let the teabaggers waste time doing it. it wont help them retain power. and they wont be breaking things that actually matter.
Citizen Alan
@mantis:
So you prefer the status quo, in which a Democratic President can be impeached over trivialities by a Republican Congress, while a Republican President can commit war crimes and treason with impunity, secure in the knowledge that a Democratic Congress will place “bipartisanship” over something as ridiculous as “the law.”
As far as I’m concerned, the easiest way for a Democratic candidate to secure my vote is to commit himself to the destruction of the Traitor-Republican Party.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@mantis:
> What do you want, the party that launches endless
> investigations and show trials, or the party that tries
> to get some things done that actually address problems
> the country faces?
I want a party that holds endless investigations and well-publicized trials to convict all of the Bush-era war criminals, torturers and accomplices in order to address the problem of known criminals walking about wealthy and free as role models of unaccountable, law-breaking government to all decent but impressionable people, as well as to President Obama and his depraved posse of balloonbagger apologists.
mantis
@Citizen Alan:
So you prefer the status quo, in which a Democratic President can be impeached over trivialities by a Republican Congress
Sorry, but our Constitution sets the framework. Andrew Johnson got impeached based on a bunch of political bullshit, and that was almost 150 years ago. If the Democrats decided they had no interest in governing, and just conducted investigation after investigation, that would change nothing about impeachment procedure or the possibility of future impeachments.
while a Republican President can commit war crimes and treason with impunity, secure in the knowledge that a Democratic Congress will place “bipartisanship” over something as ridiculous as “the law.”
If I had any belief that the Democrats could have successfully gotten the evidence needed to impeach Bush between 2006 – 2008, I would have supported it. But they had really slim majorities in Congress and a White House that would have successfully mucked up the works of any investigation, at least until 2008. After Bush left office, what would be the point? A giant waste of time ending in a doubtless unsatisfying outcome. Great.
And treason? Really? What Republican president has committed treason and gotten away with it?
As far as I’m concerned, the easiest way for a Democratic candidate to secure my vote is to commit himself to the destruction of the Traitor-Republican Party.
And eventually, the United States of America. Hooray!
mantis
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
I want a party that holds endless investigations and well-publicized trials to convict all of the Bush-era war criminals, torturers and accomplices in order to address the problem of known criminals walking about wealthy and free as role models of unaccountable, law-breaking government to all decent but impressionable people, as well as to President Obama and his depraved posse of balloonbagger apologists.
Yeah, I’d like to address problems that we can do something about. Anywhere in the world, at any time in human history, wealthy and powerful people get away with awful shit, most of the time, and punishing them does jack shit to stop the next ones. Good luck on your crusade to change human nature and the entire course of human history.
sukabi
“Bring Out Your Dead” … and in true Monty Python fashion the R’s are proclaiming that all manufactured D scandals are “Not Dead Yet”…
Once, just once I’d like to see one of theiR pet scandals have a major blowback effect and take down one of theiR deranged folks promoting said scandal.
asiangrrlMN
I say, bring it. And for every investigation they launch, let one be launched against a Republican. I don’t want two Republican parties, but I do not want this shit to keep on getting worse. There has to be some pushback or the Republicans will continue down the road to hell. I do not want the Democrats to focus their attention solely on these investigations, of course–just enough to get the Republicans to back the fuck down. Let’s start with Michele Bachmann. There is plenty there to uncover (farm subsidies, anyone?).
Joseph Nobles
Here’s how I’m boiling this down now.
The Republicans have spent two years saying, “Look at where this country is heading!”
The Democrats have spent two years saying, “You can’t get there from here.”
Who’s going to win in November?
Tony J
@mantis:
This is very true. Obvious, in fact.
But this is bullshit. Can you point out the people who think the Obama Administration should have done nothing but investigate the previous administration for the last two years? Because I’m having a hard time remembering anyone here saying anything of the sort.
It’s almost like you’re saying that there’s no middle ground at all between what the Republicans are threatening to do (crazy, pointless, and politically motivated), and what a lot of people here would have liked the Obama Administration to do (serious, necessary, and for the good of the country). Which is odd, because in reality, the space between the two is so enormous in scale that I could fit my hairy arse in that gap with room to spare for a pair of Shire horses and a fully kitted-out winnebago.
But, y’know, good luck with that career in straw-based construction. I hear it’s a really crowded market.
Nick
Because had they, the GOP wouldn’t do this anyway?
I mean really.
Nick
@Tony J:
No, of course not, people some you are under the ridiculous impression that they could’ve done other things AND investigate the previous administration.
the reason we’re saying this will suck up the next two years is THAT’S WHAT INVESTIGATIONS DO
You can investigate, or you can legislate, you cannot do both…the GOP has no interested in doing the latter.
mantis
@Tony J:
But this is bullshit. Can you point out the people who think the Obama Administration should have done nothing but investigate the previous administration for the last two years? Because I’m having a hard time remembering anyone here saying anything of the sort.
Well, I was responding to people in this very thread, so it wouldn’t take you long to find some.
I read those and then left my first comment. I’m not going to go digging around other blogs right at the moment to find examples of others advocating adopting the Republicans’ investigate everything, all the time tactics, but I do remember that happening.
It’s almost like you’re saying that there’s no middle ground at all between what the Republicans are threatening to do (crazy, pointless, and politically motivated)
Well, it might be almost like that, but it’s not that. I do think there is a middle ground, and some things certainly warrant investigation, and a smaller set of things warrant investigation with a chance at having a real impact (unlike investigating the Iraq invasion, for example). What I don’t support, which I think I’ve been pretty clear about, is the Democratic Party adopting the a do-nothing-but-partisan-trickery approach to governance that the Republicans exhibit.
I think we are basically in agreement, but perhaps I’m not explaining my point adequately. Or maybe people are joking about going back and investigating the Terri Shaivo thing (the good guys won that one, as disgraceful as it was. Remember?), and I’m just way off base.
Nick
@Steve:
No they didn’t, Democrats were never going to impeach Bush, because it’s a stupid thing to do, you wouldn’t have gotten him removed from office (the Democrats weren’t expected to take the Senate until the final days) even if you got him impeached (which was a tall order even with a majority) and investigations would’ve taken up most of the 110th Congress and Democrats would’ve actually liked to have won in 2008 like we did.
Democrats are interested in governing, not fruitless dead end moves meant to excite a wing of the party.
stras
I’m really glad that Democrats decided not to investigate the Bush Administration for torture, lying us into a war, and wiretapping American citizens without a warrant. It totally made the GOP re-think launching stupid investigations if they were to ever take back the House.
Jesus. People, I would’ve thought two years of Obama would’ve made this pretty obvious by now. Democrats “decided not to investigate” Republican crimes not because they were playing nice, but because the crimes they’d be investigating were the very same crimes Obama was committing. How many Afghan torture camps, domestic spying programs and assassination orders does it take to make it clear that Obama never considered Bush’s crimes objectionable in the first place?
mantis
@Nick:
You can investigate, or you can legislate, you cannot do both…the GOP has no interested in doing the latter.
I wouldn’t go that far, but investigations do tend to take up a lot of time and effort, not to mention media attention. Can you imagine trying to pass health care reform last year while holding a long-running investigation into the Bush years? Dream on.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Biscuits:
It’s a coloring/activity book. Highlights include “find it” pictures like “Help George Find Osama bin Laden” and “Help George Find Weapons of Mass Destruction” and mazes like “Help George Get From McCain’s Birthday Party to Hurricane Katrina” and “Help George Get From An Elementary School in Florida to Safety From Terrorists”. Also word searches featuring such words as “strategery”, “misunderestimate”, and “nucular”.
Nick
@mantis:
The problem is, people here think we could have, and what would have happened if six months into the 110th or 111th congresses, we have done nothing but end up trying to round up enough votes to impeach Bush for a crime he’ll never be removed from office or even go to prison for.
I bet progressives would be screaming at Congress for not removing Bush from office AND not giving them their ponies at the same time.
mantis
@Nick:
I bet progressives would be screaming at Congress for not removing Bush from office AND not giving them their ponies at the same time.
You’re damned right they would be.
Bokonon
I think this just shows how deeply Republicans of a particular generation internalized the traumas and policial lessons of Watergate.
All they can think of is gaining power so … they can hold endless show trials and hearings, at which the GOP inquisitors investigate their enemies and trying to root out conspiracies.
Frankly, besides staging political theater and damaging your enemies, the point of this is to keep people distracted while the GOP rams through its REAL agenda. I mean, back in the late 1990’s, who had time to notice all that financial deregulation going on (or epic corruption brewing in the GOP’s political machine) when the TV news was all about oral sex and impeachment?
timb
@mantis: I’m not sure you understand America at all. You certainly missed the last 150 years of American history
Bernard
This will be quite “fun” to watch. that is the point of this “kabuki.” while the corporations the Republicans, and now Democrats/Blue Dogs help sell American to the highest bidder.
I mean sold us to the Corporations, while starting and showing such “dramatic” theatre as a distractionary measure.
the Republicans enabled Business via Reagan, the Democrats polished the details with Rubin Summer. such powerful distractions while stealing Americans blind and moving their factories off shore.
seeing Obama approve spying, lie on Gitmo, DADT, Iraq still having 50,000 troops, helping BP destroy the Gulf. well there are more than enough reasons to watch the Republicans show how much “bipartisanship” means.
Congress/the Rich won’t stop the TBTF Ponzi scheme/looting of America.
Democratic or Republican, both are OWNED!!!
To see Obama/Blue Dogs sell America out is beyond words.