same old ass hat, different day.

(alternate title: the complete idiot's guide to the great bush/gonzales/miers/rove/snow scandal of 2007)

so, kids...
it's about that time, for me to perform my wtb!? administratorly duties by posting my own tirade about an 'ass hat in the news.'



(hee! jen rules at making these things!)

***[public service announcement interlude] any of you who don't know what wtb!? is? you should go here. no, really. right now! go! if you know what wtb!? is, but aren't a member yet, but are thinking about becoming a member, you should DEFINITELY just decide to become a member, and go here to sign up. if you know what wtb!? is, and you're already a member, but you're not participating in our bi-weekly ass hat adventures? SHAME ON YOU! go here immediately and sign up to participate in this week's adventure. all you have to do is write a post--with no length requirements--about some sort of ass-hattedness you have witnessed in the news in recent weeks. that really is all there is to it! for a more specific tutorial on ass-hattedness, please see here. oh, and--last, but not least--if you want to see the winners of our last contest, please click here. that is all i have for you at this time. [/public service announcement interlude]***

so, try as i might to come up with a different ass hat who was ass-hatty enough to inspire me to turn away from the quality programming on my television tonight (read: jericho, america's next top model, american idol, and top design) and into any kind of entry writing, alas, i find myself being irritated by the same guy--who is ALWAYS in the news--over and over again.

it's the same old song and dance, you know?
a classic case of same ass hat, different day.



same old ass hat, yes.
but! now with added bonus ass hats!

wait...
what's that you say?
you're bored with all this political he said/she said hullaballoo? you've grown sick of watching the news?

i don't blame you one bit...
but, humor me on this one, and allow me to give you a VERY abridged version of one of the biggest stories in the news these days. as an extra added treat, i'll even tell you what you should think about it when i'm done!

you are so lucky!

***[disclaimer]there are many viewpoints and arguments that could be made in this case. i am going to speak from the viewpoint of an average person who knows only an average amount about this case. however, if i say here that someone said something, it will be true--at least that they said it. if you interpret it in a different way than i did, then you're obviously not as smart as me, and that's no one's fault but your own. i'm kidding.[/disclaimer]***

cast:
[Wik]

there's our esteemed president, of course.
next up is this dude.



his name is alberto gonzales, and he is the attorney general of the united states of america.
i think that basically means that he's, like, the boss-man of all the lawyers who work for the government in the whole country.
like, you know, if you break your leg because you slipped on a wet floor at the grocery store and you hire a personal injury lawyer? we're not talking about that guy. we're talking about the district attorneys and whatnot.
so, yeah. he is the boss-man of all of those people, and george w. is his boss.

****
george w. also gave him his job...

...but, this isn't the place to make any commentary on that. especially because i don't know if the things stated in that cartoon are true. i just know i think it's funny.
****

also starring are:
[Alsø wik]

harriet miers


and karl rove

they are two of the president's 'top aides.' (read: bffs)

and then, of course, there's tony snow.
[Alsø alsø wik]


he is the white house press secretary. aka, the guy they send out to tell lies for them every day. who is also a guy that i really hate.
[Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?]

****
i'm sorry, but i enjoyed my lies much more when they came from the mouth of this guy

oh, ari! why be-est thou so gone from me? you were a lying little devil and, still, i loved you. please hit this tony snow schmuck upside the noggin with a blunt object and return to me. ahem. what? oh, yes. back to the real story.
****

anyhow, i guess what happened was that alberto gonzales fired a bunch (around 8, i think) of US attorneys.
which, in and of itself, is no big deal.

the problem was that a large number (maybe 4?) of these fired attorneys were actively involved in cases against republicans in various standings throughout the nation, and since democrats are always on the look out for naughty republicans (and vice versa), of course it was brought up as an issue.

boring so far, yes?

so, anyway.
then some other stuff happened while it was all still boring and blah blah blah, whatever.

but, then!
forty million emails came to the surface!
emails that were going back and forth between the people who were to fire the people who were to be fired, giving them advice about how to be sneaky and answer questions about the firings in at least moderately deceitful ways.
[also starring 40 specially trained equadorian mountain llamas, with the help of ralph the wonder llama, and terrry gilliam]
i know, it's still boring.

but, then!
there was a gap in the emails!
missing emails!

and the congress started to go nutso, and they wanted karl rove and harriet miers to testify under oath that albereto gonzales wasn't ordered to fire all of those attorneys based on the personal politics of those attorneys.

still bored?

i'll get to the point.

the thing is, the attorney general and the president are allowed to fire any number of these attorneys, at any time, for absolutely any reason they see fit.
i don't know if that's a good thing--in this case, for example, where it certainly appears that some of these people were fired because they failed to play along with the president's politics...it seems like maybe it's not-so-great--but, regardless, it is the law.

were it to be proven that the president ordered gonzales to fire those attorneys in order to put a stop to the cases they were working against his fellow republicans...well, we might not like it, but there would be absolutely nothing illegal about it.

the problem is the lying and the missing emails and the refusal to testify and all those other shenanigans; the problem is throwing up the shield of executive privilege.

the whole thing leaves a very bad taste in my mouth.
like nyquil. mixed with 3 week old milk. and bat shit.
****

see, when the president stands in front of the nation, like he did today, and belittles the congress for thinking about issuing subpeonas to rove and miers...i can't help but think of the patriot act.

good americans have no reason to have a problem with the patriot act, right?
if you don't have anything to hide, you have no reason to be afraid that the government can get all up in your personal shit at any old time they please.

so why should georgie take such outrage in the idea of congress issuing subpeonas to his aides?
it doesn't add up.
****

but, perhaps i'm getting ahead of myself here.
the thing is, i'm sick of the president talking to me like i'm an idiot.
i'm sick of being spoon fed omissions, misleading statements, and flat-out lies, as if the president and his administration think i'm too stupid to notice the words coming out of their mouths.

and, you know?
i wish that wasn't the case.

they should be smarter than me, no?
they should be able to lie to me much better than this.
but they don't even respect me, or the rest of the american people, enough to be bothered to try to tell a good lie.

it's infuriating.
****

today, when asked: "Mr. President, are you still completely convinced that the administration did not exert any political pressure in the firing of these attorneys?"
george answered: "there is no indication that anybody did anything improper."

(full transcript available here.)

ummm, there is no indication that anybody did anything improper?
is that like, i did not have sex with that woman?
george may as well have said: "well, i know exactly what happened. and i know a lot of people probably wouldn't like it. fortunately for me, i don't think you guys have enough evidence to prove that anything happened...there is simply 'no indication that anybody did anything improper.' you know, except for the fact that i know they did."
****

still, i think my favorite example of the administration thinking we're all idiots came today, during tony snow's bullshit--oh, excuse me...i meant to say, during tony snow's PRESS release.
yes, that's it.
anyway, it was when i saw this little nugget of conversation that i started to get really pissed...

Q: There is one email from November 15th from Mr. Sampson to Harriet Miers, I believe, "Who will determine whether this requires the President's attention?"

MR. SNOW: Right.

Q: And then there's a gap in emails. Was there any -- perhaps any emails about the President in there? And did the President have to sign off on this? Because the question was raised --

MR. SNOW: The President has no recollection of this ever being raised with him.

the president has no recollection?

hmmm.

because, i'm thinking that if the president wasn't involved, he would be able to say with confidence that no, the issue was never raised with him.

in my opinion, mr. snow's response means nothing other than: i'm not telling you shit until you can prove it for your own damn self. and, when you do? you won't be able to say we lied, because all i've said here is that he doesn't 'recollect' being involved.

sweet christ on a cracker, if only bill clinton had thought to assert that he didn't recollect getting a blowjob from monica lewinsky...we all could have saved ourselves a lot of grief.

oh...
and speaking of bill's blowjob,
you might be interested to hear what tony snow had to say about it at the time.
remember how clinton tried to invoke executive privelege, so that his aides wouldn't have to testify about his relationship with monica?
well, here's what tony snow had to say about that effort, at the time.

when asked about the validity of invoking executive privilege, he said (and, i quote):

"Taken to its logical extreme, that position would make it impossible for citizens to hold a chief executive accountable for anything. He would have a constitutional right to cover up."

!!!DING DING DING DING DING!!!

congratulations, mr. snow!
you've won yourself a big fat slice of hypocrosy pie.
yummy!

still, feeding off the hypocrosy pie doesn't faze our press secretary...earlier today, when a reporter questioned him about his former assertions, the conversation went like this:

REPORTER: Tony, back when President Clinton was citing executive privilege to keep internal deliberations in that White House from being talked about in Congress, you wrote — now famously — that taken

SNOW: I didn’t know it was famous. It didn’t that kind of coverage at the time.

REPORTER: It’s become more famous.

SNOW: Is it making its way through the left-wing blogs?

REPORTER: But you wrote quite eloquently about this. You said, “Taken to its logical extreme, that position would make it impossible for citizens to hold a chief executive accountable. He would have a constitutional right to cover up.” So why were you wrong then and right now?

SNOW: Because you’re — this is not an entirely analogous situation. I just told you what we have in fact offered to make available to Members of Congress. What we’re doing is we are holding apart confidential communications between advisers and the President. And that is pretty standard practice in the White House.

REPORTER: But in the Clinton administration –

SNOW: I’m not so sure. I’ll let others do the legal arguing on that.
****

dude.
did he have to rip on blogs, too?
it's just too much.
****

still, i think my biggest problem--once again--stems from my problem with george and his religion, and the way he sort of forces it upon all of us,
(ie, saying things like 'i believe god wants me to be president,' or 'i don't know if atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. this is one nation under god.' even though there is supposed to be a separation of church and state; even though we have a right to religious freedom)
i know it seems like i'm going way off topic here, but i promise i'm not. just stick with me for a second.

the thing is, i think i learned a long time ago that, in the eyes of god, no one sin is greater than another. a sin is a sin is a sin is a sin, or whatever.

so why should george and his crew think that what they are doing is ok?

why should they not be held responsible?

i mean, personally? i think the whole idea is a pile of crap. i think george is far more likely to go to hell for telling a lie about there being weapons of mass destruction in iraq, for scaring the living b. jeezuz out of a nation already scared out of their minds in order to gain our support for a war during which thousand of lives would be lost than i am for lying and telling my boss that i was late for work because i got pulled over on the way, when the truth was that i was just reading blogs instead of putting on make-up, and so i ended up leaving the house late.

but, clearly, george is very interested in following THE WORD, rather than THE IDEA.

why should they not have to play by the rules of the god that they try to force upon all of us--upon our bodies, with laws about abortion and stem cell research; upon our hearts, with legislation about gay marriage; upon all of us, even though we are all individuals with our own religious (or non-religious) ideals?

how can he pick and choose?
how can he think that what he's doing is any better than bill's blowjob?

i have to go to bed now, but in case there's any confusion...

i'm calling ass hat.
i'm calling ass hat on the whole lot of them.

and i hope with my whole heart that they will finally be held responsible for something.

because, the american people?
we can be a little dense.
but we deserve far more respect than we're getting from george and his bffs.

p.s.
i'm not at all sure that i spelled subpeona correctly at any point in the above post. in fact, i'm rather sure that i did not spell it correctly. but, see how it says this was posted at 8pm or something? that's bullshit. i started writing this around then, but it's now 4am. granted, i watched a lot of t.v. while i was writing this. i wasted valuable time i could have spent looking up the word subpeona in the dictionary.
too effing bad.
i'm tired, and i have an appointment at 8am.

peace out, ya'll.

edited to add: damn! i couldn't help myself, and i just realized that i quite nearly spelled it right! i would have rather been way off, then be only slightly off, you know? anyway, i'm going to leave it. because i'm not a perfect person. there's many things i wish i didn't do, but i continue learning. oh, jeez. i don't even like that song. clearly i am suffering from exhaustion.
goodnight, sweethearts.