By His Friends Ye Shall Know Him
It was inevitable that the choreography would stagger and the rehearsed lines falter. There's no way George and the words "due diligence" could fit in the same sentence when it comes to assembling his supporters (or any sentence, more than likely). Hell, his whole career has been a Saturday morning cliffhanger act of the sort recounted in the Coaster's "Along Came Jones." Alas, in contrast to the heroic theme of that great '50's tune, in this case the evidence suggests it has mostly been what would be considered criminal behavior for real people like us that led to mom or dad having to trot in and buy someone off, suppress the evidence, or otherwise silence the witnesses. Character? Ethics? Accountability? What me worry. Just so long as they bring in the bucks and can shill like the dickens, they be friends of our rustic lone-star wannabe. Oh, and if they have minions in the wings ready to drink the kool-aid, so much the better.
So now that he's getting to name the stars in his movie, who do we get? Aside that is from the same old Condies, Rummies, and such, all well-established by now as nearly-pathological abusers of human rights, serious compromised when it comes to ethics, truth-telling, and independent thinking.
Frank Rich in the NY Times evokes a personal ear-worm, this time with lyric involving good-old-boy Tom getting indicted in the morning:
[clip]
Beltway cronyism, dubious junkets, loophole-laden denials are all, of course, time-honored Washington fare. The few on the right backing away from Mr. DeLay, from The Wall Street Journal's editorial page to Newt Gingrich, make a point of reminding us of that. As they see it, more in sorrow than in anger, the Gingrich revolutionaries who vowed to end the corruption practiced by Congressional Democrats have now been infected by the same Washington virus as their opponents. That's true, but this critique of Mr. DeLay and company by their own camp all too conveniently sidesteps the distinguishing feature of this scandal. Democratic malefactors like Jim Wright and L.B.J.'s old fixer Bobby Baker didn't wear the Bible on their sleeves.
In the DeLay story almost every player has ostentatious religious trappings, starting with the House majority leader himself. His efforts to play God with Terri Schiavo were preceded by crusades like blaming the teaching of evolution for school shootings and raising money for the Traditional Values Coalition's campaign to save America from the "war on Christianity." Mr. DeLay's chief of staff was his pastor, and, according to Time magazine, organized daily prayer sessions in their office. Today this holy man, Ed Buckham, is a lobbyist implicated in another DeLay junket to South Korea.
[clip]
The values alleged so far in this scandal - greed, hypocrisy, favor-selling, dissembling - belong to no creed except the ruthless pursuit of power. They are not exclusive to either political party. But the religious trappings add a note that distinguishes these Beltway creeps from those who have come before: a supreme righteousness that often spirals into anger and fire-and-brimstone zealotry that can do far more damage to America than ill-begotten golf junkets.
It's not for nothing that Mr. DeLay's nickname is the Hammer. Or that early in his Christian Coalition career, Ralph Reed famously told a Knight-Ridder reporter that he wanted to see his opponents in a "body bag." The current manifestation of this brand of religious politics can be found in the far right's anti-judiciary campaign, of which Mr. DeLay is the patron saint. As he flew off to the pope's funeral in Rome, the congressman left behind a rabble-rousing video for a Washington conference on "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith" staged by a new outfit called The Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration. Another speaker, a lawyer named Edwin Vieira, twice invoked a Stalin dictum whose unexpurgated version goes, "Death solves all problems; no man, no problem." The reporter who covered the event for The Washington Post, Dana Milbank, suggested in print that one prime target of the vitriol, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, might want to get "a few more bodyguards." It wasn't necessarily a joke.
[clip]
Another recent grad from George's personal charm school is the marvelous boil on the butt of humanity by the name of Bolton. A courageous few of what seems likely to be a multitude bullied and harrassed by this almost comical hairball throughout his "career" have begun to speak out. Here's an excerpt from a letter sent to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by one who encountered the Boil back when his real character was on display:
[clip]
I flew from Kyrgyzstan to Moscow to meet with other Black Manafort employees who were leading or subcontracted to other US AID projects. While there, I met with US AID officials and expressed my concerns about the project -- chief among them, the prime contractor's inability to keep enough cash in country to allow us to pay bills, which directly resulted in armed threats by Kyrgyz contractors to me and my staff.
Within hours of sending a letter to US AID officials outlining my concerns, I met John Bolton, whom the prime contractor hired as legal counsel to represent them to US AID. And, so, within hours of dispatching that letter, my hell began.
Mr. Bolton proceeded to chase me through the halls of a Russian hotel -- throwing things at me, shoving threatening letters under my door and, generally, behaving like a madman. For nearly two weeks, while I awaited fresh direction from my company and from US AID, John Bolton hounded me in such an appalling way that I eventually retreated to my hotel room and stayed there. Mr. Bolton, of course, then routinely visited me there to pound on the door and shout threats.
[clip]
John Bolton put me through hell -- and he did everything he could to intimidate, malign and threaten not just me, but anybody unwilling to go along with his version of events. His behavior back in 1994 wasn't just unforgivable, it was pathological.
I cannot believe that this is a man being seriously considered for any diplomatic position, let alone such a critical posting to the UN. Others you may call before your committee will be able to speak better to his stated dislike for and objection to stated UN goals. I write you to speak about the very character of the man.
It took me years to get over Mr. Bolton's actions in that Moscow hotel in 1994, his intensely personal attacks and his shocking attempts to malign my character.
[clip]
Who wouldn't want a personal invite to one of those rah-rah Bamboozlepalooza Social Security pep rallies? Oh the warm, friendly, compassionate folks you might meet!
So now that he's getting to name the stars in his movie, who do we get? Aside that is from the same old Condies, Rummies, and such, all well-established by now as nearly-pathological abusers of human rights, serious compromised when it comes to ethics, truth-telling, and independent thinking.
Frank Rich in the NY Times evokes a personal ear-worm, this time with lyric involving good-old-boy Tom getting indicted in the morning:
[clip]
Beltway cronyism, dubious junkets, loophole-laden denials are all, of course, time-honored Washington fare. The few on the right backing away from Mr. DeLay, from The Wall Street Journal's editorial page to Newt Gingrich, make a point of reminding us of that. As they see it, more in sorrow than in anger, the Gingrich revolutionaries who vowed to end the corruption practiced by Congressional Democrats have now been infected by the same Washington virus as their opponents. That's true, but this critique of Mr. DeLay and company by their own camp all too conveniently sidesteps the distinguishing feature of this scandal. Democratic malefactors like Jim Wright and L.B.J.'s old fixer Bobby Baker didn't wear the Bible on their sleeves.
In the DeLay story almost every player has ostentatious religious trappings, starting with the House majority leader himself. His efforts to play God with Terri Schiavo were preceded by crusades like blaming the teaching of evolution for school shootings and raising money for the Traditional Values Coalition's campaign to save America from the "war on Christianity." Mr. DeLay's chief of staff was his pastor, and, according to Time magazine, organized daily prayer sessions in their office. Today this holy man, Ed Buckham, is a lobbyist implicated in another DeLay junket to South Korea.
[clip]
The values alleged so far in this scandal - greed, hypocrisy, favor-selling, dissembling - belong to no creed except the ruthless pursuit of power. They are not exclusive to either political party. But the religious trappings add a note that distinguishes these Beltway creeps from those who have come before: a supreme righteousness that often spirals into anger and fire-and-brimstone zealotry that can do far more damage to America than ill-begotten golf junkets.
It's not for nothing that Mr. DeLay's nickname is the Hammer. Or that early in his Christian Coalition career, Ralph Reed famously told a Knight-Ridder reporter that he wanted to see his opponents in a "body bag." The current manifestation of this brand of religious politics can be found in the far right's anti-judiciary campaign, of which Mr. DeLay is the patron saint. As he flew off to the pope's funeral in Rome, the congressman left behind a rabble-rousing video for a Washington conference on "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith" staged by a new outfit called The Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration. Another speaker, a lawyer named Edwin Vieira, twice invoked a Stalin dictum whose unexpurgated version goes, "Death solves all problems; no man, no problem." The reporter who covered the event for The Washington Post, Dana Milbank, suggested in print that one prime target of the vitriol, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, might want to get "a few more bodyguards." It wasn't necessarily a joke.
[clip]
Another recent grad from George's personal charm school is the marvelous boil on the butt of humanity by the name of Bolton. A courageous few of what seems likely to be a multitude bullied and harrassed by this almost comical hairball throughout his "career" have begun to speak out. Here's an excerpt from a letter sent to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by one who encountered the Boil back when his real character was on display:
[clip]
I flew from Kyrgyzstan to Moscow to meet with other Black Manafort employees who were leading or subcontracted to other US AID projects. While there, I met with US AID officials and expressed my concerns about the project -- chief among them, the prime contractor's inability to keep enough cash in country to allow us to pay bills, which directly resulted in armed threats by Kyrgyz contractors to me and my staff.
Within hours of sending a letter to US AID officials outlining my concerns, I met John Bolton, whom the prime contractor hired as legal counsel to represent them to US AID. And, so, within hours of dispatching that letter, my hell began.
Mr. Bolton proceeded to chase me through the halls of a Russian hotel -- throwing things at me, shoving threatening letters under my door and, generally, behaving like a madman. For nearly two weeks, while I awaited fresh direction from my company and from US AID, John Bolton hounded me in such an appalling way that I eventually retreated to my hotel room and stayed there. Mr. Bolton, of course, then routinely visited me there to pound on the door and shout threats.
[clip]
John Bolton put me through hell -- and he did everything he could to intimidate, malign and threaten not just me, but anybody unwilling to go along with his version of events. His behavior back in 1994 wasn't just unforgivable, it was pathological.
I cannot believe that this is a man being seriously considered for any diplomatic position, let alone such a critical posting to the UN. Others you may call before your committee will be able to speak better to his stated dislike for and objection to stated UN goals. I write you to speak about the very character of the man.
It took me years to get over Mr. Bolton's actions in that Moscow hotel in 1994, his intensely personal attacks and his shocking attempts to malign my character.
[clip]
Who wouldn't want a personal invite to one of those rah-rah Bamboozlepalooza Social Security pep rallies? Oh the warm, friendly, compassionate folks you might meet!
posted by Sir Gumbo at 10:57 PM
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