Prairie Recommends: Joe Klein on GOP Nihilists

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Yes, I had to look it up. Nihilism.

Why didn't you just say it plain, Joe. Your argument strikes a familiar chord with my own belief, yes from the crucible of end-of-life circumstances for my dear husband, that the current Republican party is driven by their own sense of entitlement, bereft of a moral compass that would lead them to make their case based on facts rather than lies, distortions and fearmongering, and bowing down terrified to the Golden Calf that is Limbaugh. That reason and common good are anomalies in the Republican party and The Family's C Street mindset is the juggernaut that rules.

Moderation has been neutered in the Republican Party as decisively as Sarah Palin guttin' a goat*. Moral bankruptcy that preys on the muttonheads. Where is a Ralphie** when you need him? I've deliberately left out William Munny***, because unlike the Republicans who cower while right wing extremists and militia types have hijacked their party, I do not recommend violence or threat of violence as a solution.

Just courage from any of the cowering conservatives who have compromised every so-called value they bleat at the rest of us. Standing up, speaking out, not backing down.

Must reading today from Joe Klein.

* goat: antelope. Yes, I have hunted and gutted one myself. No faux bona fides here.
** Ralphie: Gene Shepherd's Christmas Story
*** William Munny: Clint Eastwood's The Unforgiven
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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

The Unforgiven

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Bit by bit, despite their fiercest efforts to hide the truth, the drip-drip-drip of the reality of criminality of the most disgraced [self-disgraced] administration in American history is coming out.

Today, a new chapter is added with the release of Jane Mayer's book, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals.

The briefest of introductions already make clear this is a book that should be required reading...by every babbling-head of The Village commentariat, by every Congressperson, by every student, by every voter, lest we forget. It's now #1 on my must-read list.

Froomkin's back, and his column gives a sample, via the words of New York Times columnist Frank Rich on the depths to which the Bush-Cheney Alliance cast aside principle, honor and the rule of law in embracing torture and barbarism as their guiding principle:

"The avalanche of misinformation since 9/11 has compromised prosecutions, allowed other culprits to escape and sent the American military on wild-goose chases....The biggest torture-fueled wild-goose chase, of course, is the war in Iraq."

And further, from Frank Rich, this:

The men were John Ashcroft’s deputy attorney general, James Comey, and an assistant attorney general, Jack Goldsmith. Their sin was to challenge the White House’s don, Dick Cheney, and his consigliere, his chief of staff David Addington, when they circumvented the Geneva Conventions to make torture the covert law of the land.

We've only a few months left of this bunch, the Deciderer is already lookin' forward, those visions of fillin' the ol' coffers dancin' in his head. The Bigtime Dick doubtless figuring what still needs to be shredded or destroyed. Rover runnin' over to Sweden dodging subpoenas....

Much work to be done to get us through election day. Much work to be done to restore the honor of a nation that Chee-knee and Cronies cast aside as recklessly as he shot an old guy in the face.

Will they get away with it? Will they stonewall and obfuscate and conveniently lapse their memories as they did on the Plame case, as they've done on the Tillman case, and laugh all the way to Purgatory?

Maybe they will, but they'll still be The Unforgiven. And the Bush family name and the Cheney family name will live in infamy.

Prairie Recommends Today:

tristero over at digby has a terrific post up that's must reading: Fear of Bush. People were scared, and he was determined to be dictator.