Filibuster flip-flop for JESUS!

If you're like me your political memory extends back further than the last round of spin and yesterday's controversies; you remember the disgraceful Clinton impeachment, for example, and the trumped up "moral grounds" upon which it rested.

You may also remember how the pachyderms on high behaved before, during, and after their ascent to God-like and wrathful hegemony.

The Right has been saying for a while that the only reason they want to undo the venerable, 200-year tradition of Senate filibusters is to allow an up-or-down vote on each of the President's judicial candidates. There's no politics here, they say. They only want what's CONSTITUTIONAL...

These right wing phonies are counting on you to behave like helpless, passive, brain-injured sheep, and who knows, you may find some kinky thrill in that (particularly if there are costumes involved). But the GTL is here to remind you that you are citizens and have a responsibility to meet your civic duties.

Here's a question to frame the debates: Did the Republicans feel the same way about a candidate's "constitutional" right to an up or down vote when they were NOT in control? Or are they, like the moral relativists they so despise, flip-flopping on this issue?

Whaddaya think??

Thanks to Chuck Hagel (R-NE) for reminding us that the answer is NO. Prior to Bush the Younger and his heartless "crusade of good against evil," Republicans not only approved of blocking votes on judicial appointees, but did it themselves, far more often than the Democrats today...

SIXTY-TWO of Bill Clinton's judicial candidates NEVER EVEN MADE IT OUT OF COMMITTEE. No need for a filibuster when the death blow can be delivered in the deep dark nether regions of the Senate committee process.

I keep saying "if you're like me," so here I go again:

If you're like me you think of greedy, hypocritical, power-hungry, false "Christian" politicians as the scum of the Earth, as dangerous to liberty as a passel of al-qaeda terrorists.

Flush 'em OUT. Vote 'em DOWN.

It isn't just the filibuster, friends. Pretty soon they'll be coming for you. So keep your powder dry, alert on high, it's do-or-die.

Keepin' it real, keepin' it clean... keepin' it real clean

Reader SJS reminds the GTL that on the Internet one may write the word "s**t" without the asterisks (see comments on the April 21st post). I thank him heartily for his comment (he may be a she, by the way; if we're going to bust stereotypes, perhaps we shouldn't engage in them ourselves).

Let me clarify: the asterisks do not represent self-censorship, since everyone knows exactly what letters lurk underneath. I do this in order to keep ammunition out of the hands of those who might make an ad hominem attack on the GTL's sense of "morality" and seek to detract from our political analyses on this blog with pointless questions about propriety.

To put it another way, just because the President called a New York Times reporter a "major league a**hole" in public and the vice president told Pat Leahy to "go f**k [him]self" on the floor of the Senate, it doesn't mean this type of language is acceptable for mainstreamers. Gutter-trash talk is apparently okay for right-wing presidents and ideologues in government, but I'm thinking about all of your grandmothers out there who may feel unclean if confronted with a written expletive.

Thanks again, SJS, and for the record I am tickled pink that you would find this little blog interesting. Keep commenting! And for those of you who wish center-leftists like the GTL would simply vanish I say: you're a major league [Bushism]! Go [Cheney word] yourself!

Peace to all and watch out for falling house majority leaders!

On Bolton: In Praise of Lincoln (Chafee, not Abe)

It's national news: a Republican backing off due to a "pang of conscience."

The GTL has often wondered, with almost a hint of admiration, how modern Republican leaders are able to keep their troops in lockstep with ideas and schemes that are often obviously divorced from reality; "voodoo" economics, missile defense shields in space, abstinence-only sex education, Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, No Child Left Behind, the war on drugs, selling chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein, the war in Iraq. The list goes on and on.

Democrats are annoyingly diverse in their opinions; Republicans move en masse and leave introspection to the Left.

Today we sing the praises of Lincoln Chafee, the possessor of the missing Republican conscience. I'm glad it has finally turned up. With the dust blown from it, it almost looks brand new, never used.

I guess good ol' Lincoln could not fit those words into his mouth ("John Bolton is a good man") without being overwhelmed by the taste of s**t.

When the mob rules, loyalty is the only virtue. But mob rule is not a good thing, even when it's your own mob. Republicans will soon find that there is a price to pay for loyalty to folly. Just ask Colin Powell; had he refused to peddle the White House's weak line of "proof" on WMD, had he instead resigned in protest, he'd be poised for the presidency himself in 2008. Instead he stayed in lockstep with George's lies and finds himself without credibility, without a voice, and with a dubious political future. Shoulda listened to HIS "pang of conscience."

All hail the pang! Thanks and praises to Lincoln Chafee!

Coming soon: Shoot All Day: My First .22 Automatic.