Enough

I picked up my NYWT this morning (yup, they've re-earned the "W" with the attempted Whitewatering of Barack Obama, their wailing and gnashing of teeth over Patrick Fitzgerald destroying the free press, and sundry other acts of whorishness, but I digress) to find that "conservatives" have risen up to demand a pardon for Lewis Libby.

So what is "conservative" about lying to Congress, the American people, and the world, systematically and ruthlessly, over nearly 18 months, in order to manipulate the nation into a disastrous, criminal war of aggression? What is "conservative" about deliberately disclosing a legitimate national security secret -- the identity of a covert agent tracking unconventional weapons programs in the Middle East, no less -- thereby destroying an intelligence operation built up over many years, in order to punish a public servant who had done his patriotic duty by refuting one of those "conservative" lies? What is "conservative" about lying in order to obstruct the investigation into this crime? And what is "conservative" about demanding that the president undo the workings of the criminal justice system?

What exactly does the word "conservative" mean nowadays? What does the Republican Party actually stand for? Does it have a coherent ideology, an articulatable vision of how the country should be governed? As far as I can tell, it's the party of insanity, the party of believing things that aren't true.

It is now a "conservative" belief that the earth is 6,000 years old, that humans used to ride around on dinosaurs, and that the Grand Canyon was made by Noah's flood.

It is now the "conservative" position that the international community of atmospheric scientists is nothing more than a vast conspiracy to undermine capitalism by fabricating conclusions about the effects of burning fossil fuels.

"Conservatives" believe that a fundamentalist version of Christianity, anchored in the Old Testament, should be the state religion of the United States, and should determine our laws, what is taught in school, and who is eligible for political office.

It is now a "conservative" point of view that the descent of Iraq into violent anarchy, the grinding decline of the U.S. armed forces, the nearly universal hatred and contempt for U.S. actions around the world, and the squandering of $2 trillion to achieve all this, have amounted to a triumphal success that has made us safer.

It is now the "conservative" theory that the President of the United States, merely by asserting the existence of a state of war, becomes not only Commander in Chief of the armed forces but also Commander in Chief of the nation, with unlimited, unaccountable power to ignore laws passed by Congress and to ignore the Constitution, including but not limited to the power to make any person, anywhere in the world, disappear into a secret dungeon, never to be seen again, to be tortured at the president's whim, with no legal recourse; the power to attack any nation on earth on a mere assertion that it may present a danger to the United States at some time in the future; the power to intercept communications, search private homes, even determine what library books people have been reading, without a warrant or judicial review and in total secrecy.


In other words, to be a "conservative" is to be a deranged fascist. A large majority of the people, in spite of the studied refusal of the corporate media to tell them the truth, have now recognized this. They do not want these people to be in power any longer. But the Democrats in Congress are still, apparently, terrified of them.

Richard Cheney and George W. Bush are both criminals. They are dangerous psychopaths. They hate America. They hate you, because you are not of their wealthy, powerful secretive tribe. They hate humanity. They must be impeached and removed from office. That is the only way to restore the Constitution and to create any hope of putting the United States on the right side of history.