Chimpeachment

Ron at CenterFace is very cool in throwing the love in this direction on this fine fucking hot day, and in his thoughts on our (as he put it) putative independence, this sentence in particular leaped out at me:

Impeachment is not off the table, you twinks.

Exactly. Just as in war and diplomacy, you never voluntarily take anything off the table in politics. Ever. In this particular case, it is highly likely that the commutation of Scooter Libby is an attempt to quash the revelation of crimes and misdeeds much higher up. This is obvious.

The politicians of this country made a tremendous mistake, imho, in initiating an effort to "heal" and "reconcile" the nation after Watergate. Specifically, it enabled animals such as Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld to remain on the periphery of respectability, and accede to positions of power that should only be held by responsible adults. Thirty years later, the nation continues to bear the brunt of misdeeds and malfeasance perpetrated by the sort of people who should have been purged from the government back then. Goddammit, unrepentant killers like Elliott Abrams and John Negroponte are in key national security positions. What kind of ridiculous bullshit is that?

The threat of impeachment, much like the presence of nuclear armaments, carries with it at least some deterrent threat. Efforts to get all kumbaya with a soulless cadre of shiv-carrying bastards will -- quel surprise -- get your ass shanked, with no remorse whatsoever. You are not doing anyone any favors by trying to "work with" such folks. People who think virtue is its own reward need to get out of the house once in a while.

That is why these Unity-Hey-Can't-We-Just-Get-Along deals are just scams. It's nothing more than a political Ponzi scheme to defer true accountability. There are no longer any good faith arguments to be made for continuing to implement bone-headed, futile policies. There's just no getting around that, and Republicans who can't divorce themselves from a failed, corrupt, and utterly incompetent administration do not deserve to be brought back in the fold under the guise of "unity". It's not unity, it's just stupidity. Either you're ready for something different, or you're not.

The real lesson to pull from Watergate and apply to the current administration is that there is more to the concept of accountability than merely seeing to it that wrongdoers are punished. It's also ensuring that these things don't keep happening, and the way to ensure that they don't continue is to get rid of them. Tough concept, I know. But one that is vital for our fearless opposition party to truly internalize. They need to quit selling themselves -- and us -- short, because there is just no upside to it for them -- or, again, for us.

I expect Scooter Libby to serve the sentence that was duly meted out by a Bush-appointed judge, after trial by a jury of citizens, prosecuted by a Republican prosecutor with an absolutely spotless record of performance and integrity. I don't think that's too much to ask, and I don't think it's too much to ask my elected representatives to do everything within reason to intervene in that cause, to make an honest effort to put these creeps in their place.

Either this is a country of laws, and not men, or it is not. If not, and if our legislators don't so anything about it, then maybe it's time to just tip the whole thing over, start again. At some point, we have to be tired enough of this shameless bullshit to step up and re-iterate that we are the bosses, and that the motto of this country, no matter what Fredo thinks, is not "Because I Said So".