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Circus Nation

Sep 10, 2008

maha

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I stayed quiet when the National Enquirer broke the Edwards story and didn’t comment on it until Edwards confessed. This I will submit without comment, except to ask, could this cover swing an election?

I think this is the damnedest presidential election campaign I have ever seen, and I’ve seen a few of ‘em, buckaroos. E.J. Dionne is stunned for the same reasons, and he’s seen at least as many campaigns as I have.

Meanwhile — as goes the Palin family, so goes the Department of the Interior.

As Congress prepares to debate expansion of drilling in taxpayer-owned coastal waters, the Interior Department agency that collects oil and gas royalties has been caught up in a wide-ranging ethics scandal — including allegations of financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct.

In three reports delivered to Congress on Wednesday, the department’s inspector general, Earl E. Devaney, found wrongdoing by a dozen current and former employees of the Minerals Management Service, which collects about $10 billion in royalties annually and is one of the government’s largest sources of revenue other than taxes.

“A culture of ethical failure” besets the agency, Mr. Devaney wrote in a cover memo.

The reports portray a dysfunctional organization that has been riddled with conflicts of interest, unprofessional behavior and a free-for-all atmosphere for much of the Bush administration’s watch.

I can already hear Keith Olbermann comparing this to that classic Department of the Interior scandal — Teapot Dome.

People used to speak of Teapot Dome in hushed, shocked tones, stunned that such a thing could have happened in the United States. Now it seems rather mild. Just business as usual in the Bush Administration.

(Singing)

You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns
When they all come down and did tricks for you
You never understood that it ain’t no good
You shouldn’t let other people get your kicks for you
You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain’t it hard when you discover that
He really wasn’t where it’s at
After he took from you everything he could steal.
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

Sorta fits my mood.

Spotlight

12 Comments

Swami • Sep 10, 2008 @5:40 pm

McCain pleads to America…”I won’t let you down”. He already has!. He’d rather divide our nation than lose this election. Where is the honor in that? McCain’s claims of dedication and love for America poses a scriptual contradiction also…Love does not seek its own!
moonbat • Sep 10, 2008 @6:16 pm

This is the damnedest election, and it has yet to head into the final lap. More frightening stuff, the conservative Alliance Defense Fund is recruiting pastors to endorse a candidate from the pulpit on Sept 28. This is part of their plan to challenge the 54 year old IRS ban on political speech from the pulpit. Theocracy, anyone?

I hope corroboration comes soon to the National Enquirer story. It is good that they were previously proved right regarding John Edwards, they have some credibility. Just an opinion, but I find it quite plausible that Palin’s kids are a lot like the picture painted in the Enquirer, given their environment. Imagine – the National Enquirer saving the country.

What strikes me so much about McCain/Palin is their willingness to be fitted into a machine. McCain long ago shed whatever maverick tendencies he may have once had, and supports whatever the party says he needs to support. There was a Star Trek episode, where Kirk and Spock landed on a planet redolent of Nazi Germany. It featured a drugged up old leader who periodically gave speeches to the TV camera, and that’s McCain.

Palin is remarkable in many ways. Foremost at this time is the way she’s been shielded from the public, and a “new feminist”, “supermom” image created for her. No interviews unless proper deference as shown – and I’m sure that tool Charles Gibson will be properly deferential. Just don’t look too closely at the kids.

The intensity of the fight from the right says much about their own sense of desperation, despite what all of us may be feeling these last few days. All they have is lies and the most amazing marketing machine ever built. Will they prevail? Stay tuned.
uncledad • Sep 10, 2008 @7:30 pm

Teapot dome becomes a well sung folk song. How does it feel? To be on your own?

Eventually reality will take hold. Eventually the sillyness will be laughed at. I was sitting in a local lunch joint (name don’t matter) when my friends realized, wow if we stay the course, who will pay for our lunch?
erinyes • Sep 10, 2008 @8:42 pm

http://www.salon.com/opinion/keillor/2008/09/10/palin/
I really like Mr. Keillor
Doug Hughes • Sep 10, 2008 @9:14 pm

What’s amazing is how scripted this all is from the inrtoduction of the ‘mystery VP candidate’, to the hype they fed the evangelical base, to the ‘pit-bull’ speech. The Republican convention leading up to the Palin speech, was intended to provoke the Obama campaign and Obama did not react. (They were supposed to strike back against Palin, but Obama kept acting like he’s running against McCain.) This was inconvenient because on cue the McCain campaing was screaming ‘Sarah Palin is a victim!’, they could not name a single example or instance. So now they are pretending an insult (where there was none) because the script calls for John McCain to come out as ‘daddy’ and ‘defend’ the honor of SP, who has been insulted by the big bad Obama… And all America, weaned on reality shows, is eating this up, oblivious to the fact that this is as authentic as pro wrestling.

Which brings us to the Enquirer. This screws up the plot completely. Because America loves a scandal even more then a supehero.(or superheroine) McCain can’t play the role of daddy defending the honor or SP, if she’s a cheap politician, with a totally dysfunctional family, and wacko religious book-banning tendancies, if the bridge to nowhere story is as phony as Sadam & his WMD.

The Republicans HAVE to hold the fantasy together until November, and the MSM was going to defer to the intended Palin narrative, but the Enquirer won’t so the question is.. will the MSM cover the Enquirer as if they are a story. It gives the MSM the chance to say what they would not otherwise have the balls to say. “According to a story about the Palin family in the Enquirer…..” or The McCain camp is asking a judge to prohibit the Enquirer from publishing a story which reportedly says…”
uncledad • Sep 10, 2008 @9:48 pm

Coment by swami
s • Sep 10, 2008 @10:52 pm

Maybe this explains how she could need travel expenses when she was supposed to be at home.
Wonder if the rest of the news agencies will let the Enquirer scoop them on this too.
biggerbox • Sep 11, 2008 @1:23 am

Pat Buchanan on the Rachel Maddow show helped me realize an important factor. Those who love Palin love her for reasons that have nothing to do with her performance as governor, or what lies she may tell about it. They aren’t proceeding from a rational (sane?) process.

They love her because she’s a pentecostal Christianist extremist, and because she pisses off their liberal enemies. That’s her qualification. I doubt that discovering her children are messed-up spoiled druggies will make a difference. Hell, in their topsy-turvy thinking, it might actually make them love her more, if that’s possible. I’d think that, if the rumor about her affair is true, it would deflate her, but I don’t actually know how her supporters would take it.

They don’t think like sane people.
expat • Sep 11, 2008 @5:00 am

Looking from afar.

The Circus is in town, stop all thought, stop all analysis, stop all.

Nattering nabobs rule; all reason is lost. With reason lost, so the party is lost. With the party lost, the office is lost. With the office lost, the government is lost. With the government lost, so the nation is lost. And with the nation lost, so to is the world.

This was my comment elsewhere, please excuse my copying here. Maybe it can be of utility.

“There should be noted a strong similarity between Sarah Palin and Kirstie Alley’s character in “Drop Dead Gorgeous”. Both are the “cheerleader” type, a phenomenon particular to the U.S., where a culture has developed around a “social alpha” (as distinct from biological alpha) characteristics. For generations now, the population of the U.S. has been exposed to such socialization, it is not even thought of anymore so natural has it become. The Social Alpha have developed a multitude of “games” to play, designed to obtain and maintain the Alpha status. Those having Biological Alpha status fall mainly into two groups; one demonstrating superior ability; the other, acting out their alpha dominance are consigned to class troublemakers.

It appears that the choice of Sarah Palin is designed precisely to take advantage of her Social Alpha status in a national population socialized for generations to accept, support, and follow submissively that status of social leaders. No one will question her apparent status even in the face of demonstrable fact of illegality and malfeasance. It is the best camouflage to cover the grave deficits of John S. McCain, his record, his utter disability and dementia; No one will seriously question the “cheerleader”, ever. That is where the danger lies. The only sure counter involves overcoming the socialization of a nation. Social alphas are never seen to do wrong, just like in the movie. This social alpha must be seen by her record of perfidy, illegality, and malfeasance. She has prospered by the lie, let her politically perish by her lies.”

Disgust is the overwhelming attitude being generated. Both candidates promise to continue the ongoing war crimes, crimes against humanity. There is no lesser of two evils. I will not vote for either.
It is a sorry state when the only recourse to resolving a problem, is when the total and complete collapse of the system causing egregious harm, is the only answer.
The country is bankrupt, the government is bankrupt, the ideology is bankrupt, the politicians are bankrupt, education is bankrupt, history is bankrupt, the mythology is bankrupt, it follows the people are bankrupt as well.

Maybe there can be happier times.
erinyes • Sep 11, 2008 @7:22 am

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravina_Island_Bridge
Steve M. • Sep 11, 2008 @11:11 am

I think this is the damnedest presidential election campaign I have ever seen, and I’ve seen a few of ‘em, buckaroos. E.J. Dionne is stunned for the same reasons, and he’s seen at least as many campaigns as I have.

First, just stop listening to the Very Smart People who keep telling you that this election won’t be decided by a running mate because no election ever has been. Big-league pols aren’t supposed to survive multiple sex scandals, yet Bill Clinton did. There’s a first time for everything.

They’ve sold her as being qualified enough. For most voters, her ticket’s punched on that score, alas. So the rest is all personality — and there’s nothing new about that.

Wrap your mind around the fact that she’s the presidential candidate and he’s (to mix metaphors) the CEO emeritus turned semiretired board chairman (with an office still, but no real responsibilities except as a figurehead) and it’s all perfectly comprehensible.
Steve M. • Sep 11, 2008 @11:35 am

So rry, I didn’t mean that to sound harsh. And yeah, it is weird. But it’s comprehensible if you just accept that what you’re seeing is really what’s happening, even though it’s never happened before.