The Bush Rules

One of the most amazing aspects of the Bush Bust-Out is that the con-men running the show have made no bones about their contempt for the people they’re fleecing — i.e., us. Of course Cheney and Bush sneer at poll numbers showing the majority of Americans living outside of insane asylums can’t wait to see them gone. They’ve never been about anything but padding their pockets, expanding their power and opening up the public coffers to looting by their cronies. As far as Bush is concerned, his only “accountability moment” came in 2004, when he managed to scam his way back into the job his daddy’s buddies appointed him to. Every time he spoke in public after that, there should have been subtitles reading, You had your chance and you blew it, now don’t come bitching to me.

I’ve already suggested that Barack Obama should simply give his spending intiatives names like the Blowing Up Dark-skinned People in the Desert Act, or the Kick Muslim Ass Act, or the Feed Hungry Millionaires Act because everybody knows wars and tax cuts never have to be paid for. And if Republicans try to block him in Congress, or if his currently stellar poll numbers should drop, Obama should simply get up there and say, “In the words of my predecessor, I had my accountability moment in November 2008. You got a problem with that, go cry to Sean Hannity.”

The Bush admninistration has set the bar so low that a new basement has to be dug to give it clearance. Even if Obama does nothing but keep the Pentagon from getting hit by another airliner, or keep another natural disaster from wiping out an American city, he will have been a roaring success — by Bush rules.

Base Thoughts

Not that I expect anyone to be interested, but just for the sake of having it on record, let me say I am not at all happy about a bigoted Jesus-whooping wackaloon like Rick Warren being invited to deliver the invocation at Obama’s inauguration. I can only hope Warren’s willingness to appear causes as much distress to his wingnut evangelical base as it does to Obama’s progressive and liberal supporters. Maybe Obama thinks he can peel a few whoopers away from the GOP’s base.

I wanna be a base, too. I want to be part of a group so powerful and committed to political change that candidates have to be ready to throw us a bone or two just to ensure that we troop to the polls on the relevant day.

The best way to accomplish that is to avoid the impulse to sulk, say the whole system is rigged against the left and stomp off to mutter into one’s coffee. I voted for Obama with my eyes open and my mind clear. The comedic ravings from the Republicans about Obama’s plans for a Marxist revolution may have led some people to imagine he was a dream candidate for the Left, but anyone with a functioning cerebral cortex knew that was not the case.  Obama wasn’t a dream, but after eight years of nightmare a return to basic sanity was overdue.

If I were going to be in Washington for the ceremony, I would make a point of standing with my back to Warren as he spoke — there’s nothing that pouch-faced clown has to say that’s of any interest to a rational person. But as soon as he finished babbling, I’d turn back to the stage and start paying attention. We should all keep paying attention, too.

Just remember, Jesse Jackson and Pat Robertson both ran in the presidential primaries of their respective parties a couple of decades ago, and they both got shellacked. But Robertson kept his organization together, and within a few years Republicans were lining up to kiss his ring. Jackson let his organization fall apart, and within a few years he was a national footnote, hanging around the Capitol and asking to be made a “shadow senator” like a guy with a cup in his hand.

So pay attention to what Obama does, and when he does bad, get organized and make him pay for it. The conservatives have wrecked the country, and people are ready to hear what the Left has to say. Our job is to speak, and make sure Obama listens.

ADDENDUM: I like what this Balloon Juice commenter has to say:

If you followed the internal politics of evangelical and fundamentalist leaders, you’d see this for what it is—not an elevation of Warren, but a slap in the face of the old guard leaders like Dobson and LaHaye. They’ve been fighting to see who gets to be the spokesman for the movement, and lately it’s been a tie. Obama just broke it.

And let’s be clear, there is a difference between those groups. Warren may not be progressive on gay rights, but he’s been out front on a number of issues of global justice—traveling from Davos to Damascus, and working hard to get rank-and-file evangelicals invested in “creation care” environmentalism and the fight against global HIV/AIDS.

If he were put in charge of HHS or listened to on gay policies, I’d be pissed. But what Obama is doing here isn’t that. It’s a move that marginalizes the worst on the religious right, elevates a guy who’s more progressive than most religious leaders on a number of issues, and earns him some moderate cred at the outset.

If Obama sells out on the progressive promise in actual policy, I’ll be in the streets protesting with everyone else. But if his “selling out” is having a fairly moderate, popular evangelical give the invocation at the inaugural—when large sections of this country still worry Obama’s a scary evil Mooooslim—then who gives a flying fuck?

One crucial difference between Obama and the Clintons is that Chicago is a much tougher playground that Little Rock, and that experience gave Obama the kind of political street-smarts that helped him beat not just one but two candidates the mass market punditry had declared unbeatable. And he did it all while hardly breaking stride, or a sweat. He plays it close to the vest, that one. Everything I said above still applies, but let’s not start rending our garments and screaming betrayal just yet, okay?

Just Say No — To Joe

Since there are probably quite a few blue dogs and concern trolls (as well as at least one rather confused Democrat named Evan Bayh) out there ready to whine for magnanimity in dealing with Joe “Obama’s a Marxist” Lieberman, here’s Ezra Klein with a very practical argument for giving the sanctimonious clown his walking papers:

Lieberman wants to keep his committee as a hedge against retribution. So long as he controls Governmental Affairs, he’s not the sort of guy Democrats want on a warpath against them. Elsewhere, they can take him seriously, or screw him over, largely as they please, which most would probably find a preferable alternative. But I basically side with the “kick him out” folks. Unlike Arlen Specter, whose minor heterodoxies ended with a pathetic show of groveling and a solemn promise to never, ever, in a million years, ever say an unkind word about one of Bush’s judicial nominees, Lieberman’s major betrayal of the Democratic Party has been accompanied by a promise to bolt to the Republicans Party if he’s not sufficiently stroked. That’s not the sort of guy you want in a position of oversight.

As for those who might think Joe the Ho is no longer in a position to do any real harm, let Steve Benen lay out the facts on the ground:

This seems to be routinely overlooked, but take a moment to consider what the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs actually does: it’s the committee principally responsible for oversight of the executive branch. It’s an accountability committee, charged with investigating the conduct of the White House and the president’s administration.

As chairman of this committee for the last two years, Lieberman decided not to pursue any accusations of wrongdoing against the Bush administration. Lieberman’s House counterpart — Rep. Henry Waxman’s Oversight Committee — was a vigilant watchdog, holding hearings, issuing subpoenas, and launching multiple investigations. Lieberman preferred to let his committee do no real work at all. It was arguably the most pathetic display of this Congress.

And yet, now Lieberman acts as if keeping this chairmanship is the single most important part of his public life. Why would he be so desperate to keep the gavel of a committee he hasn’t used? I’ll let you in on a secret: he wants to start using the power of this committee against Obama.

Lieberman didn’t want to hold Bush accountable, but he seems exceedingly anxious to keep the committee that would go after Obama with a vengeance, effectively becoming a Waxman-like figure — holding hearings, issuing subpoenas, and launching investigations against the Democratic president.

Lieberman doesn’t care about “reconciliation,” he cares about going after a Democratic administration. Why else would he fight diligently to be chairman of one committee instead of another?

Lieberman was worse than useless as Al Gore’s running mate, spent the next eight years sucking up to the worst president in U.S. history and did his best to undermine Obama’s campaign. This election was about clearing the bums out. It’s the job of Connecticut voters to decide if they want to stick with the man who lied to their faces in order to keep his Senate seat, but meanwhile let’s follow Josh Orton’s advice on how to push Harry Reid into doing the right thing.

The Write Stuff

Prices for autographed copies of President-Elect Barack Obama’s books just took a big jump on the collectible market. His predecessor? Not so much, though those prices are still pretty high. Even so, I’m not sure a book inscribed by Gorge-Us George is worth that kind of tariff – crayon signatures smear so easily. And I like to think books are worth more when people believe the authors actually wrote them.

Policy Proposal I

When he makes his first social program proposals, President Obama should give them names like “The Blowing-Up Brown-Skinned People in the Desert Act” and “Entrepreneurial Tax Enhancement Act.” Because in pundit land, wars and tax cuts never have to be paid for, and all the intellect-shills who whooped and hollered for Gorge-Us George’s loot-and-plunder philosophy are going to start talking about austerity and fiscal prudence as soon as Obama takes the oath of office. A name that makes them nostalgic for the days of “Kick Their Ass and Take Their Gas” will keep them distracted long enough to get some sound policies enacted.

The Bouncing-Bush Bounce

It will be interesting to follow the reaction of world financial markets to the news that Bush and the Republicans are both getting bounced out of power. I don’t have a crystal ball or anything, but it can only help to have the world realize one of the world’s major economic powers will no longer be under the control of crooks, wingnut ideologues and Rapturist head cases.