Thursday, October 19, 2006

the final decrepit stage

* blumenthal:
"The spectacle of hypocrisy, impunity and corruption engulfing the Republican Congress has its origins in its rise in 1994, extolled as the party's "revolution". First came the Republican Lenin - the speaker, Newt Gingrich - determined to annihilate his enemies and extirpate the "counter-culture". But after twice causing parts of the federal government to shut down and being cited for ethics violations, Gingrich was forced to resign, on the eve of Clinton's impeachment trial, by fellow Republicans. (They had private knowledge: Gingrich promptly abandoned his second wife for the mistress he had maintained on the House payroll for years).

The next speaker, Bob Livingston, resigned almost at once when the pornographer Larry Flynt threatened to release recordings of Livingston moaning in the company of his mistress, which Flynt had purchased from the scorned woman. Into that vacuum the most powerful figure in the House, the then whip and later majority leader Tom DeLay (nicknamed "the exterminator" for his pest control business), inserted a dull, reliable frontman - Dennis Hastert, known as "coach" for supervising school wrestling in small-town Illinois, his greatest previous distinction.

DeLay was the Republican Stalin, a ruthless consolidator and centraliser. His K Street project forged an iron triangle of lobbyists, special interests and Republicans that he believed would rule forever. But DeLay overreached and was indicted for corruption. Hastert was left to fend for himself.
[]
The concatenation of scandals is shattering the last shards of "revolution". "Reform" has metastasised into the Abramoff scandal, "culture war" into the Foley cover-up. And Hastert has transmuted from omnipotent Brezhnev into ghostly Chernenko, presiding over the final decrepit stage.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

i LOVE Sidney Blumenthal and Larry Flynt.

lukery said...

apparently larry flynt was bullshitting :-)

«—U®Anu§—» said...

Congress gutted posse comitatus three weeks ago when it passed the National Defense Authorization Act of 2006, it was pointed out to me tonight. I haven't read it, it's over 700 pages and I'm sure that provision is well hidden. It allows the federal government to use the national guard from one state in another state for police functions without either governors' permission. I remember talk about it, but I wasn't aware it passed.

Added to the Military Commissions Act and the fact we have several ships overloaded with ballistic missiles scheduled to arrive off the coast of Iran Saturday, and I'd say we're in for one hell of a ride, because, as Stan Goff says, Rumsfeld knows public perception about war is critical (and the fed may be facing open rebellion over their advancing adventurism).

Anonymous said...

Larry Flynt was bullshitting? LOL! before the 04 election he said he was splitting the country if bu$hCo won. i used to check his site but never found out if he actually did.

although i was against the entire idea of Hustler when it first came out, after seeing 'the people vs. larry flynt' and especially after he stepped up and was extremely vocal against bu$hCo, i totally love where his head's at.

ps, the film's great--Courtney Love (who i normally hate) is perfect as his wife (i met Althea, the dead wife, and LF ages ago when i worked for HT).