A Rant In Historical Perspective

On this day ten years ago, the House of Representatives voted to impeach Bill Clinton based on his perjury, obstruction of justice, and abuse of power during the Lewinsky scandal. Lead by moral crusader Henry Hyde, who himself engaged in a five-year long affair with a married woman with children, the bills of impeachment barely passed and solely along party lines.

I remember this shit. I remember supporting Clinton's impeachment only because I wanted to tell my kids someday, "Yeah, I lived through a presidential impeachment." Of course, I was 13 years old and didn't understand that "impeachment" and "removal from office" are two totally different legal concepts. Clinton, of course, was never removed from office; that vote in the Senate barely failed and solely along party lines.

I don't think I need to get into how utterly ridiculous the whole Lewinsky thing is vis-a-vis everything that's happened under Bush. But it just highlights this theory of mine that we allow Republicans to get away with things we'd never allow Democrats to even think about. I vaguely remember how outraged Republicans were at the Monica thing and at Clinton's "complete disrespect of the law." I concretely remember how Bush's "complete disrespect of the law" post-9/11 didn't bother the GOP in the slightest. Wiping his ass with the Constitution? Silence. Making shit up about WMDs in Iraq? Silence. Fucking torturing guys? Silence.

Actually, they haven't been silent. They've been vociferously in favor of all that, or at the very least complicit in its perpetuation. What a difference ten years can make! Ten years ago, if you sat in front of the U.S. Congress and made shit up about an embarrassing private fuck-up, you were excoriated and held up as an example of the moral decay we godless liberals started in the 60s. Today, if you sit in front of the U.S. Congress the United fucking Nations and make shit up to get us into an illegal, unnecessary, unwinable war, you're hailed as a hero who's "kept us safe."

"Everything changed on 9/11," they whine. No it didn't. Or at least it didn't have to. How many of you think that if Bush were a Democrat who lied to everyone's faces about Iraq's capabilities to manufacture weapons and its "airtight" ties to 9/11 and Osama bin Laden, then invaded the country on those pretenses, then have it be revealed everything he ever said about the reasons for war was bullshit, then have said war devolve into a chaotic shitfight with Iraqi insurgents and a nascent al-Qaeda base, then change the reasons for war to fluffy sounding crap like "liberation" and "spreading democracy," that he would have survived politically for more than a second after declaring "mission accomplished" in his dumb, fake jumpsuit? If Bush the Democrat tried this shit, we would have impeached him, removed him from office, and deleted him from the White House homepage before "American Idol" that night.

OK, this is getting long but one last point. I think it was just last week, Dick Cheney did an interview where he basically admitted that he knew the pre-war intelligence was made-up nonsense and that an invasion of Iraq had been planned before 9/11. He said that even knowing then what we all know now, he still would have pushed to invade Iraq. He also casually admitted to authorizing torture at Gitmo. And the response from the Republican peanut gallery? "Bush kept us safe!" Yeah, safe from our rights, prosperity, science, our allies, and our once pretty damn good global standing.

Yeah, Clinton is a scumbag in a lot of ways but come the fuck on! How goddamn quaint does his impeachment seem now! It's almost cute how in 1998, the Republicans made it sound like the biggest threat to national security was Bill Clinton's penis. It was also in 1998 that al-Qaeda bombed those two American embassies in Africa and bin Laden issued his second fatwa against the U.S. It makes one wonder what better things the FBI could have been investigating instead of Monica Lewinsky, Linda Tripp, and seimen samples from a blue dress. Thanks, Republicans! I'll always remember how your party "kept us safe" in the 21st Century.

Local Randomness and Maudlin Self-Reflection

It's snowing! It's our first measurable snowfall of the year and the whole area is overreacting, as usual. Schools let out two hours early and most other public buildings closed early as well.

Yeah, I know. This isn't very exciting... until you realize that it was a humid, sunny 58 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday. It's a good thing this climate change thing is nothing more than liberal scare tactics rather than an empirical historical trend. Fuck you, Al! And now for a completely gratuitous Simpsons quote:

"Could this record-breaking heat wave be the result of the dreaded 'greenhouse effect'? Well, if 70-degree days in the middle of winter are the 'price' of car pollution, then you'll forgive me if I keep my old Pontiac"- Kent Brockman

I had a job interview today! The job is for a part-time census-taker position. Actually, it wasn't an interview, it was a test. I had to take a standardized test in a room full of other potential applicants. It was a test divided into sections designed to measure our strengths in particular areas of intellect (ie verbal, math, etc). Sort of like the SAT. I suddenly realized the absurdity of the situation when it dawned on me that I took the SAT exactly six years ago this month...in a room not unlike the room I sat in today. And when I was taking said SAT six years ago, I certainly thought I was preparing myself for a job beyond the one I was applying for today. I did manage to graduate from college (finally, after five years) but for what? To end up taking a test in a room full of people who were all easily at least twenty years older than me, some so old I was convinced they'd probably signed up for a job like this during the last depression?

It's almost enough to make me depressed...until I realize I don't really care. The job only lasts ten weeks and the pay is insane. I do realize that the time is coming for me to make a decision: to be (a grad student) or not to be. Or to continue down this path of working random jobs far below my skill set for a few weeks at a time because I'm too lazy to move away from this shithole hometown I loathe.

But this intrapersonal melodrama is gonna have to wait. Rachel Maddow's on!

Look How Far We've Come

My favorite president is Thomas Jefferson. He was a genius in about everything he did (outside of the slave raping). He supported the full funding of education from kindergarten through university level. He wrote his own bible. He provided his personal library to start the Library of Congress. He negotiated the Louisiana Purchase. He was also a fellow dreaded secular progressive.

It always cracks me up to hear the Bill O'Reillys of the nation rant and rave about the nefarious impact people like me have on society with our wacky, liberal beliefs. I hate to break it to these people but we were a nation founded by secular progressives. Actually, we were founded by a group of secular radicals. The great thing about men like Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, et al (and there are many great things about them) is that none of them would be considered great today. They'd be vilified by people like O'Reilly and reduced to some kind of wailing banshee demon like Howard Dean. It's like we started at the top and have just been sliding downhill ever since.

We've just gotten progressively dumber and (coincidentally) more religious over the years, which is completely bizarre and at odds with every other fucking First World country on earth. All those grand cathedrals in Europe may look impressive on postcards but come Sunday, they're as empty as the Federal Reserve. I was thinking about an exchange Bill Maher (my hero) had with Larry King a while back on this same topic. Larry said (I'm paraphrasing): "FDR always said 'I never went wrong relying on the American people.'" To which Bill Maher replied, "Well, people were smarter back then."

Maybe tv's to blame. Maybe the Internet. It just feels like we've devolved to the point where we're so narcissistic (and so very very dumb) that we could go, in just 199 years, from electing a man like Jefferson to electing a totally emotionally retarded, cipher, frat boy whose longest held job title pre-presidency was "alcoholic."

I am happy we elected Obama, because I feel like his victory sort of balanced out the past eight years of madness, but we'll be dealing with the repercussions of Bush's breathtaking ineptitude for years and years to come. And for that, I'd like to give a heartfelt "fuck you" to the red states for allowing this man to ransack America for nearly a decade. Because, really, without you, it wouldn't have been possible.

There's Only One President at a Time

OK, B. We know. You don't have to say it everytime you're on tv or giving one of your youtube speeches. Of course, it'd be great if Bush would abdicate right now. I was thinking that pretty vehemently during that shit in India last week. I can't wait until it's popular, fresh-faced B. Hussein Obama talking down countries rather than flaming asshole hypocrite George Bush. 45 more days! And you know Dude could still invade Iran.

Sort of piggybacking off of yesterday's post, I was conversing recently with a Republican friend of mine who isn't a huge fan of our president-elect. And it suddenly hit me then that now I am able to use all those sore winner phrases on Republicans that they were so fond of four years ago. So I told this friend, "You lost, get over it" and "This is America, love it or leave it." And it was everything I thought it could be. Being a prick is bipartisan, bitch!

Moving on to horrific economic news, the current US unemployment is 6.7% and the big boys predict it could hit as high as 10% by early next year. While this is definitely shitty news, it's not going to get as high as the 25-30% it was at the height of the Great Depression. *whew* For a second, I thought George Bush had turned us into France.

Man, fuck this decade. I prefer to live in the 90s that still exists in my own warped mind. I lionize the 90s the way Republicans masturbate gently over black and white images of the 50s. I loved the 90s: The Secret World of Alex Mac, Clarissa Explains It All, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Hanging with Mr. Cooper, My Brother and Me, All That, Ren and Stimpy, Hey Arnold, Beverly Hills 90210 (which totally owned The fucking O.C.). *sighs* Here's a little ode to the 90s: