Who Betrayed Blimp?

If one were to talk of party betrayal, it would involve supposedly conservative corporate elites who talk disingenuously of diversity and opportunity while they lobbied to ignore the law, and get their hands on as many illegal cheap laborers as they could to the callous detriment of the working citizen poor.

Thee cannot fairly complain, Mr. Bones, that Rear-Colonel V. D. H. Blimp refuses to call the shots as he sees em. Perhaps one might, though, subtract a few points for the specimen’s overawareness of its own frank and straightforward blimpicity,

I supposed one could cop out, and claim that there is truth in all three explanations . . . .

Oh, well, nobody is perfect. Not even on the pseudocampus or in the hippocampus of the American Ideological Enterprise is everybody perfect, sir. Believe it or not! (And remember, thee heard it here first!)

The imperfection that more immediately concerns us, is the one attributed -- or perhaps one should say, attempted to be attributed -- to "supposedly conservative corporate elites." Though the SCCE doubtless have their petty and endearin’ faults, yet they are also fairy godparents to all those AEIdeologues and Hoovervillains and Heritagitarians and Catoholics that shed such radiant lustre all across our holy Homeland. I mean, is not the good neocomrade colonel rather bitin’ the Invisible Hand when he blusters like that?

Castle Blimp condescends to camouflage itself at least a little -- admits of "a fuzzy, kumbaya veneer" as VDHB calls the same ploy when America’s party does it -- to the extent of "If one were to talk of party betrayal." As if, that is, there was a merely abstract case to be put against the xenophiliac SCCE, a case that Blimp does not care to associate himself with personally, but mentions only because it were better the Party of Grant and Atwater heard about its problems first from a candid friend rather than a cultivated despiser or wannabe wrecker. Blimp’s own loyalty to the PGA is above reproach -- how should the faithfulness of a geistliche Militärist be other than stainless? Some of the neocomrade colonel’s weaker siblin’s, however, may feel perplexed, if not actually ‘betrayed’, by RiNO tolerance of crimmigrants.

The veneer is not laid on so thick that one cannot see through it. What the GOP geniuses ought to do about the Criminalien Menace™ to gratify their own base-and-vile is plain as day, it seems to me. Obviously there ought to be lots of loud barks and bellows against shiftless wetbacks occasionin’ scorn for Rulalaw in the negligible public sector, whilst over in the Sacred Private Sector, the SCCE should -- needless to spell this out! -- continue to dance the laisser faire fandango as usual. With the addition of some first-rate soundproofin’ interposed between the two unequal compartments, the problem should then be taken care of for a generation or two.

When Juan and Juanita eventually reach the tipping point where they can regularly swing elections, further steps will become necessary -- but that will be then, and this is only now. [1]

Blimp seems -- yet ’tis but a mere seemin’, I think -- positively to envenom his fangs before assailin’ the Invisible Hand: "to the CALLOUS DETRIMENT of the working citizen poor" is worthy of Neocomrade P. J. Buchanan himself. Golly! AEIdeology is in a sad shambles if its paladins have given up pretendin’ that the OnePercenters could hardly fail to benefit the good or workin’ poor if they aimed at that mark deliberately. Blimp barks of good workin’ citizen poor for obvious anti-crimmigrant reasons, but so would neocomrade Buchanan. Nevertheless, one can and should take PJB to really mean what he barks, whereas Rear-Col. Blimp is merely layin’ on another coat of shellac. [2]

The Criminalien Menace™ does not seem adequate in itself to VDHB, it requires to be fleshed out with le wourtzelbacherisme en Amérique along the following lines:

Wall Street zillionaires ... can hire costly consultants to find exemptions not available to most plumbers or electrical contractors. Even when they choose to endow favorite causes they prefer tax exemptions — either now with write-offs, or postmortem without estate taxes — and de facto have the taxpayer subsidize their particular take on proper policy. Unfortunately, the Republicans failed to even develop such an argument that the very poor and the very wealthy in cynical fashion [3] support liberal policies, while those in between who struggle in entrepreneurial fashion to do even better are caricatured as unpatriotic and selfish.

Thee will see at once, Mr. Bones, that Blimp proposes to recycle Lady Nixon's "plain Republican cloth coat."

Suppose we were to ask which fashion the good neocomrade colonel himself proceeds in when he vends his latest tripe and baloney. Is Blimp bein’ ‘cynical’, do thee think, sir, or is he rather bein’ ‘entrepreneurial’?

What’s that? . . . "So why can't he be both simultaneously?"? . . . Indeed, indeed, I can detect no antecedent inconsistency myself, not primâ facie at any rate.

Though additional research is required, perhaps it is safe to pronounce the entrepreneurial/cynical dichotomy odd or picturesque or something of that sort? And thee do gotta admit, Mr. Bones, that it is extremely unlikely that any other neocomrade has anticipated V. D. H. Blimp in devisin’ it.

Exactly how well devised the Blimpian ECD, "entrepreneurial/cynical dichotomy," may be is not for thee and me to lay down. Lord Mammon and Lady Market have a monopoly on makin’ those rulin’s, as every wombscholar knows in this blessèd and mysterious Age of Creative Destruction that we are so lucky to be still undestroyed in.

Nevertheless I suppose we humble may venture to scribble a gloss or two in the margins of The Big Book of Doom from time to time without being neocreativated to a crisp instantly and on the spot. I have mentioned le manteau de Pat Nixon already. Add to it l'avarice de Gordon Gecko, noting carefully that Col. Blimp has redacted the latter cliché slightly. Originally one understood "Greed is good," whereas, pursuant to the Blimpian ECD, the thrust should really be more like "Greed is sincere."

I take sincerity to be the common- or garden-variety antithesis of cynicism. VDHB may conceivably prefer some more up-market hermeneutic product at this juncture, but if so, he ought to say so unmistakably, even at the risk of bein’ accused of Elitismus and thus gettin’ autohoisted petardwise. It would be more edifying, I think, if Blimpian ‘cynicism’ did mean somethin’ a bit tonier than "self-servicin’ insincerity," for on that basis Entrepreneurianity pretty well has to consist mainly of a sincerity that services itself -- and thus we are conducted straight to Geckoville, without passing GO or collecting our two-hundred trillion dollar rebate.

Thee will recall my mentioning before that AEI appears to have rotted Rear-Col. Blimp’s brain, Mr. Bones, along with the brains of a number of other formerly distinguished neocomrades. I fear today he gives us more sign of it. In the absence of qualification and elucidation, the entrepreneurial/cynical dichotomy amounts to a total renunciation of geistliche Militärismus. Lord Mammon and Lady Market carry all before them, Entrepreneurianity can have nothin’ at all to do with Mars and Bellona when defined by the default that Blimp consigns them to. [4]


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[1] As to when "then" will arrive, exactly, Mr. Mark Penn has fixed on the year of religionism 1473/2050. I presume that Otherpartisans will think their evil hour can be deferred rather longer than a Rodham Democrat thought his could be, hence perhaps 1504/2080. Or even 1525/2100. And God knows best!

Meanwhile the Otherparty should take all steps (that it can get away with) in the path of suppressin’ "so-called Hispanic" turn-out at the polls. An outsider scarcely has to teach ’em that lesson, however. They knew that already when Gen. Hamilton was a pup.


[2] The ‘kumbaya’ superveneer is not to applied to America’s Otherparty literally. Though quite as sentimental and hormone-based as Eleanor Roosevelt on a good day with the wind behind her, the neocomrades run to darker sentiments and hormones, to cowardice and greed and self-sorrowin’ and self-esteemin’ and the like. Students of rhetoric might examine how V.D.H. Blimp and other neocomrades deploys such terms as ‘callous’. One gets the impression that they think it really rather clear-headed and steel-claptrap-minded -- anti-fuzz and anti-kumbaya, so to speak -- of themselves to be ‘callous’ but then run into difficulties because the epithet has been collaboratin’ with the enemy for a long time.


[3] The neocomrade colonel may be makin’ a tactical misjudgment at this point. Would Big Management Party agitprop not be more effective if the enemies of the Otherparty were not all classified as cynical? The fiend Soros is undoubtedly well abused that way, but down towards the low end of the Great Chain of Chas. Murray, does it really make much sense to accuse a teenage African-American hooked-on-welfare queen of ‘cynicism’?

Furthermore, if we jackasses are all cynics, then we none of us can take fuzz and kumbaya any more seriously than card-carryin’ AEIdeologues take ’em. I suppose it would indeed be pretty jackasinine of us to keep on playing that charade when nobody has taken it seriously since about Wednesday 26 Jumádae l-’Awwal 1348, the former 30.X.1929, but if one recurs to the real world rather than to Planet Blimp, it is clear enough that the vast majority of jacks and jennies are kumbaya-fuzzable and not to be confused with M. le Diable de Soros by any serious investigator.


[4] Actually Blimp barks about foreign and aggresion policy at some length, but never to inculcate any loftier lesson than "We are all Surgists now." In the original, "On foreign policy and national security, the battle of ideas is already won."

Why is this señorito unlike the other señoritos?

I guess it must be because D. Brooks manages to be so extraordinarily señoritoly without actually possessin’ any Daddy to call its own.

"Kristol Minor," one thinks easily and naturally enough, "Pipes Minor, Podhóretz Minor, Buckey Tertius . . . ." The ever-august House of Kennebunkport-Crawford is slightly different from the pseudaristocracy of Neocognia proper in certain ways, but not on the fake-dynastic flank: our incumbent Brat not only had a Daddy, it had a Granddaddy too.

And so it goes over to starboard in Wingnut City, so it goes even with the current -- though doubtless not for much longer! -- Commanderissimo of AEI and EiB and GOP. The Flaky Flyboy is technically entitled to subscribe himself "John Sidney McCain III." I have no idea whether he ever actually takes advantage of opportunities to show off his Roman numeral. Any competent imaginer can, however, easily imagine JSM3 torn between two stools about it, whether to play at being I. Coriolanus Superbus Invictorianissimus or to play at bein’ plain Jack Maverick, Tonto to the Lone Ranger as played at by Governess S. L. Heath-Paling of Alaska.

Master Brooks is not like the others. Davey is like M. Tullius Cicero, novus homo, or even like unto Melchisedek, blessèd and mysterious Priest-King from Erewhon [1], sine principio sineque fine. Or sineque terminatione, as the case may be.

So what is our endless and beginin’less little laddie up to this morning? Why, it is expoundin’ the Deeper Significance of the Crawford Crash. (What would you expect it to be up to?) It starts rather tediously with some warmed-over First Estater tripe and baloney,

"Americans will learn to live without material extravagances. They’ll simplify their lives. They’ll rediscover what really matters ... [yada, yada] ...

, but after a while, around Paragraph VII, cheerfulness breaks in:

"It’s possible that the downturn will produce a profusion of Hugo Chávezes. It’s possible that the Obama administration will spend much of its time battling a global protest movement that doesn’t even exist yet.

That reflection may not make you feel particularly cheerful, but if so, you will no doubt be an adherent of the "Democrat Party" and maybe even an Obamatarian thug. Naturally at Wingnut City and Rio Limbaugh unanticipated difficulties for ThatOne™ are almost as heart-warmin’ as apple pie and mooseburgers and even the Fœtus Cult itself.

Still, Señorito D. Brooks has never been half as much interested in the Lesser Breeds Without as most of the neocognaçois gentry are, so it swiftly reverts to the near side of salt water and moves straight to its own topic of topics, "Suburbia in Central North America, 1928-2235." (Sicut canis, qui revertitur ad vomitum suum, so David Brooks -- if you will pardon my very rusty French.) Once it gets properly revved up, it manages to remain pretty cheerful even in the act of decantin’ whole litres of cold water into other people’s soup:

It will be the loss of a social identity, the loss of social networks, the loss of the little status symbols that suggest an elevated place in the social order. These reversals are bound to produce alienation and a political response. If you want to know where the next big social movements will come from, I’d say the formerly middle class.

Lots of fun at Finnegan’s wake! Unfortunately the laddie dishes out only the plainest sort of tap water. [*] Stale tap water at that, since everybody instructed beyond wombschool level has heard Master Davey’s Soc. Sci. tune before, the one with the catchy refrain Und morgen die ganze Welt!

Surely Miss Clio will not repeat herself quite as unimaginatively as Señorito D. Brooks imagines? Farces are supposed to be funny, I believe. Although perhaps one should not rely on the late Dr. Marx’s sense of humour too heavily . . . .

But seriously: why on Gore’s green earth is a political response bound to be produced? What prevents the Holy Homeland’s alien and bewildered couch potatoes from, for instance, sinkin’ ever deeper and deeper into some Oblomov- or even Quayle-like stupour of couchpotatoedom? Alternatively, might they not advance beyond the familiar Bowlin’ Alone® product in the same general direction, perhaps with a hand-held e-gizmo that can bowl for them virtually?

Or feel free to roll your own! "There are more things in heaven and earth, Davidito, / Than are dreamt of in your psociology."

Happy days.

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[1] "But all the tribes and all the peoples will speak the truth who are receiving from you yourself, O Melchizedek, Holy One, High-Priest, the perfect hope and the gifts of life. (...) [H]e is from the race of the High-priest, which is above thousands of thousands, and myriads of myriads, of the aeons. The adverse spirits are ignorant of him, and (of) their (own) destruction.

And so forth and so on: like little Davey’s own psociologisin’, a little of that rotgut brew goes a long, long way.


[2] A truly stop-at-nothing rhetor might, however, speak of "Vichy water."

The Ministry of Bright Lines

The LEKC, learnèd elders of Kennebunkport-Crawford, have met in secret conclave and resolved upon a whole new Protocol (Number CVIII) that nobody ever heard of before. In the face of yet another Endkrise des Kapitalismus and, more significantly, yet another electoral Dolchstoß from the direction of their General Hamilton’s "great beast," it has seemed good to Boy and Dynasty and Party and Ideology Spirituique Sancto to lay down the following "bright line" [1]:

[Beast fans] have decided to follow an earlier $25 billion loan [to GM/Ford/Chrysler] with a $50 billion bailout, which would inevitably be followed by more billions later, because if these companies are not permitted to go bankrupt now, they never will be. This is a different sort of endeavor than the $750 billion bailout of Wall Street. That money was used to save the financial system itself. It was used to save the capital markets on which the process of creative destruction depends. Granting immortality to Detroit’s Big Three does not enhance creative destruction. It retards it. It crosses a line, a bright line. It is not about saving a system; there will still be cars made and sold in America. It is about saving politically powerful corporations.

Thus Señorito D. Brooks expounds Protocol CVIII.

Farther down the Great Scale of Wingnuts, the thug esteemed neocomrade C. Krauthammer extemporizes from what can only be the same LEKC talkin’ points as follows:

Finally, the outlines of a coherent debate on the federal bailout. (...) Now clarity is emerging. The fault line is the auto industry bailout. The Democrats are pushing hard for it. The White House is resisting. Underlying the policy differences is a philosophical [sic] divide. The Bush administration sees the $700 billion rescue as an emergency measure to save the financial sector on the grounds that finance is a utility. No government would let the electric companies go under and leave the country without power. By the same token, government must save the financial sector lest credit dry up and strangle the rest of the economy. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is willing to stretch the meaning of "bank" by extending protection to such entities as American Express. But fundamentally, he sees government as saving institutions that deal in money, not other stuff. Democrats have a larger canvas, with government intervening in other sectors of the economy to prevent the cascade effect of mass unemployment leading to more mortgage defaults and business failures (as consumer spending plummets), in turn dragging down more businesses and financial institutions, producing more unemployment, etc.

Neither of these ideokiddies can think its way out of a paper bag economically, which backhandedly explains why the vulgarian C. Krauthammer is a good deal more perspicuous than Master Davey, the amateur sociologue. The former, knowin’ its own limitations, has not ventured to diverge nearly so widely from the Urtext of Protocol CVIII as handed to it by the agitprop arm.

Anyhow, the essence of Protocol CVIII is plain enough in both versions: Finanzkapital has been superofficially declared to be a ‘utility’ whereas manufacturing is something other and something lesser. And a ‘utility’ will have been superofficially defined as (approximately) "Whatever General von Ludendorff at the Federal Reserve and Marshall von Hindenburg at the Treasury decree to be worthy of Ausschöpfung."

Though the Big Party thug C. Krauthammer speaks -- asinus ad lyram! -- of philosophy, neither he nor little Davey can have noticed that the true locus of discrimination is located more in the Hindenburgo-Ludendorffian internal forum than in the former real world. Sound Aristotelians like thee and me will notice that point, however, Mr. Bones, and thereby avoid waste of time on any future verbiage the neocomrades may churn out about the Platonic Idea of a Utility. Let Elder Bernanke and Elder Paulson play that parlour game, a game which really makes sense only inside OnePercenterly covens and conventicles. The rest of the Crawfordite pack will not, of course, be wantin’ to admit even to themselves that they have abdicated all responsibility, and shoved poor Kaiser Georg XLIII into a broom closet, and bowed their own necks to the Hindenburgo-Ludendorffian Juggernaut. So there must, for the comfort, be some pretence that the salvatores Borussiæ do not just dictate what ‘utility’ is now to mean in the holy Homeland.

Decent political grown-ups can dispense with that folderol, apart from pointing out to one another that a strong odour of Goldman Sachs is likely to pervade whatever the gruesome twosome come up with. Possibly we might also congratulate OnePercenterdom upon developin’ a clear chain of command, even if they fuzz things up for themselves by confusin’ it with a bright line of discrimination. I daresay the lemmin’s could call that chain a ‘utility’ too, if they like: it is certainly very useful to know for sure who must be obeyed.

This brings us to a rather crude but important question, namely, "What is to become of Protocol CVIII once the politicians preferred by the ninety-nine percent take over next year? Hindenburg and Ludendorff can get their broom-closet Emperor to veto all anti-utilitarian schemes for another ten weeks or so, but what then?"

The thug C. Krauthammer, who sticks to his talkin’ points as issued, says nothin’ about that issue at all, from which one may infer with reasonable confidence that the Urtext of Protocol CVIII does not mention this disagreeable and alarmin’ subject.

Little Davey Brooks tapdances around it with reminiscences of Pol. Sci. 101 that do not seem very pertinent, let alone persuasive:

... [T]he larger principle is over the nature of America’s political system. Is this country going to slide into progressive corporatism, a merger of corporate and federal power that will inevitably stifle competition, empower corporate and federal bureaucrats and protect entrenched interests? Or is the U.S. going to stick with its historic model: helping workers weather the storms of a dynamic economy, but preserving the dynamism that is the core of the country’s success.

Mussolinianity will ensure, of course, only if Obama Pelosi Reid et Frères are permitted to bail out non-utilities. Thee notice, Mr. Bones, that their little laddie at the New York Times Company is dressin’ up in sheep’s clothin’ again, pretendin’ to be a Century XIX/XII populist who wants to make ‘corporation’ a naughty word once more, and ‘competition’ the God word to end all God words. Not an impressive shtyk, but it does seem to be Davey’s own. I cannot think of any reason why Goldman and Sachs and Hindeburg and Ludendorff should take any interest in it.

Master Brooks natters about "creative destruction" a little, but his heart is located a good deal farther back in yesteryear than the vogue of CD and VD, "voodoo economics." Davey is a very old-fashioned corporation flack who wants the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 restored as the cuttin’ edge of Modern Times.

Well, his private-sectorian project possesses at least the merit of quaintness. Of course even if the holy Homeland had elected the Flaky Flyboy with 80 Big Party Solons and 400 Big Party Congresscritters, we would certainly never have reverted to the bucolic daydreams of Neocomrade D. Brooks. There is no point in digressing further in that silly direction.

When it comes down to how the Learnèd Elders of OnePercenterdom are actually goin’ to throw monkey wrenches into the Mussolinitarian schemes of Obama Pelosi Reid, little Davey has no more to say about it than the thug Krauthammer has to say about it. Both kiddies give a sort of free preview of comin’ attractions, the first reverberations of how they themselves will be barkin’ and bellowin’ in the months to come. But unless we madly suppose that the mere emission of such Otherparty noises will cause America’s party to grind to a halt and bring back Hindenburg and Ludendorff, the kiddies have no practical notions of any value tactical, operational or strategic.

Was Protocol CVIII intended to have any such practical value?

There is no way to tell, really, since we do not have the actual text, nor even the text of the suggested Bernanke-Paulson talkin’ points. One can, however, say that it is extremely unlikely that Protocol CVIII will have much practical effect: one envisions King Canute down at the beach firmly advising the Atlantic Ocean about the newly promulgated superofficial definitions of ‘ebb’ and ‘flow’. Or the original H&L twosome attempting to redefine their way to a Hun victory on the Western Front in 1918. Fun stuff, but not exactly serious.

Members and well-wishers of the Ninety-Nine Percent Club can wallow in unserious Schadenfreude about the intellectual absurdity of the Goldman Sachs bozos and their paid apologists pretendin’ that Finanzkapital is a Platonic utility, whereas transportation does not make the cut, and manufacturing anything concrete EGREGIOUSLY does not make the cut. But there is nothing tactical or operational or strategic in that either, not when nine Homelanders in ten are prevented by their Big Management Ideology wombschoolin’ (or by some other brain disease) from taking any interest in so high-falutin’ a question, and then, of the remaining ten, only one ten-thousandth of one Homelander is sufficiently free of toxic partisanship to attend to both sides of such a debate fairly and deliver a verdict strictly on the merits. [2]


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[1] The senior neocomrades have decided to relabel their ‘protocol’ product line for marketeerin’ reasons we need not go into here.


[2] There is perhaps some scant smidgen of a nonexcluded middle ground, as for instance the reflection that this ‘utility’ of the cuttin’-edge OnePercenters is a movin’ target rather than a proper Idea of Plato. ATT used to qualify, and more than qualify -- telephone service was once the very model of a warrantable moden monopoly. Yet Change and Decay have befallen Ma Bell, which rather makes one wonder if anybody can be altogether safe.

(( "Remember: gold has NEVER been worth zero!" What could be more utilitarian than that? I ask thee, Mr. Bones! ))

Lord Malurev’s Bagpipes

The inimitable (God willing) Dr. Cartoonoclastes may have gone into hibernation, Mr. Bones, but here's a rookie to replace him. Lord Malurev, Francis Bacon (Not), fugles himself "a retired army officer who founded the Smedley Butler Society several years ago because, as General Butler said, "war is a racket." Perhaps some rainy afternoon in 2017 we shall look up Massa Smedley. Perhaps we shall not.

Meanwhile, His Lordship endeavours to stand up for those spineless Solons of ours who refuse to stand up for themselves:

[E]ven though this proposed [status-of-forces] agreement [with the International Zone neorégime in the former al-‘Iráq] is a treaty, Senate involvement is not in the cards. The President doesn't want it and NEITHER, apparently, DOES THE SENATE. It hasn't been mentioned in the recent presidential campaign by Senators McCain, Obama or Biden. This is especially curious in the case of Obama, who after all has made an issue of the duration of the US military occupation in Iraq.

What would Franky Verulam make of that blast, do thee think, O Bones? He could hardly be expected to be familiar with the details of our municipal jurisdiction four hundred years in advance of today, two centuries in advance of our holy Homeland even existin’ institutionally. But then Malurev isn’t strong on heimatländisch municipalities either, I fear. Apart from relying on inspiration, like the bagpipes of Mr. Hobbes, to know what is a treaty and what ain’t, Malurev offers only

So State is in the lead, supposedly, on an important agreement that deals with a "Long-Term Relationship" including the duration of the US military occupation and the legal status of the US force members. This "strategic framework," again, sounds like a treaty, doesn't it, that involves the vital interests of the US and Iraq including matters such as the duration of the US military occupation and the use of Iraq bases for attacks on other countries.

One can detect that such stuff is attempted persuasion, but I myself should hesitate to call that "an argument." What do thee think, sir?

High-and-dry Busheviki will take the line that if their Boy can get away with it, it eo ipso cannot be a treaty, no matter how much importance and strategy and frameworkin’ and vitality and interest and sugar and spice and puppy-dog tails went into it. Those of us outside the militant extremist Party of Big Management cannot, of course, assent to Rancho Crawford pragmatism, but nothing prevents us from noticing out loud that it sure beats asking Rear-Colonel Lord Malurev’s intuition to decide every time a jolly litigation comes down the pike.

Well, we are not constitutional shysters either, so let us look rather whereunto His Lordship looketh not: how come the Solons do not complain?

Naturally we must distinguish Senator Biden and Senatorino B. Husáyn from the other ninety-eight before proceeding. Rather amazing that it did not cross the Malurevolutionary scope that in ten weeks those two will inherit everythin’ that George XLIII has managed to usurp. Franky the Bacon woulda thought of that angle right off!

Should BHO happen to resonate at exactly His Lordship's intuition's wavelength, he will toss the damn thing out before dinnertime on 20 January 2009 and then go hat in hand to the Senate for the replacement. Few things are less likely to happen than that thing, but it is not absolutely impossible either logically or physically. There is even precedent for such executive self-mutilation, if John Tyler of Virginia counts.

Still, it can not be an accident that Tyler was associated with America’s Otherparty. Try to imagine General Jackson behaving as Malurev would wish, Mr. Bones! The mutilation is quite as unimaginable with BHO, sir, for consider: every pundatrix and her brother-in-law is now going on about "a new New Deal." Roosevelt Minor was no John Tyler. ’Nuff said about B. Husáyn.

The Flaky Flyboy, whom Malurev also singles out by name, perhaps ought to have protested. By doin’ so, he would have further distanced and distinguished himself from Boy and Dynasty and Party and Ideology.

But let us not be silly, Mr. Bones. That last paragraph sounds plausible only in isolation. In the real world, the Commanderissimo of AEI and GOP and EiB and AIPAC (&c.) attaches a dozen times as much inportance to commanderissimatin’ as B. Husáyn Obáma does. He may not sympathize with the Harvard Victory School MBA classes the way George XLIII does, he is not interested in the theory of Big Management or in the bigmanagement of petty shopkeeperly affairs like Goldman Sachs and American International Group and General Motors, yet when it comes to the bigmanagement of War and Peace, J. Sidney McCain would undoubtedly have grabbed every power goin’ and have relinquished the very least of what he grabbed only after impeachment and conviction or a fatal coronary event, whichever came first.

That leaves the other ninety-seven Solons, give or take Big Party neocomrade Richard Bruce Cheney, should they be equally divided. Why have the Gang of 97 not arisen as one to resist usurpation?

Well, obviously half of ’em haven’t arisen merely because they are militant extremist Republicans. It is not impossible that what little remains of sanity and decency in the Party of Goldwater and Atwater -- Sen. Hagel, perhaps, or somebody from Maine -- may have appealed to their Boy in this matter of the SOFA with ex-‘Iráq. But naturally that happened, if it did happen, behind closed doors and mere citizens can know nothing of it.

So it is really only a Gang of 50, with the late Democrat J. I. Lieberman of Connecticut and Greater Telavívestán definitely excluded, that we require to frame hypotheses about. Perhaps not much framing is required, really. Should exactly half the Senate holler "You usurp, O villainous Dubya!" whilst the other half make plain that the Crawfordite usurpations are perfectly OK by them on a straight Party-line basis, is it not pretty clear in advance that Televisionland and the electorate would fail to be much moved? Indeed, is it not crystal clear that 9,935 eyes in ten thousand would glaze over in less than fifteen seconds?

And thee are to consider, Mr. Bones, those unfavourable polling results that our holy Homeland’s Solons and Congresscreatures have been ‘garnering’ for years and years. In the unlikely event that an individual wombscholar or couch potato agreed in theory about Crawfordite usurpation of Senatorial and Congressional prerogatives , would she actually arise on behalf of a Fedguv institution that she has decided she despises?

I put it to you, sir, that the Gang of Fifty have calculated that she would NOT rise on their behalf, on their Fedguv institution's behalf, and have, accordingly, given up the idea of resistance to usurpation as hopeless without any attempt to implement it. They do not, after all, have either a moral or a Madisonian duty to perform what cannot be performed. (Do they?)

"Politics is the art of the possible." [1]

(( That analysis is perhaps a bit too much like the Republic of Plato to be completely satisfactory. Down in the Sewer of Romulus, I daresay some, at least, of the Gang of Fifty must make the same sort of calculations as Biden and B. Husáyn, only a bit more impersonally: let the Bushevik usurpations stand, because on balance we good guys will do more good with them than the militant extremist GOP will do damage. That seems a precarious and risky speculation to me, Mr. Bones, especially as relying heavily on predictions about the future. ))

I suppose that if I were in the Senate myself, I would holler about it regardless of what colleagues or couch potatos or wombscholars or even Mr. E. J. Dionne, Jr. think of the holleration. On the other hand, not caring what such folks think is obviously one important part of why thee and I are not in the Senate.

Lord Malurev's intuition is not in the Senate either, which I take on the whole to be a good thing.

His Lordship's practical position does not altogether appear, but I betcha he is gonna forget about the whole fuss fast as soon as ThatOne™ actually marches into the Promised Land.

But God knows best. Happy days.


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[1] Golly, Mr. Bones, did thee know that that chestnut is from Chancellor General Prince von Bismarck?

New Sam and Former Al

To judge from the usual summary of this morning's MSM thoughtwash, the former Al Eyewrack still does not know Big Sam Yank too well, despite over five and a half years of unsolicited cohabitation:

What has Obama's victory meant for negotiations with Iraqi leaders on the new security agreement? Depends on who you believe. The NYT says Obama's election has drastically changed the mood to optimism and the agreement could be signed as early as the middle of this month. The WP, on the other hand, talks to Iraq's chief spokesman and says Iraqi officials appear to be using Obama's election "to pressure the Bush administration to make last-minute concessions," specifically insisting on a firm withdrawal date for U.S. troops. According to the NYT, Iraqi officials used to think that Republicans wouldn't respect any timetable that is included in the agreement, but now have more faith that Obama would. Also, Iran appears to be exerting less pressure on Iraqi politicians to reject the agreement, apparently because officials in Tehran are less concerned that an Obama presidency would seek regime change in their country. But the WP says Iraqis are insisting they need to return to the negotiating table, but U.S. officials say they've accommodated Iraqi concerns as much as possible in what was described as a "final text" of the agreement.

As you may know, Mr. Bones, Al Eyewrack has changed his Christian name to Ex -- or maybe he spells it ‘X’ like in ‘Malcolm’, I forget -- but anyway, Ex still hopes to change it back one day: "A nation once again / A nation once again! / When Eyewrack, long a province, be / A nation once again!")

But seriously, ’ammá ba‘da, have thee ever seen so much unwarrantable leaping to conclusions in so small a space?

Still, a lot of it is paleface journalistic incompetence. Views attributed to the former Al by the New York Times Company actually belong to a certain M. "Hadi al-Ameri, a powerful member of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a major Shiite party." The ipsissima verba run "Before, the Iraqis were thinking that if they sign the pact, there will be no respect for the schedule of troop withdrawal by Dec. 31, 2011. If Republicans were still there, there would be no respect for this timetable. This is a positive step to have the same theory about the timetable as Mr. Obama."

It certainly does not let A. J. Rubin off the hook professionally that M. al-‘Amirí pontificates as if he were X Eyewrack in person. One presumes that all the pols of the International Zone neorégime do that, assuming they speak Invasionese fluently enough to be interviewable. One presumes Ms. Rubin would have learned to discount for it. She doesn't.

The only good reason to take an interest in such pontification would be that it comes from a particular narrow circle immediately around poor M. al-Málikí, and there is no way to judge of that from the evidence provided. Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes: it is very flattering to be told that ThatOne™ is regarded as a more honest Abe than George XLIII Bush has shown himself to be, but let's face it, flattery may be all it is. This particular fiend from the Supreme Hakeem faction may well expect to get what he wants by buttering up Senatorino Obáma in advance. Or M. al-‘Amirí may be expressing his sincere belief about the state of public sentiment amongst the spear-won neosubjects of AEI and GOP and DoD and USIP and AIPAC and . . . so on -- which sincere belief might, of course, happen to be utterly mistaken. But God knows best!

More to the point is another of Ms. Rubin’s quotees:

“The atmosphere is positive with the American attempt to preserve the sovereignty of the Iraqi nation,” the government’s spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, told the news channel Al Arabiya. He praised the inclusion of a new provision stating that Americans would not launch attacks on Iraq’s neighbors from Iraqi soil.

Unfortunately there is no sign of ThatOne™. If you want to concoct yourself a ‘narrative’ about the alleged positive atmosphere and attempted sovereignty being a result of Tuesday's election returns in central North America, there is absolutely nothing to stop you. There is also absolutely nothing to encourage you. Procede at your own risk. "We report, you narrativate."

You would at least be skating on visible ice, though it may be very thin ice, to notice that the militant extremist GOP has just staged precisely an attack on X Eyewrack's neighbor Mlle. Syria from X’s homelandish soil. "Nice little attempted sovereignty you got here, X, ol’ buddy. Be a shame if anythin’ bad" -- sudden <¡BOOM!> from just over the Northwest Frontier -- "was to happen to it."

Do the Rancho Crawford cowpokers put me excessively in mind of Godfather flicks? Well, it's not impossible. Considered dispassionately as a Harvard Victory School MBA sales technique, perhaps there is somethin’ to be said for it. If one was marketing, say Pertussin , wouldn't it be nice to give the mark a cough inducer on the sly before tooting one's product’s wonderful horn? It would be a delicate business to do the same trick with cancer, no doubt, but then the RC cowpokers obviously regard (other people's) lack of sovereignty as only a very minor politicomedical condition.

BGKB, w Alláhu ’a‘lam.

Oddly enough the Washington Post paleface invasionite journalists ("Ernesto Londoño, Mary Beth Sheridan and Karen DeYoung") quote M. al-Dabbágh too, and far more extensively, though mostly in paraphrase:

Iraq's chief spokesman said with unusual forcefulness Thursday that his government will continue to insist on a firm withdrawal date for U.S. troops, despite American demands that any pullout be subject to prevailing security conditions. "Iraqis would like to know and see a fixed date," spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in an interview in which he also reiterated Iraq's position that American forces be subject to Iraqi legal jurisdiction in some instances. (...) Dabbagh said negotiations to reach a status-of-forces agreement, which would sanction the U.S. military presence in Iraq beyond 2008, would collapse if no deal is reached by the end of this month. (...) Dabbagh spoke directly to [t]he Washington Post on Thursday, and in English. Dabbagh said officials must return to the negotiating table . . . . In the interview, Dabbagh said American soldiers should be prosecuted in the Iraqi court system if they commit grave offenses outside their bases, unless they are on a joint mission with Iraqi troops. U.S. combat troops should cease operating unilaterally by June, Dabbagh said, and the status-of-forces agreement should say that the vast majority of U.S. troops must leave Iraq by the end of 2011. "U.S. troops should be secluded to known camps," Dabbagh said. "The Americans would be called whenever there is a need. Their movement would be limited." (...) Seeking a renewal of the U.N. Security Council resolution that permits the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq is an option the Iraqi government would like to avoid at all costs, Dabbagh said. "The U.N. mandate gives them a free hand in everything," he said. Dabbagh said Maliki sent Obama a congratulatory letter Wednesday. He said many Iraqi leaders who initially favored Sen. John McCain of Arizona came to support Obama after the Democrat visited Iraq this summer because they realized their vision of the U.S. presence in Iraq was more in line with Obama's than McCain's. "They respect him and feel that he can be a good friend," Dabbagh said, describing Iraqi leaders' feelings toward Obama. (...) For example, Dabbagh said, the U.S. military's multimillion-dollar effort to influence public opinion through television ads, billboards and other means should become a joint effort. "We don't have a hand in all the propaganda that is being done now," he said. "It could be done much better when Iraqis have a word and Iraqis can advise."

(( Presumably the Barber College of Journalism expressly teaches its pupils the limbs-of-Osiris approach to story-telling that Messers Lodoño and Sheridan and DeYoung so beautifully exemplify. Hence one cannot simply speak of ‘incompetence’. Whatever the perps call it themselves, it is detestable spinach and they ought to desist from it at once. In the specimen before us, some of those ellipses conceal additional paraphrase of "Iraqi officials" and the like that may or may not be additional Dabbághiana. No way to tell for sure. ))

The Slate summatorialiser completely passes over the most interesting bit, namely M. al-Dabbágh’s notion that the right or power of the State to brainwash Her own subjects is a key attribute of sovereignty. Now that somebody has said that out loud, it sounds pretty plausible, nicht wahr?

Yet reflect how remarkable it is that M. al-Dabbágh of the International Zone neorégime should be the first to say it! And that it gets said only at such a late date in the course of the Geschichte der Bildung der Menschheit !! And said from such an antecedently unlikely platform as the former al-‘Iráq!!!

How could the late Dr. Joseph Goebbels have overlooked such a point? I ask you!

Be that as it may, ’tis a pleasure to learn that the Age of Wonders has not ceased. Also that the electoral success of ThatOne™ is not the alone modern wonder.

BGKB. Happy days.