Degenerate Politics
by digby
I think one of the things that is most depressing about these Foley revelations and cover up is that Bush was able to force through that stomach churning torture legislation before it broke. I doubt that he could have done it in the political environment this week. Too bad about the constitution. So much for those unalienable rights. But it's all of a piece, isn't it?
This is all illustrative of a depraved, degenerate, exorbitantly hypocritical Republican culture, led by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Matt Drudge, that excused Abu Ghraib as blowing off steam and who today are pushing the idea that one of the boys who exchanged IMs with Foley was playing a "prank" on the congressman and it was all in good fun.
These are people who sell t-shirts for "Club Gitmo" and who deride the victims of Katrina. They call Native Americans, "monkeys" and "troglodytes." Limbaugh, Coulter, Savage, Beck, O'Reilly etc appeal to the indecent, immoral, hypocritical, cruel and ultimately, cowardly side of human nature. This is their leader:
From: "Devil May Care" by Tucker Carlson, Talk Magazine, September 1999, p. 106
"Bush's brand of forthright tough-guy populism can be appealing, and it has played well in Texas. Yet occasionally there are flashes of meanness visible beneath it.
While driving back from the speech later that day, Bush mentions Karla Faye Tucker, a double murderer who was executed in Texas last year. In the weeks before the execution, Bush says, Bianca Jagger and a number of other protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Tucker. 'Did you meet with any of them?' I ask.
Bush whips around and stares at me. 'No, I didn't meet with any of them,' he snaps, as though I've just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. 'I didn't meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with [Tucker], though. He asked her real difficult questions, like 'What would you say to Governor Bush?' 'What was her answer?' I wonder.
'Please,' Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, 'don't kill me.'
I must look shocked -- ridiculing the pleas of a condemned prisoner who has since been executed seems odd and cruel, even for someone as militantly anticrime as Bush -- because he immediately stops smirking.
'It's tough stuff,' Bush says, suddenly somber, 'but my job is to enforce the law.' As it turns out, the Larry King-Karla Faye Tucker exchange Bush recounted never took place, at least not on television. During her interview with King, however, Tucker did imply that Bush was succumbing to election-year pressure from pro-death penalty voters. Apparently Bush never forgot it. He has a long memory for slights."
They always seem to have an excuse for breaking civilized taboos against brutality and cruelty and they appear to revel in ritual humiliation of those weaker than themselves. (Check out the look on George Allen's face when he calls that kid a "macaca.") They run their campaigns saying they are the party of personal responsibility and yet never, ever take any responsibility themselves --- from the horrible decisions that have us bogged down in a quagmire in Iraq to allowing a predator to hang around the congressional pages because they didn't want to lose a seat. Their great religious leaders sound like second rate political hacks spinning their conservative patrons' deviant behavior as no big deal. When the chips are down, they are cowards --- blaming, hiding, running.
It is long past time that liberals stopped being intimidated by these people and started telling the real story. These people who lecture Democrats for their alleged moral relativism simply have no morals at all.
Update: Here's Holy Joe Tortureman claiming it's "partisan" to request Hastert's resignation. As I said last night, it's lucky for the Republicans that Foley wasn't having a consensual relationship with an adult woman or Lieberman would be angrily condemning Hastert for failing to protect the delicate ears of Connecticut's children. Stalking schoolboys, on the other hand, not so much.
By contrast, Barbara Boxer speaks like a normal human being on the matter:
I can hardly believe my eyes and ears as I watch excuse after excuse over a set of e-mails that any parent would immediately know is not only inappropriate but a prelude to a predator's first steps — winning the trust of a young person before taking full advantage of that trust.
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