Everybody's a Comedian

For instance, in response to a post about the House's proposed rollback of financial disclosure requirements for lawmakers by The Medium Lobster over at Fafblog, I wrote:

"Hidden is no good. Hidden is for cowardly girlypols who don't have the strong moral values to stand up and sin publicly and rub the electorate's face in it and then wheeze with evil laughter for days afterward.
No, we need to not only parade our ill-gotten gains for all the world to see, we need to change the rules so that serial rapists and smarmy bukkake pimps can continue to hold onto their congressional leadership positions, even while serving time, so that the immoral Democrats shall never wield power again."

There's "moral values" for you...play around with the law and the rules of lawmaking so that half of the people remain permanently disenfranchised. Perhaps next year they'll repeal voting rights for blacks and women. Then they'll be well on their way to eliminating that whole inconvenient representational government thing entirely.

But the Senate is not without its jokers, either. Patrick Leahy, ranking Dem on the Judiciary Committee, said of the impending confirmation of torture fan Alberto Gonzales that he would win "substantial votes on both sides of the aisle", and that:

"The president could have picked a polarizing figure...He did not. I applaud him for that."

Well, hell, no, how could an opposition party incapable of outrage, with no guts or convictions, faced with the installation of a consigliere who comfortingly gave Bush the go-ahead to engage in any war crimes he likes, who never saw an execution he didn't like, who will never trouble the White House with icky morality questions, how could the Dems possibly find this man polarizing? Joe Conason has more on this paragon here.

Thank God his hard line on execution of the retarded and mentally ill doesn't extend to poultry.

Finally, for all you war fans out there, Colin gives us a parting gift---his valued insight into the likelihood that Iran is revving up nuclear weapons. This is from the same person who so convincingly made a case before the UN for something similar in Iraq, remember? The pictures of trucks next to buildings? The fine intelligence on those aluminum tubes? Yes, he'll have them rolling in the aisles with this new material, I'm sure.

Four more years of this comedy. I don't know if the country's funny bone can take much more. Sydney Blumenthal has some interesting reflections on it, but I don't think he's laughing.