WB: Plumber’s Helper – Moon of Alabama

May 16, 2006

WB: Plumber’s Helper

Billmon:

The real lesson of Watergate is that the two phenomena — national security absolutism and good old-fashioned political ratfucking — are joined at the skull, like inseparable Siamese twins. You can’t have one without the other, particularly in a system that is otherwise designed to prevent the kind of radical accumulation of power the Nixon and Bush II White Houses represent.

Plumber’s Helper

Posted by b on May 16, 2006 at 04:58 UTC | Permalink

Comments

brings to mind tom engelhart’s prescient introduction, back in march, to a elizabeth de la vega’s essay, Reprogramming the Infinite Loop:
“When it comes to the Bush administration, whatever the subject may be and however bad you think things are, they’re going to be at least several fallback positions worse than whatever top administration officials may be fessing up to at any given moment. This, after all, is the administration of adamant denials, followed by forceful non-confessions, followed by proud statements, followed by limited hang-outs, followed by even more grudging, only slightly less limited hang-outs. In that spirit, without a bit of insider information but with recent history as my guide and with consummate confidence, let me assure you that the NSA warrantless surveillance operation Elizabeth de la Vega takes up below will turn out to be anything but the limited program described in the first set of Bush administration fall-back positions. It will be a miracle if it has not swept up near-infinite American conversations, startling numbers of which won’t have been conducted with overseas parties (and don’t even get me started on the subject of the secret data-mining of our phone and email life); and surely, before we’re done, it will turn out that this particular NSA surveillance program is only the tip of the administration’s surveillance iceberg. Where the NSA already is, can the Pentagon or the CIA be far behind? Not likely.”
as ever, thanks bill!

Posted by: manonfyre | May 16 2006 8:51 utc | 1

What your illustrating here Billmon, is that the nixon whitehouse was the equilivant of a bunch of pot smokers stealing money outta mom’s wallet compared to the bush crack house gang now drowning helplessly in the zombie, needle, and vice infested swamp of their own doing. Sure, its all about addiction to power, and nixon had his moments of dillusion and meglomania, but, this gang rode onto the scene with the prediliction for vice, apriori. One empty ten gallon hat just begging to be filled with a show of substance without the work — with daddys money at the blackjack table in Vegas aiming for a reason to live, the fast way, and it is so goddamned droll to take any of this seriously — as if there is any contention here worthy of real consideration, a silver lineing somewhere — is a joke that is in all evidence everwhere in the wake, the stalemate in Iraq, the stalemate of Katrina, the stalemate over immigration, the stalemate over Plame, the stalemate on terrorism, the economy, Guantonomo, global warming, global dimming, peak oil, corruption and cronyism — everywhere a wreakage belied and denied in the obsession for nothing more than the next fix.

Posted by: anna missed | May 16 2006 10:25 utc | 2

Let’s not forget another crime we already know about, one that was dismissed by the one off ‘few bad apples’ ploy Republican Senate staffers had access to Democrats computers.
@manonfyre
good to see ya manonfyre..

Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 16 2006 10:26 utc | 3

Let’s not forget Nixon was an attorney,
a patriot, did some good things (EPA),
helped people (indexed Social Security),
negotiated an end to Kennedy’s Cold War,
brought the end to Kennedy’s Viet Nam,
did time in active combat in WWII-Pac,
was a friend of the working man (OSHA),
elected to four terms in Fed office, and
voluntarily resigned when his “boys” got
a little too rat-packy for public good.
Let’s not forget Bush is a nothing. He
has a fake MBA he never studied for, did
fake time in the Reserves he never showed
up for, is an anti-patriot, defanged the
EPA, castrated Social Security, started
back up a Cold War AND another Viet Nam,
an avowed arch-enemy of the working man
(the ‘haves and the have mores’ comment),
was selected to only two terms in office,
and will hang onto power, even if he has
to drop a bomb on Philadelphia and claim
it was Osama speaking from the grave, or
carpet America with the plague bacilli.
Like comparing venality, to Great Satan,
petty human foibles, vers Consummate Evil,
a drive-by, to a Night of the Living Dead,
or a sidewalk junkie, to Lay Nee Skilling.
They would run your mother down, and then
back up over her to make sure of the job,
like an Israeli bulldozer on Rachel Corrie.
We have no idea, as Englehart alludes to.
This was, is, a coup de etat, against US.
Our taxes continue to grease those skids.

Posted by: 23 skidoo | May 17 2006 4:45 utc | 4

Joined at the skull and bones?

Posted by: Anonymous | May 17 2006 5:51 utc | 5

Back to Main