The Man of Lost Macho Edition

To Dream the Impeachable Dream

Talking to a die-hard Bush Republican recently, Your Intrepid Tattlesnake put it to him directly: If he found out that that His Favorite Emperor had violated the law, would he favor impeachment?

His reaction surprised me. He spun the tumbler of Old Smackdown in his mitt a half-turn, coughed and, staring into his drink morosely, quietly murmured, "Yes."

I nearly did a Jon Stewart "Whaaaa?" take. This is a guy who thinks El Presidente Arbusto the Lesser was a personal gift from the Wonder Bread God to Cheez-Whiz America.

Tattlesnake, slapping on his ratty 'Press' hat, asked him why he felt that way, seeing as how he was a 'W' t-shirt owner and all, and once wore a GOP elephant lapel pin on his sportcoat, until a luscious girlfriend gave him the shove when she spotted it. ("I ain't sleepin' with no Ree-publicans," she told him in her adorable Minnie Pearl meets Yosemite Sam voice.)

"If he committed a crime, he should be punished," he said simply, swirling the ice cubes in his drink and displaying facial tics of psychic distress.

The Tattlesnake rewarded his principled honesty by buying the next round and speculating openly on the subject of how many other ex-Bush Slatherers might feel the same way.

"The guys at the office, they're all pretty disappointed in him," he muttered, "Prob'ly has something to do with them losing their jobs next month; the company's moving its main operations out of the country. They were all pretty high on Bush last year, but now they're blaming him for losing their jobs. They already said the a-hole should be impeached, and that was before this wiretap deal."

Tattlesnake hates fact-checking, preferring they just arrive on a silver platter with a pat of butter on the side, but I thought I'd do a little research on the topic.

According to Media Matters, an Ipsos Public Affairs poll in October of this year turned up 50 percent of Those Beyond the Beltway who would want Bush impeached if it was proven he lied about his reasons for invading Iraq. A little more than a month later, a Zogby poll said 53 percent were ready to toss Junior in the docket in response to a similar query. 53 percent -- that's larger than his trumped-up victory margin in 2004, and the poll was taken before it was revealed that he authorized the NSA to do illegal snooping of U.S. citizens!

The Dems are just beginning to smell the coffee on this issue; Sen. Russ "Ya Gotta Love Him" Finegold laid it on the line last month, although avoiding the 'I' word. Sen. Jay "Don't Call Me Ray" Rockefeller is pushing for an investigation by the Senate Intel Committee, and some of the other Dem Usual Suspects are also tentatively booking seats on the Black Ball Dubya Express. The Spy King's excuses that he acted 'constitutionally' just don't match up with anything actually written in the Constitution, nor any interpretation of it by the Supreme Court.

Of course, Bush can count on his devoted camp-follower Alberto Ghraib to clear any sort of numbing illegality he dreams up, but then Al can be forgiven for not knowing much about the law; he was, after all, a Texas judge, where the main issue before the court is always "How much is in the envelope?"

Perhaps even more indicative of some movement within the bowels of the official Washington beast is the reaction among the skittish Pundit Class. They were all adorned with fresh coats of corporate yellow paint down their backs as they studiously avoided calling Bush's activities criminal or illegal, preferring such lint-picking loop-de-loops as 'possibly of an unlawful nature.'

The comedy duo of Jeff Greenfield and Jeffrey Toobin were on CNN's Lou Dobbs show in late December, amusing the viewers with their desperate attempts to out-weasel each other. Toobin, who alleges he has a law degree, couldn't quite put his finger on what Bush might have done wrong while Greenfield, sniffing the air for Wolf Blitzer's opinion, thought the Democrats might be making a big mistake by pursuing the matter any further, but they were both obviously twitchy over the prospect of covering an impeachment trial that might be contrary to paycheck-provider TimeWarner's desires. The Wall Street Journal's John Fund was also on the panel, but his only contribution was to vomit in a slop bucket and wet his pants before passing out cold, as per usual. (No, I don't know why they keep inviting him on these shows as a commentator either.)

When such ill-luminaries as Greenfield and Toobin are avoiding the 800-pound elephant in the middle of the room, and using pretzel logic to discourage Dems from investigating the matter, it's all but certain that Bush is in for some rocky road ahead, and I don't mean ice cream.

Back at the bar, I ran into a young lady who prides herself on being a Moderate Independent; she voted for the Bantam Banyo in 2000 and changed her mind in 2004, giving Kerry a tumble. 'What did she think?' I wondered loudly next to her ear.

Pouring down some concoction that might have been a margarita made with beet juice, she opined, "He's lost his macho."

"Huh?"

"Bush -- he's lost his macho. He looks wimpy these days, like he's about to cry -- ask any woman, women notice these things. He used to come off as kind of strong and commanding -- now, he just looks weak and wimpy, like some blowhard who shot off his mouth and acted tough and can't back it up."

"What about impeaching him?"

"Whatever they do with him is fine with me. We can't afford to have a wimpy president."
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Quote of the Day

"Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense."
-- Mark Twain
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The Askewed Dictionary

With a tip o' the tam to Ambrose Bierce:

Neoconservatism -- The sour milk of human blindness.