So Much for "Adults In Charge"

It's amazing what motivates me to write. I'm listening to Franken, interviewing Eugene Linden, author of the new book on climate change, The Winds Of Change. And he says ..."we caused it, and we can change it...". Yet the Republicans continue to deny it is happening, as well as refuse to acknowledge that anything can be done.

This is one more example of the refusal by Republicans to be held accountable. For anything!! And that's what gets me to finally write on this thread I noticed that runs through the behavior of all Republicans. By now, we've all heard the quote from Cheney that "the adults are back in charge," from his first days in the White House. But Republicans NEVER want to be held responsible. And the litany of "nobody could have foreseen"s, for the use of planes as missles on 9-11(Rice), for the cost and length of the Iraq insurgency(Cheney), for the collapse of the levees(Bush), is just the beginning.

Let's start at the White House. Do not hold them responsible for imprisonment or torture. No one has jurisdiction to tell the President what to do. The same with wiretapping and all the other invasions of privacy, from library reading lists to outing undercover CIA agents. The 'unitary executive' theory is just a fancy name for 'king,' and kings only answer to God. The examples are unending, from increasing air pollution and child poverty to decreasing real incomes and food quality, best epitomized by Bush's inability to think of any mistakes he'd made after more than 4 years in office. He was angry anyone had the gall to ask him a question. he certainly doesn't think he has to explain anything, to anyone.

How about Congress? Nope, not here. By letting the president have everything he wants, from tax cuts to a shiny new war every couple of years, without ever investigating any of the financial losses or policy changes that have come out of the White House, they have said "We don't want to do anything. Let them do it!" And by refusing to change any policies on how Congress operates, they demonstrate their refusal to be held responsible for their own actions. From dismissing and repacking the Ethics Committee until it wouldn't indict Tom Delay, to attempting to have a dinner honoring former Congressman Randy Cunningham, who was unable to attend because he's doing 100 months in federal prison for bribery and ethics violations, Congress refuses to change at all, even as the Abramoff scandal continues to send Congressional staffers to prison and require ever-more members, ALL REPUBLICANS, to put criminal defense attorneys on retainer, using campaign funds to do it.

Of course, the judiciary is an exception. Oh, yea? Read the Supreme Court's first decision of the Bush era, the one that selected him for high office. A more unsavory bit of torture was not committed until Guantanamo, a year later. And the Court knew it. Why else would the decision also say, essentially, "You can't hold us responsible for this, so we refuse to allow this decision to be used as a precedent. This is a one-time deal!" That precedent of not being willing to be responsible for the reality of their decisions especially informs the knackered pencil shavings of Scalia and Thomas to this day.

And what of the heavily-moneyed group of industrialists and theocrats that fund this continuous error in judgement? The whole POINT for them is to never be held responsible. Corporatists like Olin, Scaife, Allen-Bradley and Coors all want nothing more than to go back to when their money began, back to the turn of the last century (all of these boys having inherited their wealth.) That was when nobody could tell them who they could hire, how much they should pay, how long they could work their employees, or in what kinds of conditions. No one could hold them responsible for the cyanide and mercury they dumped in the water or the lead they burned into the air, or for the lies that passed for lists of ingredients, if they put a list on the label at all.

Theocrats want the government's money, but don't want to have to tell how they spend it, or if it does any good. And that's why George W Bush created the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives. In a later stage of government-based theocratic enforcement, it'll be the new FBI. It's already got the initials. For now, it's why they work so hard to undermine science. It requires review and accountability, both anathema to the religious right.

And finally, we come to the folks that elect these politicians, who worship these theocrats, who dream of being one of the 1/2 of 1% of America that runs the corporations. And they don't want to know. They don't want to see the disasters these policies have caused. They don't want to invesitgate the collusion, the money-laundering, the bribery, the sheer theft. They don't want to worry about the economics or the health of the world they're leaving their children. So sooner or later, you get one of two bottom lines from them. Either it's Clinton's fault, or it won't matter when the Rapture takes them.

The worst thing about this attitude of non-responsibility is that it is based on a fear of failure. And fear always leads to anger, directed first at the thing that did the scaring. And the scariest thing to a person like this is someone else who knows this person failed. So Bush lashes out when asked about mistakes. Cheney belittles anyone who questions. Rush refuses to admit he committed a crime, while O'Reilly buys the silence (and the phone-sex tapes) of the staffer he sexually harrased.

Ultimately, the only resolution would be to have no one left that pointed out the failures. So, first, no Democrats are Americans, so their opinions don't count. Then, per Ann Coulter, Liberals, including all Democrats, should be killed. Only Republicans will be left, scared to death they'll be next. But since the failures will continue, someone must be to blame. And since it can't be those who actually failed, another group to blame will be found, and killed.

This will continue to one of two ends. Either some contingent finally wakes up to reality, and overthrows the failure-prone leadership AND its philosophy, or it ends with two people at each others' throats over who was responsible for that last failure. And no matter who wins that fight, they'll be wrong.

But the 'winner' will never admit it.