Send out the clowns

Score one for Blagojevich.

The Embattled Governor of Illinois enjoyed a measure of amusing revenge this week, when Roland Burris became the junior senator from Illinois. People look at the Embattled Governor's hair and assume he's an idiot, but this was a masterful choice. Burris, the former Illinois attorney general, comes with an impeccable reputation -- if there were anything against him, someone would have dug it out by now. He's also African-American, replacing the only African-American in the Senate, so opposing him looks very like racism. Sure, he's a little eccentric (that pharaonic mausoleum), but he'll fit right in. There's an Oklahoma senator who thinks frozen embryos are tiny little people, to name but one. The US Supreme Court ruled forty years ago that Congress may refuse to seat a member only if the member fails to meet the Constitutional requirements, not because they don't like the way he got there. Somebody finally pointed this out to Harry Reid, who spent two weeks blustering that Mr. Burris would not be seated, then backed down. The bluster-and-backdown is Harry's signature move, like a Jordan jump shot, so he's really good at it. Even after Al Franken takes his seat, we're in trouble, aren't we? Harry would find a way to wimp out if there were ninety-nine Democrats and one friendly independent.

So the Embattled Governor had a little fun even as he was being impeached. Of course, he had to get up and complain that it was all his good works for the disenfranchised that turned the legislature against him, and he had to top it off with Tennyson -- somewhere, an English teacher is beaming -- but you win a few, you lose a few. Probably the Illinois senate in its majesty will turn him out, but I can't see where Patrick Fitzgerald is close to a criminal conviction. The case has yet to be presented to a rubberstamp grand jury, much less tried. Where is the money shot? Where is the video of the bag labeled SWAG being handed to the Embattled Governor? You know, for a Midwestern Boss Tweed, Blagojevich doesn't live very large. Either his freezer is full of cash like William Jefferson's, or he's just not very good at corruption.

George W. promises a heart-tugging farewell on prime time Thursday. Since William Petersen's last CSI is also scheduled for that night, I hope he doesn't dawdle. There can't be much to add to the smirking self-congratulation of the farewell interviews and the farewell press conference, unless he's planning to sing "My Way." Columnists and TV pundits have worn themselves to a frazzle refuting all the lies, damned lies, and fantasies of success purveyed by Bush and his courtiers, but this is like yelling at your dog. It makes you tired and the dog doesn't remember it. Of course their worst crimes need to be addressed through legal means, but I'm not very sanguine. A pass on torture and murder may turn out to be the price of Eric Holder's confirmation as attorney general. That's how the game is played by Republicans.

The level of shamelessness is breathtaking. Alberto Gonzales whines that no reputable law firm will hire him, and in the next breath proposes himself for baseball commissioner. Well, that might not be such a bad idea -- most of them have been shits. Not on Gonzorrhea's level of criminality, of course, just your basic racists, union busters and knuckleheads. They work for the owners, and if there's one thing 'Berto can do, it's truckle to power. I'm no fan of Maureen Dowd, but she justified her Pulitzer when she nailed him with the phrase "legal lickspittle."

At this point, Sarah Palin seems to be a media junkie, a less articulate version of Paris Hilton. If she isn't interviewed once a week her hands start to shake, which affects her aim, and who wants wounded caribou staggering around the tundra? She had nothin' to do with losin' the election, it was all the fault of the McCain people, the mainstream media, the non-mainstream media, the bloggers, the Aurora Borealis and of course, Caroline Kennedy. Huh? I got lost in there someplace, too. It's all about class, and because she's workin' class, they hate her. Did you get that? Now she's Tonya Harding to Kennedy's Nancy Kerrigan. This will play well with people who think Barack Obama is the Sheik of Araby and Joe Biden went into politics because he was tired of overseeing the Biden Family Foundation. When the nut-right discovers Class, watch out.
But it's a small price for letting Sarah hold high the banner of Republicanism until they pry it from her cold, dead fingers. When people think of the GOP I want them to think of this ignorant, screeching housewife, not somebody who could plausibly be sold as a leader, like Mitt Romney. Or Jeb Bush.

Jeb Bush? I didn't pull that out of my -- I mean, I didn't think of it myself, it was planted in my brain a week ago, when 41, old Poppy Doc himself, turned up on a Sunday chat show to float the idea of a Jeb Bush presidency. It's never easy to pinpoint the moment when a rightie succumbs to full-blown Alzheimer's, but Poppy seemed as compos mentis as ever, and this is a patriarch with deep pockets, so I suppose we have to listen. Jeb -- of the infamous Florida "recount" and the unconscionable intrusion into the affairs of the Schiavo family -- is usually described as "the smart Bush," but that's like being the tallest rider in the Kentucky Derby. It may be a distinction, but it's hardly an achievement. Jeb does have the advantage of not physically resembling either of the Georges. Perhaps only Bar knows who his biological father was. (Perhaps not. I always give a Lady the benefit of the doubt.) Anyway, I figure we have about six months before the 2012 campaign powers up, plenty of time for Jeb to change his surname to something that fills Americans with less revulsion, like Manson or Hitler.

Shakespeare liked to drop a drunken porter or a philosophical gravedigger into his darkest tragedies. Sometimes life imitates art. This week life (actually Pajamas Media) dropped Joe the Plumber into the horror of the Chanukah War in Gaza. Concerned that the Israeli side of the conflict is not being heard in the American media, which tends to get distracted by all those mangled children and pulverized apartment houses, Joe put his musical career and his cold fusion research on hold and went to Israel to bring us his unique insight. He then decided that the media should not cover wars, but there should be newsreels. I was hoping his giant glowing head would give Hamas something to aim the rockets at, but so far, no. I just checked. No. See, the porter has only one scene in Macbeth and then he's gone. You don't get sick of the sight of him. See where I'm going with this, Joe?

It's January 13, the last full Tuesday of the Cheney-Bush regime. Most presidents have been mediocrities. All those Hail to the Chiefs between Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt run together into one portly man with facial hair, named Harrison. I think it's safe to say George W. Bush will never fade into the wallpaper. If we ever have a president worse than this one, the country will simply cease to exist. The dumpster of history is waiting. Say goodnight, Georgie.