George Bush and the Squirrel Monkey Press Conference:
Let us say, and why not, that at last night's press "conference," President George W. Bush finished his more obviously prepared remarks by pulling a cute little squirrel monkey out of his jacket and said, "Now, ya'll see this female squirrel monkey, finest squirrel monkey ass in the rainforest. Now ya'll watch me as I fuck the shit out of this squirrel monkey while ya'll ask me questions." And then the Leader of the Free World began to, as he said, fuck the shit of the squirrel monkey, fucking it in its little squirrel monkey vagina, the horrible screams of the squirrel monkey echoing throughout the East Room of the White House.

So then let us say, and, indeed, why not, that reporter after reporter got up and asked questions, like "I wonder what you think, generally, about the role that faith is playing, how it's being used in our political debates right now," and instead of answering, Bush said, "Now, watch, I'm gonna turn this lil' monkey over and fuck her in her cute ol' asshole," followed of course by more fucking and more monkey screams, a little weaker now.

Oh, sure, the reporters would keep trying to ask questions to get real answers because, you know, they have to pretend that way. But the President of the United States had an agenda: to fuck that squirrel monkey in front of the media and the nation. When a reporter asked, say, "Can you explain for us how, if it were passed soon after it were introduced, the energy bill would have an effect on the current record price of oil that we're seeing out there," that reporter would not receive a direct answer. Instead, Bush would respond, "Can't you see I'm fuckin' a squirrel monkey here, and now that it's stopped screamin' so loud, I think it's startin' to like it."

Yes, yes, the saddest part of the press conference would be when everyone realized the poor, cute squirrel monkey was dead, but there was no way that George Bush was going to stop fucking the monkey's limp corpse, yelling, "You know you like that you, lil' monkey bitch, you know you like my Presidential seal." The squirrel monkey, of course, wouldn't respond, except with the cracking of a bone or two. A reporter could ask a truly important question, one that gets to the very nature of the national identity, like "Mr. President, under the law, how would you justify the practice of renditioning, where U.S. agents who bust terror suspects abroad, taking them to a third country for interrogation? And would you stand for it if foreign agents did that to an American here?" but George Bush would brush that aside, constantly thrusting his cock into the distressingly broken corpse of the monkey. Although, truth be told, there's only so long one can watch a man fuck a dead monkey before it gets tiresomely repetitive.

Finally, George Bush would come, wipe his half-erect dick with the ragdoll monkey, and toss it in the garbage. He'd thank the gathered reporters for watching him fuck a squirrel monkey to death and then exit with that old cowpoke with the DTs walk he's got.

Everyone there would know that they just participated in an absolutely useless ritual, an exhibitionistic game, and they'll all be back next time to play their parts.

The Mensch and the Motherfucker:
It's an amazing thing when the old Bob Dole shows up - not lovable curmudgeon Dole of appearance on The Daily Show, not pathetic shaky Dole of a recent Fresh Air interview (where Dole was there to hawk his book on his war experiences and host Terry Gross kept asking Dole questions about the state of contemporary politics. Dole would answer and then say he thought he was there to talk about his book. It was pathetic, in a time-to-make-Grandpa-into-Soylent-Green sort of way). No, not those Doles, but Bob Dole the mean motherfucker who would cruelly eviscerate opponents, stab people in the back, and undermine a Presidency.

Motherfucker Dole made an appearance in the New York Times yesterday in one of those elder-statesman-must-be-heard columns, weighing in on the whole filibuster debate, about which he had previously said that the Senate ought to be "careful" in getting rid of the rules. But someone spiked his Muselix with Metamucil, and the shit's moving strong now.

He "hopes" that a compromise can be reached with the Democrats on the nominations of 10 judges, and then he adds, "But let's be honest: By creating a new threshold for the confirmation of judicial nominees, the Democratic minority has abandoned the tradition of mutual self-restraint that has long allowed the Senate to function as an institution." How about this: "Let's be honest, you shaky, pen-grippin' bastard: the judges were nominated and turned down by the previous, Democratic-led Senate. How about the President respectin' that advice and consent?" "Let's be honest" is a great technique, man- you say that, and you can lie about any fuckin' thing you want.

It's only topped by "to be fair," a rhetorical device which creates illusions of balance and which, of course, Dole says later: "To be fair, the Democrats have previously refrained from resorting to the filibuster even when confronted with controversial judicial nominees." See? Bob Dole is a fair man - he gives mad props to the Democrats of the past. Fair and honest - it's the magnificent illusion of Bob Dole, a cretinous, bile-spewing political coward and loser who, to be fair and honest, is infinitely preferrable to the hideous hellspawns now hunkered down in the cellars of the Senate, insidiously planning the downfall of Democrats and democracy.

Meanwhile, Al Gore once again proves what motherfuckin' freedom of speech is with his latest barnburner, where he rips the guts and nuts and viscera out of the Republicans and shows it to them before they hit the ground. He goes after all of it, man, all the anti-American bullshit that the Republicans have been advocating: abbrogation of the rule of law, abandonment of tradition, the calls for vengeance against the judiciary, religious demagoguery masking radical political agendas, the undermining of the founding documents, the crisis mentality inflicted on the American public, the rank hypocrisy of the arguments against the filibuster, the squelching of dissent, the potential for a descent into tyranny. Said Gore, "Our founders understood that there is in all human beings a natural instinct for power. The Revolution they led was precisely to defeat the all-encompassing power of a tyrant thousands of miles away."

What an honorable man. What a defender of the nation. What a magnificent indictment of the plague that is contemporary conservatism. Yes, Al Gore is a mensch, our better angel of the political landscape. And therefore he must be ignored, of course.

Satanic Judges Eat Jesus:
Holy shit, the horrors that must have been inflicted on poor, trembling, god-fearing America because of all the judges nominated by George Bush that the Democrats did not filibuster or, indeed, voted for. How many atheistic, satanic devil cock gobblers are now sitting on the federal benches, befouling the courtrooms with their piss-smell of burnt offerings to Beelzebub? How many crazed Bohemian liberals are now tossing bombs because the Democrats advised and consented? Indeed, is not every judge not filibustered now tainted by the support of the wild-eyed Democrats on the Judiciary Committee?

The Rude Pundit receives regular updates from the Family Research Council because, well, spam is spam is spam, and, hell, they might save the Rude Pundit's soul. Or get him cheap Cialis, which, downed with a vodka/rum cocktail last time, led to a nine-hour erection that you could have crucified a savior on. Tony Perkins' last e-mail call to action implored the Rude Pundit to "send an email right now to your Senators and ask them to end the filibuster of judicial nominees who are people of faith and conservative values." See, Justice Sunday pissed off Democrats and "they are not happy that their two- year concerted effort to sanitize the federal judiciary of people of faith and conservative values has finally been exposed." If this is true, then, good god, what have we done to America? What have we done?

Like in confirming that skank twat Laurie Smith Camp for the U.S. District Court of Nebraska. Says her bio, "Her church and community leadership include service as a director of the Nebraska Conference of the United Church of Christ; [and] a member of the Church Council of First Plymouth Congregational Church." United Church of Christ? Those bastards love Spongebob (no, really, they do). They say shit like "Jesus didn't turn people away. Neither do we." And while her personal views on the right to abortion aren't known, she "testified before the Committee on Judiciary of the Nebraska Legislature in support of a bill that would recognize an embryo at all stages of development as a separate, independent victim of a crime." This church-going mother of two who supports fetal rights and who was confirmed when Democrats controlled the Senate must be part of the judiciary sanitizing process.

And what does it say about the judges who, when in the minority, Democrats deemed un-filibuster worthy? Like Edward Prado, confirmed in 2003 for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and is "actively" involved in St. Mark's Catholic Church in San Antonio. Like Philip Simon, confirmed in 2003 for the USDC in Northern Indiana, who also is a depraved member of the St. Paul Catholic Church in Valparaiso. Or Thomas Varlan, confirmed in for the USDC in Eastern Tennessee, and a member of the strange and cultish St. George Greek Orthodox Church in Knoxville, which lures innocent Christians in every year with its sweet baklava promises and meaty gyros at its wonderful Greek Festival. Not only does raging non-faith-believing Varlan belong to a church that is strongly anti-choice, but he's already issued such stunningly wacky liberal decisions like allowing continued strip mining by a coal company. Yep, it's a damned - some might say a "goddamned" - shame that such people lacking in faith and conservative conviction could now be on the bench.

"The War Against People of Faith" is an insane chimera, a lie told to gather donations for the Family Research Council and keep James Dobson's son supplied with moustache wax, a laughably hypocritical attempt to make "Christians" believe they are under siege.

As Moveon.org and others prepare ads about the filibuster, don't just make it about Senate tradition and procedure. Make sure that everyone knows that "People of Faith" are on the bench everywhere, and that Tony Perkins and the batshit nutzoid William Donohue don't own the copyright on who is faithful and who is not.

Republicans Are Some Filibusterin' Motherfuckers:
Since we've heard from Harry Reid (who really has the most pornographic name in the Congress since Senator Fellatio Smackbottom back in the 1890s) that he believes the horribly unpopular elimination of the filibuster against judiciary nominees is the slippery slope to the elimination of the legislative filibuster, perhaps it's time for a trip down memory lane with pre-Bush Republicans during the time Bill Frist has been a Senator:

In 2000, Rick Santorum threatened to filibuster against a transplant organ allocation bill.

In 1998, the Republicans filibustered to death a bill to allow the FDA to regulate tobacco.

In 1994 and 1998, Republicans filibustered to death the McCain/Feingold campaign finance legislation.

For a week in 1998, Republicans filibustered Surgeon General nominee David Satcher over his views on late-term abortion. (He was later confirmed.)

In 1995, Republicans filibustered to death the nomination of Henry Foster to Surgeon General because he had performed abortions. (Frist actually supported Foster - after he was approved by a Republican-led committee. This was the crazy, lunatic filibuster of Clinton's term.)

In 1994, Republicans filibustered to death a bill that would have required placed stricter requirements on lobbyists.

In 1993, Republicans filibustered the Brady Bill and Clinton's economic stimulus package

In 1992, Republicans filibustered an education spending bill.

There's more, of course, so much more, but Blogger's fucked the Rude Pundit once today, and his Clark Kent duty calls. Back tomorrow with a discussion of satanic judges.

Quick Note:
Sometimes, even the Rude Pundit must defer to the breathtaking crudeness of others. See this new, possibly one-shot blog. Thanks to Jo Miller for the heads up, so to speak.

Dobson's Mad Justice:
So, let's see if the Rude Pundit's got this straight: In James "Behold My Angelic Combover" Dobson's speech yesterday to the gathered parishioners who were in attendance for "Justice Sunday" (motto: Gonna Get Legislative On Your Asses), the bouncing ball of logic was careening around that Louisville church like a jackrabbit on a three-day meth binge. Apparently, Dobson learned everything he needed to know about the U.S. Constitution from his fourth-grade teacher, who may have been named Eunice Cobblower, but the Rude Pundit can't be sure because he's only watched the speech, thanks to the good people at Crooks and Liars. Quotes, thus, may be off a word or two. Said Dobson from Miss Cobblower's lawyerly erudition, "The Founding Fathers knew we are flawed individuals," and so they devised checks and balances between the branches of government. And then Dobson snarkily giggled that this was back during a time when you learned things a bit differently about the way government works, like say, when it was proper to lynch a niggrah in public, as opposed to in private.

Now, here's the weirdness: see, Dobson's got a problem with the Supreme Court, or, at least, "five black-robed judges" who can tell us all what to do. Those judges, one should acknowledge, were put on the court by a majority vote of the Senate based on the appointments of (mostly Republican) presidents. So, apparently, the majority can be wrong, whether it's the majority of the Supreme Court or the majority of the Senate, elected, one may presume, by a majority of the people in a majority of the states. So the will of the majority must not be given such power, right? Right? Got it? No, no, you don't, you stupid, godless fuck, because then, we learn, the problem is that the minority of Democrats (and a few "spongy Republicans," as Dobson put it, apparently comparing them to that prominent animated starfish fellater in square pants) can block judges that they deem too radical. So the will of the majority must be obeyed or judges will make decisions regarding shit like prayer in school that are "opposed by more than 70% of the American people," according to Doc Jimmy Dob.

This is just the beginning of the constitutional mindfucks Dobson engages in. In fact, that's Dobson's purpose: to actually crawl into your brain and fuck your cerebellum into acquiescence so that your mind, so covered in Dobson's foul seed, will be unable to comprehend that what Dobson actually said is this: The majority is wrong except when it's right.

And, because, apparently, dear, dear Miss Cobblower must have been killed by a harvesting machine before her lessons in the separation of powers ended, Dobson is able to say, in all seriousness, that the courts have "absolute power" in the nation. His expectation that his listeners are willfully or really stupid allows him to say that the ballot box is the “only means” by which we can affect the make up of the court. Well, no.

Let's make this put up or shut up time, motherfuckers. Dobson knows, Bill Frist knows, the sad Chuck Colson, the mad William Donohue, the smug Tony Perkins, they all know the Founders built in a mechanism that allows the people to enact their will on the form of the nation. See, right now, the whole debate about filibusters and "activist" judges is a matter of wanting the courts to solely rule in the favor of the evangelicals, the fundamentalists, the theocrats. But they're fuckin' scared of the truly nuclear option: try to get amendments into the Constitution. Then no judge can rule against you.

Once you go down that road, it's truly the end of one kind of civilization or another. Either the country is changed into a society that is opposed to its founding. Or it's the death knell of the entire radical fundamentalist agenda, because the nation would be forced to ask itself if it wants to be a no abortion, prayer in school, gay bashing regency just bidin' its time until Jeeeezus comes back to fuck us all up, or if it wants to be America.

Ciao, Roman Catholicism:
Ahh, there's nothing worse than long break-ups, the lingering, inevitable death of a long-term relationship, where you've tried to keep your demanding partner by compromise after compromise, hoping against hope that at some point your partner will see it your way, maybe not be so suffocating, when, deep in your aching gut, you know, you know, that the break-up has to happen or everyone's life is just going to be a long slog through misery and recrimination.

And now we can all look forward to a fond farewell to Roman Catholicism in America. Oh, c'mon, now, Roman Catholicism, don't cry. It's not you, it's us. See, here in America (and most of the developed world), we desire simple things like sexual freedom, women's rights, and lack of molestation. We've changed, not you, and if a relationship can't evolve, it has to die, right? Right?

Time and time again, we looked to you for some inkling that you might change your ways. But time and time again, you had to say something that just wrecked our self-esteem, like, ten years ago, when you said, "[T]he negative values inherent in the 'contraceptive mentality'-which is very different from responsible parenthood, lived in respect for the full truth of the conjugal act-are such that they in fact strengthen this temptation when an unwanted life is conceived." And then, in the same document, this - this: "The various techniques of artificial reproduction . . . are morally unacceptable." What did you think? That we'd just say, "Well, okey-dokey, Roman Catholicism, let's toss those years of medical research to give childless couples a shot at parenthood out the window - abort it, if you will"? Sorry, sorry . . . we thought we could do this without getting angry.

The straw that broke the camel's back was the election of this new Pope, Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict XVI, who looks like Bela Lugosi's Dracula on a blood bender. Not only is he an ex-Nazi (who gives a rat's ass if his heart wasn't in it - just think of how it looks for us to go out with someone of whom it can be spoke, "He's an ex-Nazi." Did you even think of our feelings?), but he promises to take you even further away from beliefs that might make us both happy. You're already bitch-slappin' Spain over gay marriage and adoption. Spain - which did all those wonderful bone-crushing inquisitions for you. You think you'd cut it some slack, but, no, and that says a lot about you.

Now you're represented by a man who was the enforcer for the most conservative policies of the Church, including declaring that if we believe in abortion we should be denied communion (which affected the Presidential election, of course). And he thinks that the church's condemnation of Galileo was "reasonable and just." And let's not even get into his opinions of gays and contraception, except to say that "eeeevil" is a big term there. Oh, and that little problem with sexual abuse by a Vatican official that Ratzinger covered-up? Nice. No women priests, no married priests, and sexual abuse cover-up. What's the laundry bill like on the wash cloths at the Vatican? Sorry. We know. Saracasm never makes anything easier.

So what are we gonna do, Roman Catholicism, huh? Oh, you had a chance, a big one. Hell, you've even pissed off Latin America, and if you had elected a darker-skinned Pope, oh, you'd've had a good couple of decades of warm-fuzzies with some continents, even if that Pope had declared cannibalism instead of eucharists. But, no. You won't change. You just retreated, further and further. In fact, you named a Pope who was the complete opposite of what you needed and then presented him as if he was exactly who was needed. It's as if Karl Rove advised you who to choose.

We know that because of the wall-to-wall coverage of JPII's death and the 24-hour-a-day smokestack-cam you have an inflated sense of your self-worth with us. And sure, sure, we may give Benedict a little time, but, as you know from history, break-ups can happen overnight.

Hey, over 200 years. We've had a good run. And some part of you will always be with us. But it's time to move on. And we were lying before. It's not us. It's you.

David Brooks's Elitist Populism:
This morning was it. It was the breaking point for the Rude Pundit, a kind of "That's All I Can Stands, I Can't Stands No More" moment. David Brooks, New York Times conservative columnist, must stop pretending that he speaks for anyone more than the elitist conservative theory class that pontificates as if it understands what the average person needs or wants. Or he must be whipped in the streets like a craven cur that begs and whines endlessly for your food, your hand, your approval.

Few things in this world are more vomit-inducing than listening to elitists feign faux populism, whether it's your William Kristols, your Bob Novaks, and on and on, faking it like the screaming orgasm of an old porn star whose pussy is so desensitized she wouldn't know sexual pleasure if it fucked her backwards and forwards. The Rude Pundit'd like to drag the whole group of 'em to a seedy bar in the Bywater area of New Orleans and let 'em talk to the crazed, half-drunk, depressed, economically-fucked denizens there and ask 'em what they give a shit about. And then the Rude Pundit would laugh like a hyena as Kristol, Novak, and Brooks try to talk themselves out of a pool cue reaming.

In today's column, Brooks places blame for the dissolution of national discourse, for the polarization of left and right, for the uproar about judicial activism squarely where it belongs: in the wombs of poor women. There's so many astonishing leaps of logic and ignorance of history in this single column that entire dissertations could be written about all that's absent from Brooks's "analysis" of the state of American politics.

See if you can follow the bouncing ball of breathtaking bullshit: Roe v. Wade is made law, the decision written by Harry Blackmun "took the abortion issue out of the legislatures and put it into the courts." This is because now abortion is legalized around the nation, rather than decided on a state-by-state basis. "If it had remained in the legislatures, we would have seen a series of state-by-state compromises reflecting the views of the centrist majority that's always existed on this issue. These legislative compromises wouldn't have pleased everyone, but would have been regarded as legitimate," spouts Brooks.

Now here's where it all gets maniacal: religious conservatives are alientated from government by liberal "elitists," liberals see the courts as the place to battle for rights, and the battle for judicial nominees rides the waves of the polarized ocean of rhetoric, leading to greater and greater breakdowns in civility in the process of confirming judges, a breakdown that bleeds into other areas of political discourse, which leads, finally, to the threat of the elimination of the filibuster, laws passed that say Ted Kennedy must dance pantsless on The O'Reilly Factor, and the building of idols to the regent-like power of the presidency, as long, of course, as it's a Republican president. "Unless Roe vs. Wade is overturned," Brooks says, "politics will never get better."

What horseshit. What a complete misunderstanding of history, of the workings of the American government, what a fuckin' blame-the-victim mentality. Let's toss this around for a moment or two. Why blame the Supreme Court? Why not blame the Texas legislature, which had outlawed abortion, thus forcing Norma McCorvey to go to court in order to overturn the law? Why not blame Richard Nixon, for appointing Harry Blackmun and Lewis Powell to the Supreme Court? Or Ike for appointing Potter Stewart and William Brennan? Or how about blaming the sperm that nuzzled with the egg in McCorvey's womb? The penis from which the sperm spewed? Do you see the absurdity of attempting to isolate Roe v. Wade?

Or how about this: the real polarization of American politics in regards to abortion came with the craven efforts of Ronald Reagan to reach out to fundamentalist Christians so he could get elected President. Reagan had legalized abortion in California, a decision he would later say he "agonized over" and "regretted." But the fact remains that Reagan became an anti-abortion amendment advocate when he needed the votes, thus continuing the pattern of pandering to the religious right that empowered so many of the so-called leaders of that movement. And perfected by Lee Atwater and buffed to a fine polish by Karl Rove.

So Brooks would rather a nation where abortion is legal in, say, Illinois and illegal in Arizona? He'd like to go back to bloody alleys and that type of shit? He'd rather a nation where the tyranny of the majority, in the states and in the nation, can enforce its will on individual bodies and voices. What a stooge. What an apologist. What a depressing waste of editorial space.

David Brooks has pretenses of populism, of insight, but he is merely another example of the Northern conservative elite believing that they understand the "common" person when, really, all they're doing is piping the way to the caves that will close up on all of us.

Bush Speaks, Lincoln Rolls:
First off, having George W. Bush dedicate a library to Abraham Lincoln is like having David Duke dedicate a civil rights museum. It's like having James Dobson dedicate a Kinsey collection. It's like having . . . well, shit, you get the idea. It just ain't right. But because you have to dedicate presidential libraries with the President you have, not the President you want, so it was that President Bush spoke at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library yesterday.

The speech was going on nicely and tritely with the usual blah, blah, blah "Lincoln good; slavery bad" kind of crap: "Lincoln was morally offended by what he called 'the monstrous injustice of slavery itself.' And he believed the permanent acceptance of the institution of slavery would represent the end of the American ideal. He would not accept that our new world of hope and freedom must forever be a prison for millions."

Then, because Bush's ego is a Lovecraftian monster that must devour all things living and dead, the speech began to creep into a how-to guide on using the dead President to justify the policies of the living one: "President Lincoln sought every reasonable political compromise that might avoid war -- but he did not believe America could surrender its founding commitments and remain the same country." See? Get it, you stupid fucks? Bush is sayin' that, you know, he's just like Lincoln. Didn't Bush try every reasonable compromise before getting into war? Don't you remember it that way?

But if you didn't get the implication, well, then Bush brought it all back home for you. Bush posed a few obvious rhetorical questions, the kinds of questions you could ask a comatose patient because you already know the answers: "Are some, because of birth or background, destined to live in tyranny -- or do all, regardless of birth or background, deserve to live in freedom?" Well, shit, there's a conundrum - do people "deserve" freedom or tyranny? What's that you say, comatose patient? You think they should live in freedom? Good choice, comatose patient.

Then Bush ripped off the stovepipe hat and dark mole to reveal that, after all, the subject of the speech was, no shit, George W. Bush: "Our interests are served when former enemies become democratic partners -- because free governments do not support terror or seek to conquer their neighbors. Our interests are served by the spread of democratic societies -- because free societies reward the hopes of their citizens, instead of feeding the hatreds that lead to violence . . . Sometimes the progress of liberty comes gradually, like water that cuts through stone. Sometimes progress comes like a wildfire, kindled by example and courage. We see that example and courage today in Afghanistan and Kyrgystan, Ukraine, Georgia and Iraq. We believe that people in Zimbabwe and Iran and Lebanon and beyond have the same hopes, the same rights, and the same future of self-government." You get it now? Lincoln freed the slaves. Bush freed . . . who now? Well, that's beside the point when one can define "liberty" with the amorphous consistency of a street whore's price for a blow job.

But to make sure we understood Bush's place in history, he put himself in a continuum of presidents who faced adversity "after the second day of Gettysburg; even on December 8, 1941; even on September the 12th, 2001." And then he ended by saying, "See? Lincoln talked about God, so I can too": "In his example, we are reminded to be patient and humble, knowing that God's purpose and God's justice will break forth in time." Then Bush pulled out Lincoln's skull and fucked the spot where the bullet went through, shrieking, "Lincoln was a Republican, Lincoln was a Republican, yee-haw."

Prior to that, Bush spoke about Lincoln's early days, his "humble beginnings," if you will: "Before history took notice, he earned money as a storekeeper, a surveyor and a post master. He taught himself the law." And perhaps the irony was not lost on the gathered crowd, that this son of privilege, who never suffered a day in his life, who had servants hired just to buff his balls after a bath, was allowed to even speak the name of Abraham Lincoln, who, faults and all, sought to keep together a nation that George Bush and the current Republicans are trying to desperately to tear apart.

Ann Coulter's Cunt Saves America:
Ann Coulter's cunt is a fabulous cunt, all stretched-out and pretty on the cover of Time. A cunt such as Ann's is a rare thing for the right, so used to Phyllis Schlafly's cunt, so closed off, so filled with reproach for those who would dare to approach. No, Ann Coulter's cunt is inviting; its labial lips, the minor ones, you know, whisper invitations, coo to conservatives, "We're wet, oh, so wet, and lubricated, ready for you."

Yes, Time magazine, that fine magazine, can't get enough of Ann Coulter's cunt. Just a week or two ago, Ann Coulter's cunt was declared one of the most influential cunts in all of the world. In the entire world, where tribes in Cambodia and Ecuador and Zambia have built idols of Ann Coulter's cunt, worshipping it like they do mad, ancient phallic gods, all of whom would be conquered, overwhelmed by its clitoral hood.

Ann Coulter's cunt is so misunderstood: it's all jokes, not cruel invective it spouts. Ann Coulter's cunt declares that because rapist Brian Nichols escaped in Atlanta because he was able to get a gun from a female cop, "How many people have to die before the country stops humoring feminists?" Oh-ho, oh-ho, oh-ho-ho-ho, what a glorious sense of irony has Ann Coulter's cunt. If by "irony," you mean "saying exactly what you mean in the most vicious way possible," which Ann Coulter's cunt does endlessly, wonderfully; it's so fine to watch a cunt spout and spit like Ann Coulter's cunt does.

But Time magazine, dear Time magazine, makes sure we know that Ann Coulter's cunt is a hot, lovin' cunt, that goes to church, loves its mama cunt, and teaches small children wearing thigh-high dresses and calf-high boots. Sure, to be "balanced," John Cloud says that Ann Coulter's cunt is sloppy sometimes. Sure, sure, sure, facts are malleable things: only Internet freaks and worthless liberals would dare call attention to the lies of Ann Coulter's cunt. But Cloud calls it all, sweetly, the cunt's "feline aggression."

Ann Coulter's cunt is delightfully iconoclastic, so primped and polished and Ivy-League educated. How, shocking, says John Cloud, to discover Ann Coulter's cunt dislikes pornography, as it wrote while at Cornell, in sweet Ithaca. Why it's Andrea Dworkin's twin, don't you see? Ann Coulter's cunt goes to the best parties, with the elitest of the elite, all delighting in the charm of Ann Coulter's cunt. It lives in blue Manhattan, in a gigantic apartment, and has stalkers, the mark of real celebrity. The Aryan cunt scoffs at the idea that it's racist for it to suggest that all people of a certain shade of tan be separated for extra searching at the airports. When Ann Coulter's cunt says, "We'd be searching, you know, Italians, Spanish, Jews, males," it's irony, c'mon, not hate, for how could a cunt as beautiful as Ann Coulter's be taken seriously?

Ann Coulter's cunt has so many friends, all those other cunts and pricks who think Ann Coulter's cunt is just lovely. It's friends with Miguel Estrada's prick, Ron Silver's prick and Matt Drudge's cunt, all on crusades, don't you know? They'll change the world if given the chance, to one where liberals are put into camps, purged, and forced to wear dunce caps and march through the streets. Oh-ho, oh-ho, oh-ho-ho-ho, or is that more irony, to ask if liberals "love America as much as they love bin Laden and Castro?"

Ann Coulter's cunt perhaps does not see the irony in the fact that the triumphs of those bitchy feminists allow it to parade around so freely, that the world Ann Coulter's cunt hopes to create would have little use for Ann Coulter's cunt. But such self-awareness is for a whole person, and not just a cunt.

Whenever the powerful need to do some fucking or the disempowered need to be fucked, they can all count on Ann Coulter's cunt.

Bolton Update:
Fuck-up: Yesterday the Rude Pundit said that Chuck Hagel and Lincoln Chafee needed cover for an implied filibuster over John Bolton. The Rude Pundit was jumping the gun. They need cover to not even let Bolton's nomination out of committee. It's the Democrats who'll need the spines to filibuster if/when it gets to the floor.

Told You So: Yesterday the Rude Pundit asked if anyone had a reason to vote for John Bolton other than the President told them to. Richard Lugar said he supported Bolton, all evidence of Bolton's assholery aside, because nothing was serious enough to "warrant our rejection of the president's selection." A rousing endorsement, no?

John Bolton, Crazy Man:
Has anyone actually come up with a reason to vote for John Bolton for the United States Ambassador to the U.N.? Other than, you know, he was nominated by President Bush, whose popularity is sinking so fast that Hell can't get his shit room built fast enough for his inevitable coke-driven murder/suicide rampage. And Bolton apparently once or twice didn't piss on the heads of foreign leaders. The Rude Pundit is no wise and true Republican Senator, but isn't it kind of an insult to be told to support someone who, at minimum, is mean, aggressive, and egomaniacal, or, to be really honest, is as crazy as a shithouse rat? In fact, a shithouse rat would be a more sensible choice for the U.N.

The Rude Pundit has already addressed Bolton's past as a motherfucker of the people last week and last month, twice, including Bolton's attempts to have fired a female attorney who took a leave of absence from the Department of Justice back in the 1980s, Bolton's own words about the U.N. being worthless, his enabling of the Iran-Contra cover-up, his trashing of Clinton's Iraq policy (which turned out, of course, to have done the trick on WMDs), his bizarre support of genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda, and more, more, so much more.

But, in the last week or so, so much has come out about Bolton, after his bizarro confirmation hearing where he had to promise over and over that, no, really, really, he loved the U.N. and didn't want the building blown up and Kofi Annan forced to drink barrels of Iraqi oil. It was a fuckin' disgrace: it's like hiring a gay man to fuck your wife and he has to tell you over and over, no, he really, really loves to eat pussy. No, look, c'mon, he's fucked a woman or two in his life, not just men. Sure, it might be fun to watch the disaster that that fuck session would be, but ultimately everyone's gonna end up unfulfilled. And why? Because you were a stupid shithead in hiring a gay guy to fuck your wife.

And Bolton promises to be the kind of guy who stands in the corner and jacks off while his partner weeps in bed, screamin', "Look at my throbbing, massive cock. You don't get any of it. It's all for me, bitch," smackin' that meat like it's a Frenchman's ass. Then, 'cause he's, you know, batshit insane, Bolton would howl as he came on your curtains, howl and dance in triumph that he jacked off once again.

So now we know Bolton bullied underlings by screaming at them. A "serial abuser," Carl Ford, Jr. called him, and he wasn't talking about Bolton's fury that Cap'n Crunch has a more lustrous moustache. We know that Bolton prevented Colin Powell from receiving full information about strategies that concerned U.S. relations with Iran, outright lying to Richard Armitage when asked a direct question about one piece of info. We know that, according to a letter posted at Kos, Bolton went completely fucked-in-the-head-where's-the-tranq-gun insane on a USAID subcontractor in Moscow: "Mr. Bolton proceeded to chase me through the halls of a Russian hotel -- throwing things at me, shoving threatening letters under my door and, generally, behaving like a madman . . . John Bolton put me through hell -- and he did everything he could to intimidate, malign and threaten not just me, but anybody unwilling to go along with his version of events. His behavior back in 1994 wasn't just unforgivable, it was pathological." And we're not even gettin' into his role in stopping the recount in Florida in 2000.

So here's our nominee, someone who abuses people below him, lies to people above him, and smears his body with his own shit in tribute to Edwin Meese. And Republicans who allegedly have souls, like Chuck Hagel and Lincoln Chafee, are "considering" not approving him? Talk to Henry Foster, Clinton's Surgeon General nominee, who was filibustered to death by Republicans because he had performed abortions, a legal medical procedure. Or, more appropriately, talk to Sam Brown, a nominee to be a low-level ambassador to an international conference, filibustered to death by Republicans in 1994 because, interestingly enough, of Brown's previous comments like "I take second place to no one in my hatred of intelligence organizations," and, of course, the fact that he was a vocal Vietnam War protester.

There's any number of previous presidential appointment filibusters to provide cover for a wayward Republican. Of course, that would require courage, and nowadays, no one in the "moderate" side of the Republican party has the courage of a small child on a tire swing over a pond. They won't plunge in to the cool, refreshing, liberating water. They've gotta stick their toes into the water to see if they can take it.

The Perils of Photoshop:
Is it just the Rude Pundit, or does the pod-boy in this flyer for the Family Research Council's Judges for Jesus fest seem to have either the skinniest Bible or the largest hand in history?

Christ Weary About Filibusters:
Seriously, and, c'mon, is Jesus really this bored? Is he sittin' there at the right hand of God, pickin' at those hand scabs that never seem to go away, swattin' away the Holy Ghost every time that fuckin' dove tries to peck lice angels out of his beard, thinkin', "Fuck tsunamis, earthquakes, war, horrific poverty, and Britney's pregnancy. What I needs is some motherfuckin' judges approved by the United States Senate."

'Cause that's what the Family Research Council, led by raving lunatic and repressed homosexual James Dobson, would like us to believe. See, they're hosting Justice Sunday on April 24, with featured speakers Senate Majority Leader Bill "the Cat Butcher" Frist, James "The Aforementioned Repressed Homosexual" Dobson, Chuck "I Was Sodomized In Prison For the Crimes of Richard Nixon and I Found Jesus" Colson, and others. The conference/forum/shitbagfest will be about ending the Democratic filibuster on judges, the so-called "nucular option" (because, you know, if George Bush wants us to pronounce the fuckin' word wrong, we should abide, we should abide). Check out the creepy pod-boy on the poster for the event, clutching a Bible and a gavel, with the completely anti-American headline, "He should not have to choose."

Jesus or the gavel, man, Jesus or the gavel. Of course, it'd help if the Family Research Council didn't, as it always does, blatantly lie about the reasons behind the filibusters against the incompetent, radically-conservative apemen and women Bush nominated to the federal bench. Says the FRC's frighteningly named Tony "No, Not That Psycho Guy" Perkins, "They are being blocked because they are people of faith and moral conviction. These are people whose only offense is to say that abortion is wrong or that marriage should be between one man and one woman." Well, no, not really. Without getting into the entire list, let's say quickly: Miguel Estrada? Refused to answer questions or provide documents that might offer some light on what he, say, believes about, well, shit, anything. Priscilla Owen? Endless decisions in favor of corporations over people, and, yes, a radically right-wing agenda on abortion (that caused her to call Alberto Gonzales a "judicial activist" for not being as nuts as she was). And on and on.

But Jesus apparently wants him some judges (which is odd, considering his experience with judges didn't really go all that well) 'cause of the lil' fetuses, all the curled up lil' fetuses, and the vegetable people, all those smilin' vegetable people, and the Ten Commandments, so shiny and granitey and big, and 'cause he wants the non-fetus, non-vegetable people prayin' in the lunch and homerooms of Uhmerka: "Whether it was the legalization of abortion, the banning of school prayer, the expulsion of the 10 Commandments from public spaces, or the starvation of Terri Schiavo, decisions by the courts have not only changed our nation's course, but even led to the taking of human lives. As the liberal, anti-Christian dogma of the left has been repudiated in almost every recent election, the courts have become the last great bastion for liberalism." Jesus, really, shouldn't God give Christ some homework or somethin'.

'Cause, like, if the Rude Pundit were an all-powerful deity, he'd be hangin' out in Africa, smitin' him some Congo rebels and Sudanese leaders. Not kickin' it at a church in Louisville, listenin' to crazed monomaniacal opportunists screech and shout about a technical aspect of the rules of one chamber of a bicameral government. It's like sayin' that Jesus doesn't like it when you can't return an opened DVD to Best Buy. It's ludicrous. It's insignificant. And it's so disgustingly cynical: Frist is doing this almost solely because he actually thinks he can flim-flam people into voting for him for President, and they need more Jesus in the filibuster issue 'cause the Democrats are kickin' the GOP's asses on it. (Shit, we're losin', Karl Rove must have thought, bring me the blood of the Lamb to smear on my naked belly and proclaim for all that Christ needs him some judges.)

And instead of bein' such whiny little pussies about the filibuster, try to elect more crazed Senators who owe oaths of fealty to the fucked-up, deluded radicalism that passes for religion in so many areas of this country. In fact, you better start your campaigns now against John McCain and other Republicans who want the filibuster to stay for a time when the GOP is back in the minority (although we know, we know, Karl Rove is spankin' his cock every night imaginin' a permanent GOP majority).

If Republicans can invoke Christ, then the Democrats can invoke Reagan since most of the judges that said Terri Schiavo must die are Reagan appointees. What's wrong, James Dobson and Bill Frist, are you sayin' that Ronald Reagan was a fool? Are you saying his judgment was worthless? Are you sayin' that the Gipper really was a liberal?

Make 'em make a choice: Jesus or Ronnie. Make 'em have to repudiate Reagan. Force them to eat their own.

(Meanwhile, Bill Frist is itching, praying his own private prayers that Wisconsin would pass its cat-hunting bill. His fingers twitch in memory of his own hunts in the back alleys of Cambridge, his visits to the animal shelters, all to "hone his surgical skills," all that sweet cat slicing, all those beautiful kitty screams that made him the man he is today.)

Scalia, DeLay, and Sodomy: A Couple of Things Briefly Noted on a Busy Day:
1. Fucking Maureen Scalia's Face:
So yesterday, Antonin Scalia is speaking at NYU when a gay man, pissed off that Scalia went nutzoid supporting anti-sodomy laws that were struck down by the majority of the Supreme Court that happens to believe that consensual ass fucking, labia licking, and blow jobs are really not the province of government intervention, asks Scalia, "Do you sodomize your wife?" Because, you know, everyone needs the picture in their heads of Maureen Scalia with Big Tony's spicy sausage thrusting in and out of her mouth. But, really, and, c'mon, it's a totally legit question, since some of the laws Scalia supported had blanket bans on straight and gay sodomy. So, like, if Big Tony was munchin' on Maureen's kooz like a badger on a titmouse and Maureen started shriekin', "Suck my clit, you meatball of a man" a little too loud for the people of the Birmingham Marriott, the police might have been able to burst in and drag the future Chief Justice and the good Misses down to central lock-up, where, ironically, sodomy is the law of the land.

Scalia, a man who everyone says is noted for his sense of humor (and, boy, we got the joke on Bush v. Gore), responded to the student by saying that the question was unworthy of answer.

2. Tom DeLay Sodomizes the Act of Contrition:
Oh, what a chastened man Tom DeLay was when he pulled a trussed-up apology out of a coat bag and started fucking it in front of the gathered press. "Y'all watch me fuck the shit out of this apology," he shouted as he thrust his cock deeper and deeper into the sore anus of the apology, the poor contrite words just weeping through the gag. He was so busy fuckin' that act of contrition for implying that judges ought to be punished for bad decisions, perhaps with death, that it was hard to notice that he said about jack shit that would actually be construed as an apology.

Here's DeLay, in-between grunts and ass slaps: ""I said something in an inartful way, and I shouldn't have said it that way, and I apologize for saying it that way . . . It was taken wrong. I didn't explain it or clarify my remarks, as I'm clarifying them here. I am sorry that I said it that way, and I shouldn't have." Oh, how Tom DeLay whooped with joy, coming all over the back of the apology, as the Washington Post headline read, "DeLay Apologizes For Comments," as did the headlines at the Boston Globe, ABC News, CNN, and just about every other fuckin' place.

If that's what passes for an apology, then if Osama Bin Laden said, "I apologize for using United Airlines on 9/11. I should have used Delta because they lost my bags once," the Washington Post would say, "Bin Laden Apologizes for 9/11."

DeLay finished fucking the raw ass of the apology and threw it back into the coat bag before heading over to the Potomac and dropping the poor, raped apology into the water.

John Bolton Acid Flashback - The Age of Not Giving a Shit:
Back on March 24, 1999, John Bolton appeared on Bill O'Reilly's Fox "News" show. This was, of course, before the 2000 election, when Fox "News" was just an ominous fart from a distant foul anus, and O'Reilly, post-Lewinsky, pre-Franken, was not quite as much of a crazed wolverine, ready to chew off his own leg if it was in a trap. But, still, a meeting between Bolton and O'Reilly is something like a rap session between Dracula and the Wolfman, all snarls, spit, and hair.

Bolton was there to talk about Clinton's Bosnia policy, which, as ought to be well-known by now, Bolton vociferously, viciously, and vomitously opposed. O'Reilly, however, is, if nothing else, consistently thirsting for foreign blood, and he believed the U.S. had a role in halting the atrocities of Milosevic. Said O'Reilly, "America's decision is this. Stand by and let the people in Kosovo get slaughtered or stop Milosevic and his army. Those are the options . . . America has to act in this situation or accept genocide and chaos in the Balkans."

Bolton, whose moustache only extended down two feet from his nose at that point, confronted O'Reilly, saying, "I think that the United States is now involved in a conflict where it has no tangible national interest, where it has no clear objectives in mind, and where the ultimate outcome could be very risky for what our real interests are, as evidenced by the fact that we've already severely strained relations with Russia." Which, in retrospect, is as apt a description of the current Iraq conflict as you might find. But Bolton's definition of "national interest" can never really be pinned down, except "whichever way the chemicals in my brain are working that day." If a "democratic" Iraq is in the U.S.'s interests, than how is not a democratic, non-genocidal central Europe?

O'Reilly (who, this conversation aside, really needs to be sodomized with a microphone) said, "Well, I would agree that we don't have an immediate interest. But on a humanitarian basis, both you and I know the Serbian army can go into Kosovo and crush those people and do pretty much what they want to do to them. And they will, based upon what they've done in Bosnia, based upon what they tried to do in Slovenia. These are brutal, brutal people. They are not a civilized, disciplined army. And I find it difficult to stand by and watch another Cambodia, another Rwanda, unfold. And I believe the United States has a responsibility here." O'Reilly thus demonstrated that he reads the newspapers and he saw The Killing Fields. But, still, give credit where it's due; it's pretty close to what many on the left said at the time.

And then Bolton went all Bolton on O'Reilly, which means he puffed up his chest like an angry lizard ready to rut, his moustache rising electrically above his eyes. It's a frightening sight, one that the people of Sierra Leone already have legends about and spells to cast the image out of their minds.

BOLTON: Let me ask you this, Mr. O'Reilly. How many dead Americans is it worth to you to stop the brutality?

O'REILLY: I don't think I would quantify that because...

BOLTON: I think you have to quantify it. I think if you don't answer that question...

O'REILLY: ... I think if you're going to be a superpower...

BOLTON: ... you're ducking the key point that the commander in chief has to decide upon before putting American troops into a combat situation. We are now at war with Serbia. And the president has to be able to justify to himself and to the American people that Americans are about to die, or may well die, for a certain specific American interest.

O'REILLY: And I think the American military people over there understand that because of the status of America as the superpower policeman of the world, which we are whether we like it or not, there are some situations where we will have to put ourselves at risk for a long-term objective. And that long-term objective is basically not letting butchers like Milosevic run around and do what they want with impunity while we have the power to stop it.

BOLTON: I want to...

O'REILLY: And I think that's a very important point.

BOLTON: ... Then I want you to answer the question. How many dead Americans is it worth to you? Because that is the question we are now facing.

Bolton continued to emphasize that point, over and over: is it worth that loss? It's a potent question, and it's one that neither the demented John Bolton nor the President nor Donald Rumsfeld nor Dick Cheney cared to answer in regards to Iraq. The 'Stache continued, "You have to say as a consequence of the deployment of military force that you are willing to suffer dead Americans. And I think your unwillingness to face that, and the president's unwillingness to face that, frankly, is the fatal flaw in your logic . . . You cannot say that there is a sufficient American interest involved to warrant the casualties that I think we're about to face. And that's where the president is likely to come unstuck, because he does not have the political support in this country at the moment for the long-term sustained campaign you're talking about." Guess it's a good thing that there were no American combat casualties in Kosovo, no? Guess it's a good thing that there are no American combat casualties in Ir . . oh, wait . . .

You wanna know why Bolton, a motherfucker of epic proportions, is the kind of amoral cocksucker who'd pick you up in a bar, go back to your apartment, fuck you in the ass, and then shit on your couch before setting the whole place on fire as he's leaving? Because of his evasiveness on the Rwandan slaughter, massacre, genocide. In the hearings of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, Russ Feingold asked Bolton directly about whether the U.S. should have done something differently. Bolton answered, "We don't know if it was logistically possible to do anything different."

But back in the day, in 1994 and 1995, Bolton knew differently. Here's some recent history: one of the reasons that Clinton didn't go into Rwanda, with or without the U.N., is because of the vicious criticism from the right (and, let's be honest, left) on the U.N.'s Somalia debacle. And John Bolton was right there, ready to pile on and declare multilateralism dead. In 1995, on CNN, Bolton said, "I think what you're seeing today in Mogadishu represents the final collapse of the Clinton administration's policy of assertive multi-lateralism. That policy was really born in Somalia after the successful effort of the Bush administration to clear the channels for humanitarian relief. The Clinton administration changed that policy dramatically into what they called 'nation building.' That has obviously failed. It's a terrible disaster for the U.N., but I would stress, a disaster more for the Clinton administration's foreign policy than for the U.N. itself." Ahh, with Clinton in the White House, it was easy to project so much of that U.N. hatred into the Oval Office.

Yep, Congress and others went nutzoid about the Black Hawk Down. As Bolton said in 1999 on CNN, "I think the Somalia example shows that even a relatively small number of casualties are unacceptable to the American people when there's no national interest involved." Well, sure, as long as Clinton-haters can use the ruined nation of Somalia to bash the then-President. Well, sure, as long as you lie about the national interest of later conflicts.

Bolton is a lying sack of shit, a scumbag whose career has been made comforting politically powerful conservatives, a provocateur whose ego knows no bounds, an asshole beyond any human's reasonable comprehension of assholishness. And, of course, that means he is the perfect man to represent George Bush's United States at the U.N.

History Loves a Big Ol' Chomp O' Ass:
Man, those judge-hatin' motherfuckers in the Congress and on the right love to pretend that they're takin' the nation back to its alleged "roots." Look at the Constitution, they shout and wave, forgettin' that the judiciary was created to keep an eye on the other two branches of government. Oh, how they wave the Federalist Papers around, especially #78, written by repressed gay Alexander Hamilton, and they quote it endlessly.

The vampire corpse of Phyllis Schlafly quoted it while promoting her book from last year on how she perceived the judiciary as fucked-up: "Our Constitution's Framers designed the judicial branch to be the least powerful of the three branches. Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 78 that the judiciary 'will always be the least dangerous' branch of government because it has the least capacity to 'annoy or injure' our constitutional rights." Actually, Hamilton said that it was the "least dangerous" because it can't summon the military or write laws. But knowing that would require reading past the first couple of lines of the document.

The creepy intellectual wannabes of the conservative bathhouse known as the Heritage Foundation also see Hamilton as siding with them: "As Alexander Hamilton correctly noted in Federalist 78, it is the province and duty of judges to say what the law is rather than what they want it to be. Judges faithful to their constitutional role exercise legal 'judgment' to enforce the original understanding of the law." Do we need, really, to define the word "judgment"? Has it gotten that stupid? Well, yeah, since supporters of Ten Commandments fetishist ex-judge Roy Moore and the batshit insane Jesus babblers at the Family Research Council also quote Hamilton out of context.

Here's Hamilton, who couldn't be fucking clearer: "[T]hough individual oppression may now and then proceed from the courts of justice, the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter; I mean so long as the judiciary remains truly distinct from both the legislature and the Executive. For I agree, that 'there is no liberty, if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers.' And it proves, in the last place, that as liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have every thing to fear from its union with either of the other departments; that as all the effects of such a union must ensue from a dependence of the former on the latter, notwithstanding a nominal and apparent separation; that as, from the natural feebleness of the judiciary, it is in continual jeopardy of being overpowered, awed, or influenced by its co-ordinate branches; and that as nothing can contribute so much to its firmness and independence as permanency in office, this quality may therefore be justly regarded as an indispensable ingredient in its constitution, and, in a great measure, as the citadel of the public justice and the public security." (Emphasis the Rude Pundit's, motherfuckers, emphasis the Rude Pundit's.)

It's all fuckin' there, man. See, the difference is that the legislative and the executive branches are elected, by majorities (allegedly), and thus the majority of the nation has a voice through those branches. The judiciary exists, ideally outside the realm of elections, to give the minority a voice. The logic's simple: the majority will always have a voice through elections. But there's others, up to 49.9% of the population, who'd like to be considered as part of the nation. And, sure, sometimes the judiciary will piss off the other branches, but, fuck 'em, welcome to the Republic, you know? Isn't this basic civics class? Didn't we all learn this back in middle school? Admittedly, the Rude Pundit was taught the Constitution without a Bible present to coordinate the articles with, but, still, and shit, this ain't brain surgery. Hell, it ain't even temperature taking.

As for Hamilton, that poor, duel-losing, unrequited cocksucker anticipated all of it:

The role of the courts in overturning the Patriot Act? "This independence of the judges is equally requisite to guard the Constitution and the rights of individuals from the effects of those ill humors, which the arts of designing men, or the influence of particular conjunctures, sometimes disseminate among the people themselves, and which, though they speedily give place to better information, and more deliberate reflection, have a tendency, in the meantime, to occasion dangerous innovations in the government, and serious oppressions of the minor party in the community."

The Terri Schiavo bill? "[I]t is easy to see, that it would require an uncommon portion of fortitude in the judges to do their duty as faithful guardians of the Constitution, where legislative invasions of it had been instigated by the major voice of the community."

Anti-sodomy and anti-gay marriage laws, which, as noted above, would have been of particular interest to the throbbing desires of Alexander Hamilton? "[T]he independence of the judges may be an essential safeguard against the effects of occasional ill humors in the society. These sometimes extend no farther than to the injury of the private rights of particular classes of citizens, by unjust and partial laws. Here also the firmness of the judicial magistracy is of vast importance in mitigating the severity and confining the operation of such laws. It not only serves to moderate the immediate mischiefs of those which may have been passed, but it operates as a check upon the legislative body in passing them; who, perceiving that obstacles to the success of iniquitous intention are to be expected from the scruples of the courts, are in a manner compelled, by the very motives of the injustice they meditate, to qualify their attempts."

So, you know, the traitorous fuckers who gathered in D.C. this week to lash out at "judicial activism" can quote Josef Stalin all they want. They can have a genocidal, mad dictator to give wind to their sails. We'll take the Founders, queer and straight, any day of the week over Stalin, Schlafly, and Dobson.

A Gracious Note of "Thanks" To Jack Abramoff:
Here's a wee story from the Rude Pundit's past: back in the dark days of the end of the first Reagan administration, the Rude Pundit was at a university, and, tempted by a hot Gipper lover who promised the Rude Pundit handjobs on the back steps of the library, the Rude Pundit joined the College Republicans or, as we were known back then, the "Reagan Youth." The Rude Pundit had conservative leanings, yes, 'tis true, but mostly it was a fine piece of ass in a short skirt that got him heading to meetings. The Rude Pundit wasn't particularly active, but he did go along with the whole Reagan-hates-Commies thing, his father having instilled in him a fear of falling missiles. And during one of these meetings, the Rude Pundit met Jack Abramoff, who so freaked out the Rude Pundit with his self-evident evil that the Rude Pundit went running away from the Reagan Youth, into the pliant, welcoming arms of the liberals on campus. Who offered blow jobs instead of hand jobs.

See, Abramoff, who was the chair of the College Republican National Committee, declared, in essence, that anyone who didn't support Reagan was enabling Communist takeover of America. He was enlisting us, wanting us to help go after the make-up wearing punks and new wavers who made up groups like Students for Divestment. He was on a crusade, Abramoff was, to destroy funding for campus groups that didn't toe the Republican line. Here's Abramoff on March 13, 1983, from the New York Times, sounding much like the Aber Jackemoff that chilled the Rude Pundit that day in the Student Union: Liberal groups are "instrumental in leading anti-Reagan and anti-free market forces on campuses." These groups, inspired by Ralph Nader, included pro-choice and anti-nuke organizations, but most were concerned with worker safety, the environment, and other issues. Abramoff was funded by the RNC, and his lil' packet o' info declared such non-Reagan-fellatin' groups "a major threat to democracy on American campuses," as well as "unethical, undemocratic and unconstitutional."

Abramoff, now getting well-known as Tom DeLay's meat puppet, lobbyist extraordinaire, and hater of Indians everywhere, has been a vile, depraved motherfucker (in the sense that he'd fuck his own mother if he thought it could raise a little cash for conservative candidates) for his entire adult life. In 1982, leading the Reagan Youth against people like Billy Graham, who called for a nuclear freeze, Abramoff declared, "They are supporting the Kremlin line."

Abramoff has long been suckling at the engorged teat of conservative interest money - his "non-partisan" USA Foundation, another 80s flashback, was funded in part by the Adolph Coors Foundation. The USA Foundation "distribute[d] a news service and radio programs to college campuses." This was followed quickly with the Citizens for America Foundation, which sought, according to Abramoff, "to build a network of supporters of the conservative movement and to leapfrog over Congress and the news media with its message." It was a pro-Reagan lobbying organization.

When Jack Abramoff loves you, he will love you like an over-the-hill drama queen loves the hot, young, sexually confused stud who just blew him. Listen to this pro-Contra hummer from 1985, when Reagan was in early-stage dementia and was about to be driven into the legislative hole because of Iran-Contra: "Last year, the question in Congress was, 'Are the Sandinistas good or bad?' In April, it was, 'The Sandinistas are bad, but should we help the contras?' In May, it is, 'How much should we help the contras, and what kind of help?' By fall it will be, 'How much more help can we give them?'"

Of course, once you've sold your soul to Satan, that pointy-tailed bastard wants to get paid, and Abramoff was forced to resign from Citizens for America because Abramoff and the staff had "gone hog wild," according to Sidney Blumenthal in the Washington Post in 1985, with financial "mismanagement" and "lavish spending." Also quitting the CFA back then? Young Grover Norquist, who was busy fluffing the apartheid regime in South Africa at the time. By this point, though, Abramoff was in with conservatives for the long haul, including being in touch with Oliver North "almost daily" to organize a contra speaking tour in 1986.

Then, Abramoff was President of the International Freedom Foundation, and continued to stroke North's Oliver, selling videos of Ollie's testimony, where that fuckin' criminal acted like Al Capone on a coke binge. Said Abramoff, "He was always appreciated by the movement." And in 1995, it was revealed by Newsday that the IFF was "a front organization bankrolled by South Africa's last white rulers to prolong apartheid . . .part of an elaborate intelligence gathering operation, and was designed to be an instrument for 'political warfare' against apartheid's foes." This was confirmed by the South African National Defence Force. Abramoff denied knowing that the organization he ran was really run by South African military intelligence.

But, you know, when Abramoff tried his hand at film producing, making the anti-Soviet Dolph Lundgren vehicle Red Scorpion, released in 1989, the good lobbyist came under severe criticism because of the South African government's involvement in the film, which violated the U.N.'s cultural boycott. Is it any surprise that he called Native Americans "monkeys" and "idiots" while he was ripping them off?

That's all old bidness, isn't it, like the work for the Christian Coalition? Still, this is a big ol' wet kiss "Thank you" to Jack Abramoff. Without you sputtering and yankin' it off about the bad, bad Russkies, the Rude Pundit might not have realized so soon how deluded you conservative fuckers truly were and are.

And it's a "thank you" that you've hung in the game since we met all that time ago. Without you, Tom DeLay and all the other conservatives who you've used and who've used you might not be staring over the edge of the precipice, eyeballing those churning lava baths, ready to consume all of you.

It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Armed Rednecks at the Border, Part 2:
Yesterday, the Rude Pundit wrote about the activities of the Minuteman Project, wherein deluded fuckers with guns ride the Arizona desert lookin' for illegals they can "detain" and turn over to the underfunded, undermanned Border Patrol. It's the kind of thing that makes Lou Dobbs and Pat Buchanan cream in their Sans-a-belts. But, oh, how readers were upset. The Rude Pundit is a "racist" because he uses the term "redneck," they claim (although how "redneck" has become a "race" is a bit confusing to him). The Rude Pundit doesn't "get it" when it comes to the sieve our borders have become, they wrote, because the "illegal immigrants" are taking over whole industries, like construction. The complainers claim they are not racist.

But, you know, let's put it this way: if, say, the northern border of the United States, you know, the one with Canada, was like the southern border, do you think most of the country would give a happy monkey fuck about large groups of English-speaking white people coming into the America? If the armed rednecks walked by construction sites and saw lots of white men putting up drywall, would they fuckin' blink? If the lawns of the Phoenix suburbs were watered, mowed, and shaped by white people, would anyone want those fuckers tossed out and/or arrested?

Why stop there? If large groups of undocumented white people crossed the border to pick fruit and vegetables, do you think the government would actually do something to the companies that treat this barely-above-slave labor so shabbily? (Well, not this administration, but some fantasy U.S. government that gives a shit about people.)

The problem, dear, dear antagonistic readers, is not really the illegals. Surely, they are lawbreakers, but like the pot smoker, the vast majority of the 11 million or so illegals are way, way low on the totem pole of lawlessness. The problem, as we learn all the time, is that America cannot survive without its slaves. And that goes for the slaves in the fields and the slaves in the factories of American companies overseas. The culture of corporate capitalism calls for slavery. You wanna reduce the flow of illegals? Dry up the sources of income (or treat them like, say, human beings) by targeting large corporations that rely on them. You wanna protect the borders? Then don't fuckin' vote for the guy who's gonna spend all the goddamn money on tax breaks and tryin' to take over another country.

(And, to be fair, many of the let's-hunt-us-some-subhumans set do say that America should take care of itself before going to war for the fuck of it. But every once in a while, a shit-hurling monkey is gonna hit a child molester at the zoo. And you can bet that they still voted for Bush.)

The Rude Pundit realizes that it's oh-so-out of fashion to look honestly at the past, but, fuck, and why not, let's take one of those little glimpses into history. Among the stupid, pathetic, demented gun wielders who make up the private militias of this country, as well as the border creepers, the myth goes that the Minutemen, back in the colonial days, were independent men who took the law into their hands to overcome the tyranny of the British, who, you know, ruled America. Not true. See, the Minutemen were part of the well-regulated militias of each colony, first in Massachusetts, but then elsewhere. They were the elite soldiers, young men (under 25) picked by their commanding officers, to be the first to battle or to preserve the peace. The militias were, in essence, the National Guard. They faced Indian uprisings, the French, and localized violence. However, once the American Revolution began in earnest, and a more organized national army was necessary. The Minutemen became soldiers in that military and they were Minutemen no longer; they were part of the Revolutionary Army.

Those who fashion themselves after the Revolutionaries at the beginning of the nation forget one important thing: they were fighting a stronger, better-armed, better-trained empire that wanted to wreck the chance for freedom and self-governance, that wanted to kill and/or jail colonists who opposed it. The current Minutemen, the poor, lied-to bastards, driven mad by post-9/11 fears of brown people making incursions into Arizona, roaming the desert night and day? Let's put it this way: if the Revolutionaries decided to completely ignore the British and only kill Indians, it might be analogous.

Christ, don't the new "Minutemen" (and let's start pronouncing it "My-newt-men") know they're making "citizen's arrests" of the wrong people? Or is it about the joy of the hunt, like catchin' a fish and tossin' it back?

Armed Rednecks At the Border: When a group of armed men and (a few) women take the law into their hands in order to protect their "homes" because they believe their government fails to do so and when that moves beyond creating gated compounds to actually confronting others, don't we usually call that "terrorism"? 'Cause, like, isn't that what the Taliban did to take over Afghanistan? When the "religious students" saw that Afghanistan was out of control, they stepped in to impose order, right? The Rude Pundit doesn't know about you, but he's a little, let's say, concerned about the notion of groups of gun-wielding paranoid white people "guarding the borders," as the Minuteman Project purports to do. The Minutman Project is a group of pathetic rednecks and redneck wannabes who get the chance to "patrol" the Arizona wasteland at the Mexican border in desperate hopes of hog-tying Paco and Jacinta and dragging them to the Border Patrol. It is led by a man whose last name sounds like a computer game of a gay orgy, Chris Simcox. Simcox last led the Tombstone Militia, but, since "Tombstone Militia" sounds fuckin' scary, they're now the "Minutemen." Simcox loves guns, man. In every interview, he's fondlin' it, playing with in its holster, hopin' for a free minute to discharge it somewhere, oh, sweet lord, let it discharge soon. He even played a gunslinger in the tourist shows in the streets of Tombstone. He also claims, vociferously, that he's not a racist, although he says he left Los Angeles because the streets were lined with immigrants: "Oh Jesus, it is unbelievable. I mean, we need the National Guard to clean out all our cities and round them up. They are hard-core criminals. They have no problem slitting your throat and taking your money or selling drugs to your kids or raping your daughters and they are evil people." Oh, the charming part: while in Los Angeles, Simcox taught kindergarten. And his fucked-up bleatings about race might have been what got him fired and lost him custody of his son. See, one of the side benefits of the Bush administration's extra-fine emphasis on driving us all batshit insane with paranoia is that it nudged people like Simcox, deluded with notions of race war and conspiracies, to see themselves as under attack from all around them. All the little McVeighs everywhere, the ones who were less ambitious than that cocksucker, had to come up with some outlet for their insanity, and patrolling the borders offered them a chance to lock and load and play soldier. Since 9/11, the number of border-wandering, armed wack-jobs, driven to desperation by a Bush-wrecked economy, the inner rage flames fanned by rhetoric from a government and mass media that substitutes violence for any semblance of civil discourse, has grown exponentially. The Minutemen are just the most publicized face of this because it's an attempt, like the presidency of George Bush, to put a mainstream face on extremism. While the Minuteman website clearly states, "The Minuteman Project has no affiliation with, nor will we accept any assistance by or interference from separatists, racists or supremacy groups or individuals, no matter what their race, color, or creed," although, you know, that hasn't stopped groups like the Aryan Nation from pushing the Minuteman project. Nor, apparently, has it stopped the Project's website from featuring photos of its "massive" rallies where someone is hoisting a Confederate flag. (Of course, "massive" seems to mean a couple dozen mustachioed middle-aged white men baking to uncomfortable shades of brown and red in the desert sun - in other words, the Minutemen use "massive" in the same way they say they have "big" cocks.) Nor has it stopped the Project from linking to "Save Our State," where writers post the latest "news" about all the terrible things done by "illegals," like, say, flying on planes, or about the upcoming attacks by a secret army of Mexicans. And it hasn't stopped the Minutemen themselves from kidnapping and forcing a Mexican man to hold a shirt that read, "Bryan Barton caught an illegal alien and all I got was this T-shirt," while photographing him to have a trophy to hang on the wall. Well, at least it's small compensation for not getting to mount the guy's head, huh? More on this tomorrow.

The Metaphoric Death of Tom DeLay:
Now that, finally, Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is so covered in shit that members of his own party can't stand the stench (and, surely, the Republicans have strong stomachs for the feces scent of their members), it is time to talk about the metaphoric death of Tom DeLay. When, in the course of a week or two, you threaten retribution for judges who vote against your wishes, and it's revealed that a) you took a trip to Russia bought and paid for by lobbyists for the Russian government and b) you paid your wife and daughter half-a-mill for "advice" or some such shit from your PAC and your campaign, you have certainly signed your own metaphoric death warrant and it is, indeed, time for you to die. Metaphorically, of course. The only question is what kind of metaphoric death DeLay will have.

Tom DeLay could metaphorically walk into the Republican Headquarters with metaphoric explosives wrapped around him and metaphorically blow the whole place up. It'd be a beautiful metaphoric thing, as bits of Tom DeLay's metaphoric viscera, perhaps his intestines or tiny, lil' nuts, careen across the air, lit for a moment in the fluorescence, before mixing with the debris left behind in the metaphoric goo that was Tom DeLay. DeLay is one bullying evil motherfucker - he's threatened to wreck the careers of children of Republicans who don't vote with him. And an evil piece of roach shit like DeLay ain't likely to go gentle into that good night. When he starts to rage, rage, against the dying of the light, you can bet he wants to drag as many people down with him as he can.

Shit, his lackeys have said as much in the last couple of weeks. "Any politician that hopes to have conservative support in the future better be in the forefront as we attack those who attack Tom DeLay," said Morton Blackwell of the bullshit front organization, the Leadership Institute. See, this isn't about a backwater sewer rat so engorged with power and vice that he has to vomit it out on all those around him. No, it's about liberals, backed by George Soros, attacking DeLay for, well, one supposes for breaking the law. How dare liberals attack DeLay for violating ethics standards and the law. Now, line up, majority members, drop yer panties, and get ready to feel the sting of the Hammer on yer asses. Conservatives are lining up to throw themselves on the grenades they perceive being lobbed at DeLay. And DeLay is pushing them to form that protective wall.

This seems to be the course the whole thing's gonna take, as the House Republicans "expressed strong support" today for DeLay. Said attack dog Roy Blunt, "We love our scandal-plagued, hated-in-his-own-hometown, political pariah, and we're gonna stand by him until someone finds out where Jack Abramoff's hiding all the files about each and every one of us." Or words to that effect.

Of course, it's also possible that Tom DeLay will be left to metaphorically starve to death in the middle of a metaphoric desert. And as he feels his body begin to metaphorically feed on itself to stay alive for just one day more, DeLay would pray that his metaphoric death happens before the metaphoric vultures circle, land, and pluck out his metaphoric eyes while he's too weak to swat them away. As he becomes poisoned by scandal, perhaps Tom DeLay will begin to be abdandoned by those around him. It certainly seems like some in the upper echelons of the Republican party are conspicuously, if subtly, signaling their disapproval of DeLay's "First thing we do is assassinate all the judges" attitude.

Or maybe DeLay will place a metaphoric gun in his mouth and metaphorically pull the trigger, blowing the back of skull onto the picture of himself and Pat Robertson that hangs in his office. DeLay did punk out of speaking at the We Hate Judges conference this weekend, with the conference site announcing, "Congressman Lamar Smith will speak in place of Tom DeLay, who was called to Rome as part of the US delegation attending the Pope's funeral. Rep. DeLay expressed his 'heartfelt regret at not being with the Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration for this historic conference,' and pledged to work with the Council to restore One Nation Under God." (Thanks to astute reader Thomas for the tip.) Perhaps he's trying to recede, recede from the national glare since the Schiavo debacle.

Nah, if DeLay's goin' down, he's takin' the whole ship with him. He's just that kind of skeevy redneck, a shabby J.R. Ewing, a pathetic dictator, a craven dope addict looking to mainline that power shit right into his foul arm.

Note: All the above deaths of Tom DeLay are metaphorical. The Rude Pundit wants nothing more than for DeLay to have to return to crawling under houses, looking for termites, trying to command the queen termite like he commands Dennis Hastert.

Fuck "Judge Not" - Ye Be Judged:
The Rude Pundit wishes he could attend the hatefest this week in D.C. called "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith." How he wishes he had the time and expense account and remaining stomach lining to check into the Georgetown Holiday Inn and party it up with all the white people who'll be there, all the tight-assed male scolds who all seem to have the same oh-so-hot-but-untouchable young female assistant/secretary. Sweet mercy, he wishes he could have drinks at the Marriott bar, using lines like "I have a gavel in my pants and if you can find it, I'll rule you out of order," or "Wanna come up to my room and obey my ten commandments?" or "Suck my habeas corpus" to get one or two or three of 'em to come back to the Rude Pundit's room at the Georgetown Holiday Inn.

He wishes he could attend the many and sundry sessions, all featuring panels or speakers who want to halt the rape that so many Republican-appointed rabid dog judges have inflicted on the holy asses of the Christian faithful (with the occasional bone thrown to Jews, but only the Orthodox ones). Like Rick Scarborough, head of Vision America, which seeks to create a network of "Patriot Pastors" who get their flock out to vote like the good sheep they are. Scarborough has finely tuned his demented paranoia. Said Scarborough in his "book" Enough is Enough: "Those who are anti-God and anti-Christian in America have infiltrated the highest levels of the educational establishment. They have a philosophical commitment to eliminating any vestige of biblical Christianity from American thought and life. They are well-positioned, well-funded and well-connected. They are a very small minority in America, yet their level of commitment is rarely matched among Christians."

He wishes he could attend the Judge Roy Moore hookah party, where all the participants will get to suck down that sweet intoxicating smoke which says that putting a huge goddamn monument in a public building is not activism, but saying get rid of the fucking thing is. Herb Titus, Moore's chief counsel, will be on a panel on "the Real Constitution." Titus was the 1996 Vice Presidential nominee for the Constitution Party, which, in its platform, says, "All teaching is related to basic assumptions about God and man. Education as a whole, therefore, cannot be separated from religious faith. The law of our Creator assigns the authority and responsibility of educating children to their parents" and of homosexuals, "We reject the notion that sexual offenders are deserving of legal favor or special protection, and affirm the rights of states and localities to proscribe offensive sexual behavior." Whee, what wonders about the Constitution can be learned, but, alas, alas, the Rude Pundit won't be there, even though Moore himself'll be speaking.

He won't be at the Terri Schiavo memorial orgy, where an attorney for the Schindlers, David C. Gibbs, will whip everyone into a fever pitch about the vile, depraved Supreme Court that allowed Schiavo to die. With lines like "When you think of America, remember God’s wonderful blessings bestowed upon our nation, but ask yourself whether God will automatically continue to bless our nation if we abandon Him," panties will be wet and crotches tented. Then he'll have everyone drink an ecstasy-laced tea made of mint and Schiavo's ashes so that everyone'll have a bit of Terri inside them, well, before they piss it out. That'll be followed by the lamest orgy in history, with the missionary position only allowed, and no contraception, so it'll be a withdrawal slippery spoogefest and lots of curses of "Oh, goobers, I came inside you. Let's hope Jesus doesn't want you to have a baby" and solo women forced to avert their eyes while the men can fondle themselves but not orgasm. All for Terri, man, all for Terri and Jesus and to say the judiciary can kiss their asses. But not in a gay way.

No, the Rude Pundit won't be there to see the vampire visage of Phyllis Schlafly appear or to watch Alan Keyes spit venom in the eyes of the nearest audience members. Nope, he won't even go to see Tom DeLay, that roachfucker. He won't be there to watch the token Jews speak and everyone nod condescendingly. He won't even go to see Evangelist Tim Lee, a Vietnam vet who, he says, had placed sports before God until his legs were blown off by a mine because "God had taken the legs that had carried me from His will."

And why? Why would the Rude Pundit miss such a gathering of blithering, dithering, dangerous idiots, assholes, and charlatans? Such chicanery is manna from heaven, material for bloggery for weeks.

Because the Rude Pundit despises traitors. And anyone who believes that the judiciary of this nation has run amok and must be reined in through legislation, impeachment threats, and/or violence is a traitor, an anti-American Christian extremist who wishes to transform this country into something it is not. A revolutionary in the worst sense, a terrorism-enabler, if you will, but terrorism from white people, 'cause, you know, it's different. And they deserve contempt, derision, and prosecution.

Pope Corpse:
Man, the Rude Pundit can't get enough Pope corpse news. He wants to know everything about that holy body, now laying in St. Peter's Basilica where tens of thousands of people will able to say, with tears, "I saw a Pope corpse." The Rude Pundit wants to see that corpse over and over on the news, with its horrible death grimace forever Parkinsoned into its face. It was awesome enough when the Pope death watch occupied the cable news networks non-stop: the Rude Pundit kept a list of organs to check off as each one failed. Holy Christ, and what could be better than hearing about each and every fluid in the Pope's failing near-corpse, as his urine got all fucked up and his blood and just imagine what else. But, shit, that was nothing compared to the Pope corpse coverage. The Rude Pundit doesn't want to hear about fuck-all else: no damn Abu Ghraib attack, no damn Tom DeLay-is-evil bullshit, and certainly not a fuckin' word about the WMD intelligence report that says we're all fucked. Who the hell needs that? Don't harsh the Rude Pundit's Pope corpse buzz.

No, that's all noise, man, it's all bullshit, it's doin' nothin' but gettin' in the way of hearing over and over and over and over and over what a great fuckin' Pope corpse this is, how we all love the Pope corpse. How the Pope corpse chased away the Commies, how the Pope corpse loved all the brown people. Fuck, man, can't we send the Pope corpse on a world tour? Can't we mummify that fucker and let it visit every fuckin' country the living Pope visited and even the ones he didn't get to? Aw, shit, it'd be amazing: hourly updates of the Pope corpse's time in Tanzania or Ecuador. Goddamn, how the natives would be thrilled to have a Pope corpse there. C'mon, Rome, don't bogart the Pope corpse.

Matter of fact, the Rude Pundit wants the Pope corpse to be re-animated, to become the zombie Pope, going on a rampage, eating the brains of abortion providers, homosexuals, and warmongers, because the Pope's approach to the "culture of life" was so fuckin' consistent, man, it was so steady, bein' against genocide and contraception. Opposin' the Iraq War and women priests. Shit, we all read what we want into the Pope corpse, taking the good with the bad, but, oh, man, the zombie Pope'll show us all what's what. He'll be eatin' some fuckin' flesh, man, that's what a zombie Pope'd do - enough of those dry, tasteless eucharists - let's get real and juicy here. He is risen.

And when we finally capture the zombie Pope and put him in the ground, the Rude Pundit wants a twenty-four hour a day Pope corpse-cam in that tomb, so we can all watch the Pope corpse rot on a special CNN channel called "Watch the Rotting Corpse of the Pope." And it won't just be the decaying flesh of the Pope corpse on the channel - no, it'll be nonstop people tellin' us all how wonderful the Pope corpse is, how to this day the Pope corpse still inspires them by never giving up, rotting so gallantly in front of us to teach us all the mysteries of dying and, well, fuck, rotting.

Yes, sir, nothin' else matters when there's a Pope corpse around. Don't let that fucker rest in peace.

Extra: The Rude Pundit's Favorite Conversation He Ever Had Related to the Pope:
The Rude Pundit's lover in the late 1980s had an intensely Catholic sister. She was in high school still. One day she comes into the house and announces to the Rude Pundit and said lover, "I just got the tape of Tony Melendez, that singer who performed for the Pope. He's the one who doesn't have any arms."

"The one who plays with his toes?" The Rude Pundit asked, fondly remembering the sight of Melendez, eyes closed, pluckin' that fuckin' acoustic for all he was worth with his toes. And how Melendez sobbed when John Paul kissed his head after he was done. Such miracles - a boy who can play guitar with his toes. "Is he blind, too?"

"No," said the sister. "I don't think so." And she put on the cassette. The parents of the sister and the lover gathered around, the mother powerfully moved by Melendez's vocal stylings and, of course, the toe pluckin'. Who wouldn't be? The sister asked the Rude Pundit, "What do you think?"

"It's okay," said the Rude Pundit.

"He's playing with his toes."

"So?"

"So you don't like it," she said, getting all teenage girl pouty. "You can't even play the guitar. He's playing it with his toes."

"We should forgive his playing because of the freak factor? If he sucks, he sucks, and who gives a damn how many limbs he has."

"But he played for the Pope."

"Sucks for the Pope. It's America. You'd think there'd be a better armless Catholic guitar player somewhere around here."