Not Quite the Day After:
Whenever dealing with politics, and, indeed, the Congress specifically, the best way to explain any votes, deals, and/or double-crossings is with the simple metaphor of trying to choose which gay male hooker to fuck that night. And so it must be with the "deal" to avert the "nuclear option" vote on the filibuster.

Let us say, and why not, that you are a D.C. gay guy cruising Fells Point in Baltimore after leaving the Eagle bar enlarged and weeping, having unsuccessfully closed a deal on a back alley blow job for free from this hot Cholo who teased you all night. Now you want release, big time, and you're willin' to pay for someone to let you fluff his duff. Here's your options: the fat, hairy, weepy cross-dressed queen who'll suck you dry after you've fucked his ass sore - cheap, skeevy, and in the morning you'll feel like shit, but at least you'll bust your nut on someone who just appreciates the attention. There's the hot black muscle mary, who will make you feel guilty after you've given him the salami colonic and you'll grudgingly allow him to give you a ram job when you're done and then he'll tell you about the crabs. And then there's the amazing Tom of Finland he-whore with the fuckin' popeye arms, dirty sanchez moustache, someone who wants to hurt you and make you thank him for it, a trader dick who'll fist you, fuck you, and steal your wallet. But at the end of it, you'll feel so fulfilled that you'll want to do it again.

It's a moral dilemma, innit? You wanna think that no matter what, everything will go your way, that you'll end up happy and with significantly less blue balls. We will come back to this conundrum in a moment.

So a compromise was reached on the filibuster, hammered out in Senate offices between men and women who the mainstream media calls the "moderates" in their parties. There's a few ways to bottom line this. There's the gratifying spectacle of Bill Frist going down in flames, flailing about in the Senate chamber, trying to swat the fires from his clothes as he expressed disappointment and felt his stomach heave at the hell to come for him. Despite the glass-is-half-full headline in the New York Times, there's the oh-so-satisfactory image of, just yesterday, President Bush saying about his judicial nominees, "I expect them to get an up or down vote. And that's what I expect" and now knowing he ain't gettin' that, and that, at a minimum, he'd better at least pay lip service to the "advise" part of "advice and consent." There's the gut-swelling happiness in watching the so-called "radical right" (which, let's be honest, is now the "mainstream right") thrash around in its anger at Republicans, tearing itself like Rumplestiltskin being called by his true name. John McCain is a political dead man now. He's where their vicious hatred will be directed. And Lindsay Graham better watch his back.

But then there's the pathetic fact that three citizen-hating wads of fuck will probably be confirmed to the federal appeals court. There's the fact that the so-called compromise, which did turn out better for Democrats than earlier ones that had been floated, does little beyond delay the coming war. Which, if it does until the 2006 campaign is looming more closely, is possibly good for the Democrats.

'Cause Harry Reid is right: this whole debate has revealed the radical right in all its ugliness. And it has shone a light on the naked power grab that the Bush administration is attempting to complete. They are motherfuckers in that they would fuck their own mothers in order to achieve their complete dominance. And sure as shit, Karl Rove is going to nominate the most batshit insane asshole next to try to break this deal.

So, back to our gay sex question and its relationship to how we should feel about the whole Senate compromise: if you're James Dobson, you would choose the Tom of Finland hustler; if you're a "moderate" Republican, you choose the muscle mary; if you're a "moderate" Democrat, you choose the fat transvestite.

And if you're a real liberal, you drive away to jack off, alone, at home.