Samuel Alito, Another Motherfucker For America:
Remember that it's a rule that holds fast and true: if George W. Bush gets to appoint someone to a position, that person will be a motherfucker. John Roberts, motherfucker; John Bolton, motherfucker; John Negroponte, motherfucker; Michael Brown, motherfucker and little bitch. In the hopper right now is Ellen Sauerbrey, who is a motherfucker of proportions that will ensure the rest of the world hates us even more than they already do. And, now, of course, we have Samuel Alito, the latest Supreme Court nominee after Harriet "Nope, She's a Motherfucker, Too" Miers withdrew after being gang-raped by the conservative right.

Samuel Alito is such a motherfucker that he supported the rights of cops to strip search a ten-year old girl who was not named in a search warrant because, as he stated, "[I]t is a sad fact that drug dealers sometimes use children to carry out their business and to avoid prosecution," which also means that it's a sad fact that the girl's got no rights to unreasonable search and seizures. Which means, really, none of us do if we happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

(By the way, what is it about the Bush adminstration's Supreme Court nominees' savage anger towards pre-teen girls? We had John Roberts saying that it was jim-fuckin-dandy to treat a 12-year old girl eatin' french fries on the subway in DC like she was Aileen Wuornos giggling over the gutted corpse of a dead john. And now we have Alito allowing cops to, without cause, molest a child.)

And, yep, like a good motherfucker, Alito offers support for other motherfuckers: he's for abused wives being forced to tell their motherfucker spouses if they're pregnant, he's for non-whites to have the color of their skin used as a factor for hiring by motherfuckers, and he believes motherfuckers running colleges can discriminate agains the disabled.

If Alito proclaims a respect for previous precedent or other courts, he's lying like an imprisoned Scooter Libby telling a jailhouse Muslim that he never supported the torture of Gitmo inmates. Alito dissented from a decision that upheld the legality of a ban on the sale or ownership of machine guns manufactured after 1986 in the United States v. Rybar. Rejecting the use of the Commerce Clause as a means to overturn the law that banned the guns, the majority said that it was joining with decisions made in half a dozen other circuit courts.

And, according to the Washington Post, on September 24, 1986, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Sam "Motherfucker-in-training" Alito helped author a Justice Department policy that "said that discrimination based on insufficient medical knowledge was not prohibited by federal laws protecting the handicapped. Employers, it said, may legally fire AIDS victims because of a 'fear of contagion whether reasonable or not.'" The Justice Department's position was rejected by many states, including some that reacted by barring discrimination against people with AIDS. Alito, whose work helped foster some of the hysteria about AIDS during the Reagan era, said, "We certainly did not want to encourage irrational discrimination," but the reaction to it "hasn't shaken our belief in the rightness of our opinion."

There will be more, there will be more about Alito in the days and weeks to come to demonstrate just how many mothers he's fucked. One guesses, since this is raw meat for the Christian right, it's gonna be a lot.

Meanwhile, in the most gruesome display, Bill Frist escorted Alito to the Rotunda, where, under lockdown, Alito was encouraged to fuck the corpse of Rosa Parks. Carefully opening the casket, Frist told Alito that he could go first, but to save a bit for him. "Why not?" Alito thought as he unbuckled his pants. The President had already been there and fucked Rosa Parks' corpse earlier in the week, just before nominating Alito, winking at the statue of Thomas Jefferson as he took the deceased activist as his own. Ahh, the echoes in the Rotunda, with Sir Walter Raleigh, Abraham Lincoln, and others looking on, of Alito's grunts for liberty and justice for all.

Patrick Fitzgerald: The Grown-Up in the Room:
There's a fantasy world that can be spun out among children frolicking in a playroom. The children can take heaping piles of garbage and dirty diapers and empty boxes and colored cloth and construct something they see as an elaborate castle, a wonderland, if you will, where they can enact their epic tales of glories, of princesses and pirates, of villains and dragons, of superheroes and fairies. If you are one of the children, or even a child who comes into the playroom late, you will become a part of the illusionary kingdom, a palette from which fears, anxieties, and wishes are played out to their often extreme ends. It's a beautiful, self-contained environment, the world of children, and grown-ups often harbor secret desires to become part of it.

But sometimes, into the fantastic realms of juvenile imagination, an adult must walk in and point out the reality of the situation. Looking around the destroyed room, the adult calls things by their names: No, Scooter, that's not a unicorn, that's a trash-filled bag with a used paper towel roll on it. No, Ann, it's not make-up and a wig- you're smearing poop from a diaper on your face and putting snot-ridden tissues on your head. No, Sean, you're not a fireman - you've just dropped your pants and pissed everywhere. And you know what, kids? It's time to clean up this goddamn room.

When Patrick Fitzgerald finally spoke today, he spoke as the grown-up, the one who decided to put to rest all the lies and misconceptions about what actually occurred not only to Valerie Wilson, but the nation as a whole. Said Fitzgerald at his press conference explaining his indictment of Irving Lewis "Scooter" Libby on five charges related to the investigation of the leak of Wilson's name, "Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer. In July 2003, the fact that Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer was classified...Valerie Wilson's cover was blown in July 2003." See that? He's stating as fact something that he knows, not supposing, not amending.

And when Fitzgerald spoke of Wilson's blown cover, he put it in terms of national security. He laid out what Scooter did and how he lied about it. Then he delivered the smackdown to the Bush administration's flouting of laws: "[W]hat we need to also show the world is that we can also apply the same safeguards to all our citizens, including high officials. Much as they must be bound by the law, they must follow the same rules."

To Kay Bailey Hutchison and the rest, Fitzgerald again stood up like the grown-up among the children and said, "This is a very serious matter and compromising national security information is a very serious matter. But the need to get to the bottom of what happened and whether national security was compromised by inadvertence, by recklessness, by maliciousness is extremely important. We need to know the truth. And anyone who would go into a grand jury and lie, obstruct and impede the investigation has committed a serious crime."

When the fantasy is broken, some children cry, some run, some kick the grown-up, some go ahead and start to clean up the room. The Rude Pundit expects lots of crying, running, and kicking in the weeks and months ahead, and very little effort at picking up the shit that's been flung.

Coming up: Rove's leather slave reacts.

To All Who Await Fitzgerald and Juries Grand and Petit:
Remember: as that tantric-practicing limey Sting would tell you, the best orgasms are the ones that take a long, long time coming.

In the studio this morning recording The Year of Living Rudely CD. Back this afternoon with weepin' Libby and Karl Rove's leather slave.

Feeding the Right-Wing Monster With Harriet Miers' Corpse:
You know what's gonna be fuckin' hilarious? When George Bush nominates some insane wad of fuck to the Supreme Court now that Harriet Miers has turned tail and run. 'Cause, see, the Democrats now have cover from any insanitoid right wingers or groups that fuckin' dare to say that a Bush nominee deserves an up-or-down vote. They have demonstrated just how full of shit they are. A fair hearing? A debate? Fuck no. Just give us who you want, or we're gonna rip out your jugular and dance and bathe in the spraying blood. They got what they wanted - Miers' tasty, if bony, corpse to feed on, but it's a hungry monster and it craves more flesh.

The Rude Pundit has no sympathy for Miers, who, if she was as fuckin' smart as Bush seemed to think she was (but, let's face it, there's rutabgas and cardboard boxes that seem smart relative to Bush), she would have said, "Are you out of your goddamn coke-decayed mind?" when she was asked to be nominated. Miers is a tragic figure at best, pathetic at worst, so beholden and enamored of her mad leader that she would throw herself on the spears of the confirmation process for him so he wouldn't have to be bothered with all that interviewin' and decidin' that hurts his brain so bad. But the worst thing to come out of this whole debacle is that the ultra-right now sees itself as having even more power.

Oh, you know that in the halls of the Concerned Women for America, they broke out the good dildos, the cross-shaped ones, and passed them out to everyone around for a lunch time group clit-tickle to see who can have a vision of Jesus first. In their fuck-you kiss-off press release on Miers, the CWA, which just this week had called for Miers to withdraw, says, "'Miss Miers has shown great respect and consideration by putting the needs of the American people and the judicial system above her own personal ambitions,' commented Wendy Wright, CWA’s Executive Vice President. 'We look forward to future opportunities of working with Miss Miers and will stand united with her on common goals.'" Or, in other words, sorry, bitch, but unless you can be our tool, we don't have any use for your unqualified ass. The title of the release: "CWA Wishes Miers All the Best." And, you know, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Meanwhile, the rest of the right is breaking out their Antonin Scalia blow-up dolls to receive the anal pleasures of Big Tony's cock, begging him to treat them like the Constitution and strictly construct their assholes. Said Richard Viguerie of the quickly obsolete Withdraw Miers coalition: "Ms. Miers' withdrawal presents President Bush with an opportunity to put forward a nominee that will allow for a substantive and dignified debate about the role of a judge and respect for the Constitution while uniting his conservative base." And who was preventing the substantive and dignified debate? Guess that would be, well, the Withdraw Miers gang and, you know, Richard Viguerie.

David Frum, who's got a Clarence Thomas doll he keeps chained to the attic wall-it's really sad, when Frum fellates the Thomas cock, jacking himself off furiously and weeping over the image of the real Thomas looking down from the wall and forgiving him for the chains - called this "A Great Day For American Democracy." Writes Frum on the National Review Online, "The system worked. And as we all hoped, once again the president got the big decision right." Now, one might think that this proves the President got the big decision - the nomination - wrong, and that the withdrawal was a clear demonstration of the innate wrongness of the initial nomination. But then, you'd be living in the real world and not writing for the NRO. Bush is blameless, don't you see?

So the right will want obeisance now, a bowing down to their whims on the Supreme Court - they want a fuckin' nut they know is a fuckin' nut, someone they know will shoot abortion providers while stomping on gay couples who wanna get married. And if the Democrats hold out, demand documents and real opinions, run ads opposing the nomination, they can say that, hey, we're just doin' what you guys did to your own. Nah. The right is nothing, if not filled with liars and hypocrites.

Why Michelle Malkin Ought To Be Caged Like a Rabid Shitzu:
For conservatives, for anyone who still lingers in support of the war (people who are not unlike those who choose to stay behind for a monster hurricane ostensibly to protect their property and then we're all supposed to feel bad when their drowned asses are found impaled on the jib boom of a sailboat that crashed into their homes), yesterday has to be rendered meaningless. For if they place any significance on the number 2000, they will have to acknowlege that corpses have meaning, and if you stack 2000 of them up, it still does not equal the height of the pile of bullshit that took us into the war. When the press hack for the Iraq operation, Lt. Col. Steve Boylan, says that 2000 is "an artificial mark on the wall," you know they're shit-scared of that number being ingrained in the public. At least until 2100, 2200, 23...

Of course, one of the most war-lovin' whores out there is Michelle Malkin, whose latest "column" (if by "column," you mean "mad spittle-ridden spewings of a self-loathing rightwing spooge bucket") is another vicious attack on the anti-war movement because it "couldn't wait for the death of the 2,000th soldier." She regurgitates Boylan's talking points, that the media shouldn't focus on the deaths so much as they should focus on "the momentous events of Iraqis voting, training for the police and security forces, and joining the new government." 'Cause, you know, the press hasn't covered the Iraqi elections at all.

Malkin, in her blog, had previously joined in attacking the Quakers (the fuckin' Quakers, fer chrissake) for planning a protest around the milestone of the 2000th dead soldier. She called it a "party" being planned by leftists. Now she calls Cindy Sheehan's plans for protest "her macabre lust for the spotlight in preparation for the artificially constructed, media-hyped occasion." Then she conflates the grieving, protesting mothers, the families of soldiers, the soldiers who have returned, the everyday citizens who don't like their government being hijacked by madmen, all the mainstream people who oppose the war, and even Pat Buchanan, with people "[w]ho believe the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and at Shanksville, Pa., were a Bush conspiracy with Israel and/or Saudi Arabia." That's like saying that, say, contemporary Asians who write conservative columns are the same as buck-toothed Japanese stereotypes straight out of a World War II Warner Brothers cartoon.

In her most bizarro comparison, Malkin says these are the same people "[w]ho believe Saddam Hussein should be freed and Guantanamo Bay emptied." The Rude Pundit's not sure who Malkin's been watchin', but who wants Saddam freed? And how is Saddam's imprisonment comparable to torture at Gitmo?

Malkin condemns those who see the number 2000 as having some significance: "Why 2,000? Was the 2nd or 555th or 1,678th death not as worth mourning as any other death with nice round numbers?" The Rude Pundit's not sure if Malkin remembers when the right went nutzoid when Ted Koppel decided to mourn the 2nd and 555th deaths by reading the names on the air. The Rude Pundit's not sure if Malkin remembers that the Bush administration prevented photos being taken of caskets and funerals. The Left has not tried to erase the meaning of each and every death. (And let's not even get into the fucked-up discussion of the meaning of round numbers in general: it's why, say, the centennial of something is seen as more important than its 86th year of existence.)

Michelle Malkin is so pro-war that she keeps vibrators shaped like SA80s, specially made so that when she pulls the trigger, she gets an automatic-weapon sized burst of vibrating speed. God, as she sits there, in her internment cell she keeps in her apartment to remind her what she thinks she's worth to the American government, watching Fox "News," thinking about Oliver North fucking her with the same force, thinking about the tens of thousands of brave soldiers still alive, and, holy fuck, as she bursts into coming, sweet, sweet Iraqi freedom.

As we have surpassed 2000 dead, Malkin and other war supporters are craven, desperate souls. Because we're on the fast track to 3000. Or, more precisely, 2987, the point at which we will have given more lives in Iraq than died on 9/11, the one connection to 9/11 that Iraq war supporters don't want made. Now, there's some fuckin' numbers for you.

Plamerovetreasonlibbygate Is Not Whitewater:
Comparing the current investigation of the White House's leak of CIA operative's name to the Whitewater investigation (or any investigation) of the Clinton adminstration is about as specious as saying that the war in Iraq is analogous to the American Revolution. It's not just like comparing apples and oranges; it's like comparing apples and carburetors. Other than a couple of words, like "special prosecutor," "perjury," and "obstruction of justice," there's nothing remotely similar about the two. So not only fuck you to every right winger who wants to make this point, but come back to the fold, Nicholas Kristof, who joins a number of those on the far right in poo-pooing the idea of perjury as a "technicality."

For those who don't have super-special access to the New York Times or Nexis, here's a quote from his editorial today: "I find myself repulsed by the glee that some Democrats show at the possibility of Karl Rove and Mr. Libby being dragged off in handcuffs. It was wrong for prosecutors to cook up borderline and technical indictments during the Clinton administration, and it would be just as wrong today. Absent very clear evidence of law-breaking, the White House ideologues should be ousted by voters, not by prosecutors."

Listen, children, let's go through this again: Whitewater wasn't referring to the pearl jam Bill Clinton deposited on Monica Lewinsky's dress. Because the Republican party sought to shut down the Clinton presidency in any way possible, Janet Reno appointed a special prosecutor to look into a two-decades-old land development deal that went south. The appointee, Robert Fiske, also says he's gonna look-see if Vince Foster offing himself had anything to do with the whole deal, involving a little fuckin' bank and a little fuckin' land purchase. Ken Starr gets appointed and, even after a report that exonerates Clinton from any wrongdoing, goes nutzoid with the investigatin', egged on by a right-wing machine that must be fed with the corpses of Democrats. Then, after engulfing a bunch of Clinton supporters and administration members in a huge clusterfuck that nobody understood or cared about other than said crazed rabid right-wingers, Starr, who was gonna bail on the whole thing for a post at Pepperdine until he was threatened with lynchin' by the same right-wingers, discovers the fuckin' with an intern, and, glory be, we got lyin' about fuckin', and all of a sudden, the land deal fades into somethin' fer eggheads to argue about, and the press goes nutzoid about the fuckin'. And the whole enterprise comes down to the fuckin' and whether Clinton lied about the fuckin' during a videotaped deposition over a piece of shit Arkansas opportunist who was suin' Clinton. The perjury charge on Clinton was for that - not for a goddamn thing havin' to do with the original land deal, for which Clinton was cleared of any crimes.

You wanna tell us how that is like an investigation into who outed a CIA agent's identity as a way of discrediting someone who questioned the reasoning that got us into a goddamn war? You wanna tell us how Rove and Libby lying under oath about how they disseminated that information and where they got it from is in any way similar to lyin' about who you fucked? You wanna tell us how Patrick Fitzgerald's possible opening of his investigation into the rationale for going to an ongoing war is in any way as irrelevant as veering a financial dealings investigation into a lie about blow jobs and hand jobs that had absolutely nothing to do with whether or not Bill Clinton got a little financial benefit from a shitty savings and loan bank that went under?

Is there a clamor to look into George Bush's sexual habits to see a pattern of exaggerating what's real? Is anyone asking what George Bush's dick looks like? 'Cause at this point, it oughta be shrivelled like a scared turtle, to the point where he has to dig into his body cavity to pull it out to take a piss.

So, yeah, the Rude Pundit finds himself as "repulsed" as Kristof. But his repulsion is at the manipulation of the media and the public by an administration that cravenly, cretinously desired a war; his repulsion is at the inability of the Bush administration to admit error on the path to destruction. Instead, it just sends its lackeys, attack dogs, and others to do its bidding. Sure, there's a lot of disgusting shit out there. Slamming Scooter and Karl (and maybe others) into the dirt and making them eat rocks ain't part of it.

Hate the Lie, Hate the Liars:
Here's some festive quotes fer ya:
"[N]ot a single person who works for him seems to have the honor to leave himself."

"[N]one of his staff, no member of his administration, and almost no...official seems to want to hold the president truly accountable for his actions."

"[A]re there no honorable men around him? Can his staff and cabinet be lied to without consequence? Is there nothing that will impel them to depart? They need not become vociferous critics of the president. They need not denounce him. A quiet, principled leave-taking would suffice. But it would be refreshing if one of them refused to be complicit any longer in the ongoing lie that is the...White House. Apparently, not one of them is willing to do that."

"Personal loyalty is an admirable trait, and so is political loyalty. Up to a point. Government officials work for the nation, not simply for the president. They swear an oath to the Constitution, not to the president. To remain loyal to a president who lies is to make oneself complicit in his lies. To remain loyal to a man who has brought shame to his office is to make oneself complicit in that shame. At some point, blind loyalty must yield to principled honor. When?"

All the quotes are from William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, from his editorial in the August 31, 1998 issue titled "Where Are the Resignations?" Kristol was second to none in his outrage over Bill Clinton's lie to the American people, demanding that Clinton resign, fluffing that impeachment hard-on like the frantic young lover of a Viagra-less eighty-year old man.

Kristol was on ABC's This Week during the lead-up to and during the impeachment of Clinton, beating the drum that if Clinton lied, he should go; that once a President looks directly at the American people and lies, then that President is no longer effective, and, certainly, that to commit perjury is to lead the nation down a path of immorality from which it may never recover. (Amazing the way conservatives define "immorality," no?)

Of course, one could say that Kristol doesn't think that George W. Bush lied to the American people or at all, but at some point, it becomes pathetically foolish to believe that, like a teenager who won't give it up about Santa Claus. But Kristol is a desperate fuck these days, clinging to a disgraced ideology like a child-molesting priest reciting the "Hail Mary" in jail. When Kristol says that Tom DeLay, Scooter, and Turd Blossom did not act as criminals, when he says that the left is out to "criminalize conservatives," we are hearing the mad bleatings of the lamb about to be slaughtered, the horrible squeal of swine headed up the final ramp.

Law Breaking For the Rest of Us:
Let's say you're drivin' along the highways and byways of America, big fuckin' America, with its wide fuckin' roads, and everyone on the interstate is goin' ten, twenty miles an hour over the speed limit. So, shit, why not, you do it, too. Then you see the highway patrol car two seconds too late, and you are nailed, say, doin' 85 in a 65. Speedin' ain't the worse thing you can do when you're drivin'. Drunk drivin', runnin' a stop sign, there's lots of shit that's worse. But the trooper pulled your ass over for speedin'.

When the cop walks over, you can complain that everyone was speedin', that you were just goin' with the pace o' the road, you know, that if you went the speed limit, then you'd actually cause problems for the traffic. And, hey, look at those cars goin' by - they're speedin' worse than you. Every cop has heard it before. And that cop knows: there's a law - the speed limit. And you're either breaking or you're not. You may lie, finagle, or cajole the cop into walkin' away, but you broke the law, no matter what you may think about the law. Sometimes it works - you get away with no ticket, no points, nothin'. But if you drive enough, you will meet that by the book son of a bitch who will have that citation written before you get a word out of your lying mouth.

Now, let's say you've got a dead hobo stuffed with baggies of heroin stashed in your trunk. And the cop wants you to step out so he can search the vehicle. First of all, you have learned a valuable lesson: if you've got a hobo corpse stashed in the trunk, do not speed. But now you've only got a couple of choices left to you: you can try to whack the cop or you can run. But either way, at this point, you are fucked. Once the trunk is popped and the stench of rotting hobo hits the cop before the visual, you are finished. And, really, there's no one to blame but your hobo-killin'-drug-transportin' ass that just had to fuckin' speed once too often.

Remember: politics is criminalized when criminals get into politics.

Neverending Tales of the Christ Weary:
Here's the thing about that Missouri pharmacist at a local Target who refused to fill a woman's prescription for emergency contraception: if you can't do your fuckin' job, then move out of the way and let someone who can do it step behind the counter. A pharmacist is there to do the doctor's bidding, answer your questions, and alert you if something might be unsafe. That's it. John Aravosis lists other potential conflicts-of-conscience that Target may be tacitly approving by allowing the pharmacist to "exercise" his religious beliefs against a customer who had a prescription from a doctor.

In addition, how about this: if your religion prevents you from doing your job, get another goddamn job. If a Kashrut-abiding Jew is given a job as a McDonald's food taster, McDonald's would fire him the second he said he couldn't put in his face the McBigfuckin' cheeseburger or any meat with "special sauce" on it. Unless said Jew alerted McDonald's up front. Then McDonald's would be idiotic to hire him. And Mayor McCheese would weep with shame.

And by the way, someone oughta ask Target product designers Isaac Mizrahi, Michael Graves, and Todd Oldham what they think about it.

See, the Rude Pundit has said before, "freedom of religion" is also "freedom from religion." In other words, on your own fuckin' time, you can worship your Jesuses (whatever flavor of Christ you worship), you can be Allah-rific, you can pretend you understand the Kabbalah, you can get all nekkid and dance around yer goddess fire. There's your freedom. Enjoy. But you start to tell me shit like "I won’t fill it. It’s my right not to fill it" when it's your fuckin' job to fill my prescription? Then you (and any company that supports you) is engaging in a discriminatory practice as sure as a Denny's refusing to seat black people.

And until they open up "Scrips Fer Jesus" stores where God's druggists can do his will, just shut the fuck up, suck it up, and gimme my drugs.

The Rude Pundit continues to receive tales of the Christ weary from around the great American landscape. If you have one you wanna share, send it to: rudepundit@yahoo.com. Herewith are a couple more (cleaned up for clarity), and, as ever, the Rude Pundit does not vouch for the truthfulness of them.

From Nic: "My parents, upon finding out that the parochial schools that matched our religious flavor were all full up, shipped the fruit of their loins to Batshitfuckinginsanecult School. That school was run by Pentecostals -- you know, the kind that like to act like they are dropping into a K hole of Jesus.

"Imagine the confusion wrought on my little Catholic boy mind, when I figured out that I was the idolator they were talking about. Things went from bad to worse when the school decided that pre-k through sixth graders should sit though a three-day long presentation on the book of Revelation. My third grade mind couldn't take it, I lived in fear that my unsaved family would be tossed into the lake of fire while the pious looked on shaking their heads sadly. All the pre-k and kindergarten kids were crying because they were scared shitless -- in retrospect this was tantamount to child abuse.

"For years I interanlized the guilt of being Catholic and prayed for redemption -- my parents told me not to mind the religious message and just get good grades -- because it really is a great place to get an education'. But I was brainwashed. Little did I know that two short years later I would realize my deepest fear.

"In the spring of my fifth grade year I had to accept the fact that the devil was inside of me. The signs had been there all along: not too good at sports, always impecably dressed and a taste for theatre -- I was a dreaded homo. That was it -- game over, express ride to the lake of fire. I spent the next 10 years of my life in a suicidal funk. The only thing that saved me was that I had access to the Johnny Walker but no sleeping pills -- and if i was going out it was going to be just like Marilyn Monroe.

"I was lucky. The kid that beat me up in my freshman year of high school to prove that he hated gays died of HIV complications 15 years later."

From Craig: "So, after lots of good years of not really believing in no supernatural being except for a GREAT! Orange Barrel Sunshine trip in 1972 when 'GOD' spoke to me through side two of the Abbey Road album, I was ready to give up drinking but it wasn't ready to let go of me.

"So, got a month's supply of antibuse and started going to AA where I kept hearing 'Let Go, Let God' but I didn't really trust the motherfucker since he seemed to have such a sick sense of humor and might turn me into a homo if his 'will be done.' But fuck it, everybody was doing it, so I got into it and started every day asking Big Daddy to keep my sorry ass sober. I liked it. God was my buddy, but it was a private thing, and I was still very proud to boast that the last time I went to church, I fucked the preacher's daughter. The funny thing about that was the drunk dumbass thought that I was fucking his wrinkle-assed WIFE! But that's Christian-folk for ya.

"So, after a couple years in AA and NA, I got to know this shithead named Rick who had been going to meetings regularly, but went out and got drunk one night, totaled his car and paralyzed himself from the waist down for the rest of his life. All of us do-goodies used to tote his limp ass to meeting after meeting, up and down church steps, but he was one pissed-off bitch about his fucked-up situation.

"So, one day this old drinking and doping buddy of mine who had found Cheezus told me an amazing story about this friend of his who was the wife of an Allman Brothers band member somehow, who lived near him in Love Valley, NC. Apparently, the coked-out bitch ran her Porsche into a tree one night and was, yep, you guessed it, 'paralyzed from the waist down.' But, God is a GOOD God! This Jesus freak church that they all now belonged to spoke in tongues and laid hands on her and, Glory, Glory, the crazy bitch got up and walked!! Can you believe it?! You better believe limp ass Rick believed it when I stupidly told him about it and he literally spit out the words, 'Can you get them to see me?'

"So, I arranged a meeting between the Jesus freaks, my old buddy, the miracle lady, and the wheelchair bound zit-faced Rick. We all joined hands around Rick. My daughter, who was 8 at the time, was drug along for good luck. She looked at me with bewildered unhappiness as the freaks began to speak in tongues, 'Shibolith, shibolith, blah, blah blah, hisssss, hissss, shibolith, shibolith, rah rah rah!' They thanked the Lawd with great surety as they encouraged Rick to get up and walk, as they all had felt the Holy Spirit enter his severed spinal cord.

"So, Rick, trembling and shaking like a twenty-five dollar washing machine, pushed himself up off of that wheelchair and crashed and burned faster than God smote the Philistines, or whoever. We helped him back into his wheelchair as he sobbed and pounded his sickly white fist into the chair, over and over and over and over, and over. The freaks just smiled beatifically and told him to just be patient, that they had all felt GAWD move into him. I grabbed my little girl, got the fuck outta there, and apologized to her for doing that to her.

"That night, Rick sliced his numb legs viciously with a razor blade, and bled his poor aching heart to death. Fuck him, but I went to his wacked-out Seventh Day Adventist funeral, anyway, but I'm glad I did because there were a lot of some of the good-looking drug addict chicks there, and I got to act all stoic and all.

"So, now, thanks to not having taken any LSD in over 30 years, I know that god is a figment of somebody's fuckin' imagination."

Suffer the little children, man, and so suffer all of us.

The Creepy Visage of Tom Delay:
Look at that face in his mugshot. Stare at it for a moment. It won't turn you to stone (perhaps).

Look at the smile. That is a smile that says you are all worthless before Tom DeLay, that your meager rule of law does not concern him, that the judicial process is farcical and he will not only not be cowed, he will mock it with every unworked muscle in his face. "C'mon, fuckers," that smile says, like so many Mafia dons and made men and drug lords before him, "I'll play your little game as long as it suits me."

Look at his eyes. They are bloodshot, the look of a weary man. They are eyes that bespeak a sense of loss, of a soul, of a future. Maybe they even betray the smile and glistening teeth. More likely, though, the eyes speak to a long flight filled with cocktails and too many Ronnie Earle getting fucked by various animals jokes.

Look at how he presents himself. Jesus, someone combed his goddamn hair before the photo for there is nary a Grecian'ed wisp out of place. The perfect tie. The House of Representatives pin to demonstrate that he is, indeed, a powerful man, and none of the others in that room will touch him.

Ah, well. At least the Rude Pundit knows what he's wearing as a mask this Halloween. For children will run screaming into the arms of their mothers who, unspeakably frightened by the face of Tom DeLay, will ask the police to prevent such a horrific thing from being made public.

The Republican In Fall:
The Senate Republican keeps a plastic baggie of Tucks in his coat pocket, for these days, in this strangely chilled autumn, he is shitting blood on a regular basis. Every day, the Republican reads the newspapers, and every day, his stomach heaves at what he sees: Patrick Fitzgerald's Sword of Damocles, hanging by that damned single hair, ready to take off the head of the administration; the tumble of Tom DeLay; the monkeyfuck insane House of Representatives that keeps pushing the cruelest legislation possible; the debacle that is the Harriet Miers nomination; the murderous war in Iraq; the rife incompetence of the White House. The Republican tries to avoid seeing all of this information, but partly he knows he must face it - it is his party, after all, and his job; and partly he can't avoid it. Indeed, he's directed his staff to keep him updated on each scandal.

The Republican has been in the Congress for a long time now. He has seen scandals come and go. He knows of a few that never surfaced in the public, like when Bob Dole was caught in the Senate cloakroom, his penless hand being used as a dildo by a moaning Jeanne Kirkpatrick as he was being blown by Kirkpatrick's female assistant; like when Exxon gave Frank Murkowski a stuffed caribou, its fiberglass carcass filled with cash; like when Alphonse D'Amato threatened to have Lawrence Eagleburger whacked. Yes, the Republican has seen so much he has dealt with by winking and looking away. But now, now.

The Republican knows he's going to be called upon to defend his President, to defend his party, to defend conservatism. He will be given talking points on discrediting Fitzgerald that he is to repeat like a mantra of the damned on every Sunday morning talk show. He will put on a good show of playing hardball with Harriet Miers until, ultimately, as expected, he votes for her. He will grill Rumsfeld and Rice and generals big and small about the war and foreign policy before voting for whatever the White House asks. His leadership will tell him turn this around on the Democrats, that they are making mountains out of molehills, that you don't wanna fight, you just wanna move the country forward. And he knows that if he doesn't do any of this, Karl Rove or someone under him will fuck him over - ensure that his state gets few defense contracts or homeland security funds, close a base or two there, dry up that corporate campaign funding trough, put up a true blue Bush lover against him, have his children followed after school, threaten to rape his wife.

The Republican knows he's placed himself in a corner. Because he knows that chances are this time things are different. If that hair breaks, if Fitzgerald goes after the head of the snake, the public's gonna turn on his party. He's seen that happen before, too, with both parties. And he's gotta pick his side: the administration or self-preservation. His learned behavior of the last five years is gonna say to him to prop up the White House, ride this out. All those times he's been beaten by Rove, screamed at by the mad President, scowled at by Cheney - the abuse that makes his reflex tell him to cower. His natural instinct is now to go down with the ship, if necessary.

The Republican, as he looks over this morning's news, wonders what it would be like to break ranks, to name evil where he sees it. To say, as other conservatives have, that this administration has failed, that it is a shit-encrusted assault on the very foundations of the things the Republican loves about America, about politics, about governing. The Republican knows that it would only take one - that once he turns, others will join him, like a branch that pushes through a logjam. And he could save his party from this amateur, this manchild, this pretender, this Bush. He could lead the way, showing that the Republicans put the good of the nation above loyalty to criminals. God, what a magnificent thing that would be: the hearings, the resignations, the housecleaning that would elevate discourse and set the country at least back on the proper path.

For the Republican knows, at the end of the day, each and every individual in his party, in the Congress, bears the weight of complicity in letting things go this far. And if the Capitol crumbles, it will be because men and women like him failed to act as individuals with consciences instead of as good soldiers in a lost platoon.

Yes, he should act, now, but he will not. Such things are what noble men do, but he is not a noble man; he is just a Republican. And the fall has just begun.

Donation Goodness:
While you're tossin' coins into the pot for the Rude Pundit, consider throwin' a few at Wampum, which is not only a great blog covering some issues the rest of us in Left Blogsylvania only occasionally mention, but is the blog that puts together the yearly Koufax Awards, honoring bloggy writing. The Rude Pundit's been a nominee a few times and was runner-up for Most Humorous Post last year. And the Koufax Awards are awesome for introducing readers to new blogs.

Wampum's lookin' for donations to cover the effort it puts in to the awards. No, there's no tuxes or Vera Wang gowns involved, but the Koufax Awards are always a good virtual time.

The Jesuit in the Mix:
Here's an e-mail the Rude Pundit received yesterday from Boring Diatribe:
"[Special Prosecutor Patrick] Fitzgerald is 44, making him 4 years older than me, so we didn't overlap at the Jesuit high school we both attended in NYC, where we both grew up, but I can tell you a couple of things about our education:

"Regis is a 500 student high school for gifted boys. There's an entrance exam. There's an interview. There's an interview for the parents, separately, and the bad apple students are steadily weeded out over 4 years, though admissions mistakes only hover around 1-4%. Rejected students are those who can't excel in a rigorous program that at that time included 3 mandatory years of Latin and the kind of debates that are rarely seen beyond Lincoln-Douglas re-enactments.

"Have you ever looked into the eyes of Jesuits? Look long enough, and you can see the heretics burning back there. Back then, they still imparted that zeal to their students, if pointed in more helpful directions.

"When I heard Fitzgerald went to Regis, I knew Rove and the boys were in a lot of trouble. Rest assured, if there's a crime, Patrick's going to find it, and he will prosecute. At the time I attended, Regis was designed to turn out moral (in the true sense) men who would become impeccable professionals or even captains of industry. I think Fitzgerald's route is obvious.

"If you've read down this far, here's the Regis song:

"'May ours be the noble heart
Strong to endure
Daring though skies be dark and roadways unsure

"'May ours be the heroes' part
Ready to do
We are your sons fair Regis, our spirit is from you.'

"I know Roveco are criminals. You know they're criminals. If it can be proved, Patrick will prove it."

You know what'd be fuckin' hilarious if Fitzgerald actually indicts a couple of criminals (or a couple dozen)? That the Bush administration would be brought down by someone who was, at least at one point in his life, a devoted Christian. For the White House, it's just a shame that he might be the type of Christian that understands the value of honoring ideas and faith above paying homage to humans.

Of Deteriorating Dams and Drowning Men:
In Taunton, Massachusetts, the people are waiting to see if the dam bursts. The Whittenton Pond Dam is falling apart, and no one knows if it can hold back the flow of water from the Mill River and Lake Sabbatia. There's been, as you may know, a hell of a lot of rain in the Northeast of late. Dams can only hold so much. It's a wooden dam that's been breached before, but this time the whole thing may break apart, sending six feet of water into the small city of 50,000. Some residents have already left, but many are staying in Taunton, wanting to ride out the flood, protect property, act macho, who knows. Surely, if the dam breaks, some of those people will drown.

Drowning is a horrible way to die. Human beings are built to breathe - it is a reflex, not a choice, and even if it is suppressed, the body will take over the mind and try to breathe. When you attempt to breathe when all around you is water, you will suck in water. This will send your mind and body into a panic state, and you will try to cough out the water. However, since you are surrounded by it, you will merely inhale more water. Your throat will constrict to try to prevent the water from entering your lungs. Another bodily reflex is the will to live, but in this case, your body will fail. Yes, water will be diverted to your stomach, but eventually, in the vast majority of drownings, it will get to your lungs. Generally, if you're lucky, this happens after you've gone unconscious. The worst part of drowning, though, is that you know you're drowning, and there's nothing you can do about it, even though you will try. You will suffer asphyxiation. Your organs will fail. And you will die, probably floating, bobbing in the water, feeding the fish.

Taunton is a town filled with anxiety right now. The mayor and everyone in there, save a few cynical reporters, are hoping that the dam holds. If it does hold, chances are there will be some minor patching done to the privately-owned wooden structure. Everyone will go on with their lives as if nothing was going to happen, although some will keep in the back of their heads that the dam almost burst apart; some may even call for a complete re-building of the dam, that to wait for the next storm to warn them once more would be dangerous. Those people will be dismissed as fools.

If the Whittenton Pond Dam breaks into pieces, the worst part will be not knowing what will be wrecked, what will be preserved, who will be swept away, who will be safe. All that's known is that Taunton will have to figure out how to renegotiate its identity, having been around since the 17th century, having been part of so much of the history of this nation, from the origins of the colonies to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. So much is unknown of what lies beyond the dam burst.

In Washington, DC, there's much the same feeling, of watching a swelling build up behind a human-constructed barrier. There's so much pushing against that wall right now. So much greed and corruption and crime and so, so many lies. The Republican party is praying that the barrier holds, the dam they've constructed of media and power and manipulation. For if it breaks, the streets of DC will be clogged with floating, drowned corpses, like so many turds in a giant toilet.

The Most Optimistic Thing the Rude Pundit Can Say About Plamegate:
The Rude Pundit is not a prognosticator. But there's something that he's feeling in his gut: that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald may just try to save America. If Fitzgerald is the hardcore law and order guy we've been led to believe, then he may just decide it's his job to take down the Bush administration, so rank with the stench of lawbreaking.

Why the gut feeling? Because if, as some Rude Pundit readers have suggested, that this is all just a show, that there'll be some whitewashed report and it's done, then it would have been over by now. Fitzgerald would have put on a good show, held a press conference or two, and it would have been done a long time ago. But more and more, the indications are that Fitzgerald is going after something more than a couple of powerful aides who committed something akin to treason. Fitzgerald has fucked with the PDA schedules of many, many administration members and hangers-on. He has opened up the investigation into the evil White House Iraq Group.

Unlike that pathetic gloryhound wannabe, Ken Starr, who had to bray about every semen stain to make it seem as if he had a real case against Bill Clinton, Fitzgerald's investigation has been virtually impenetrable and quiet. And it's always the quiet ones who end up being the most vicious killers.

Pat Buchanan Hearts Drag Queens:
You know, the Rude Pundit knew that he grudgingly agreed with Pat Buchanan on the Iraq War, but, man, the porcine isolationist's really coming along nicely.

From the New York Post:
"The cover photo on the latest issue of Patrick Buchanan's American Conservative magazine, bearing the cover line 'After the Storm,' is not that much different from many of the pictures coming out of the hurricane-stricken areas of the South. It shows a family of four children slogging through knee-deep water with two adult women. However, the 'woman' on the far right is none other than well-known New Orleans drag queen and bartender Jack "Lady Charles" Nicholson. Kara Hopkins, the magazine's executive editor, had no explanation other than 'it was a good photo.'"

Rather than elucidate the obvious imagery, the Rude Pundit encourages your imaginations to run wild, like a feather boa around Buchanan's neck.

Judy's Side (Rude Version):
Prison's gonna be rough for a man who voluntarily tells people to call him "Scooter," especially since that man's last name is the same as a brand of fruit. Yep, there's gonna be a mighty throwdown in the cellblock to see who gets to pull the poptop on I. Lewis Libby's can of peaches. And in the end, once Scooter's peaches are plundered, he's gonna be sold for a few packs of cigarettes to the homies by the b-ball court. Let's not even anticipate the penitentiary of horrors awaiting a man who lets another man call him "Turd Blossom."

For if there's anything we learned this weekend from the New York Times articles on Judith Miller's role in Plamegate (call Sunday's paper: "Suite: Judy WMD Eyes"), it's that Dick Cheney's number one guy, Scooter Libby, is already fucked, even before he passes through the prison gates (the Rude Pundit is aware that chances are that not only will no one in the Bush administration actually serve time for outing a CIA agent, but that pardons are inevitable- still, a boy can dream). Here's a guy who, after trying to discredit Joseph Wilson to anyone who'd listen, then obviously told reporters he never said it.

And then there's Judy's side (an interesting homonym for "Judicide," which is what the New York Times seems to have committed). In essence, here's what Judith Miller says: "I am an insider, you fuckin' peasants, and you are not worthy to lick my fucking boots. I was proudly the fuck toy of Scooter Libby. I screamed in delight when he shoved his fist into my kooz to turn me into a meat puppet. If Scooter says he's mad at the CIA because they're making President Bush look bad, then all Scooter has to do is shift his thumb on my clit and I'll scream it loud and clear. If Scooter wants to destroy Joseph Wilson, it's only the fucking useless editors who'll stand in the way. Oh, unhappy Scooter, how he confided in me that the CIA is comprised of pissant cocksuckers who would have the audacity to dare attempt to undermine our nation's proud march to war to find the weapons I said were there. So Scooter said, tickling my cooter with information. Scooter could have been anything he wanted to me. Senior administration official? Former Hill staffer? Rodeo attendee? Kitten fucker? All of them were true, so I felt no ethical qualms in identifying him as such. In the end, I wasn't wrong, though, because, you see, I'm just a reporter, I only reported what I was told, so Scooter, dear Scooter, would use the dildo he whittled out of an aspen tree on me again and again. And did I mention that I went to prison?" They are the words of someone who deluded herself into being a protective gatekeeper to those in power, the last clinging to a shred of self-respect over her being duped, made the fool, and done the bidding of masters.

Judy got played, man, like every sycophantic cock and cunt in history, everyone who thought they were really a part of an inner circle when, inevitably, they were just the disposable lackeys. While she was busy sucking off Ahmed Chalabi and the other crazed, greedy thugs of the Iraqi National Congress, while she was ridin' high with the WMD searchers, gettin' roughly fucked in jeeps by those she was embedded with, the real story was happening under her nose: the betrayal of a nation through a complacent media that was hungry to be accepted by those who despised it.

Judy can remember the day in Jackson Hole, Wyoming when she last saw Scooter Libby ("At a rodeo one afternoon, a man in jeans, a cowboy hat and sunglasses approached me"), but she cannot remember the name of a the source who gave her Valerie Plame's name. It's like saying you remember your fifteenth date, but you can't remember the first guy who went down on you. Or perhaps she doesn't remember because more than one person gave her the name. Oh, the questions that remain.

She may as well have said, "My notes tell me that at our first encounter, Scooter Libby fingerfucked me. At our second, he used a dildo. Fitzgerald asked if it was a vibrator. I told him my notes say, 'Doldo,' and that whether or not it vibrated, I cannot recall. My final Scooter conversation was phone sex, with Scooter telling me to stroke my throbbing reporter's pen tip as he described fucking Joseph Wilson and his wife at the same time. How surprised I was when I read Scooter's letter saying that he had never touched my pussy or talked about fucking me when my notes clearly say he did."

Everyone is pointing to George Clooney's encomium to the dead press in the flick Good Night and Good Luck as a way of seeing the role of the media in these empty times. But the Rude Pundit is reminded of another movie. There's a great moment involving Saul Rubinek as the weaselly writer from the Northeast in Clint Eastwood's film Unforgiven, who had made himself part of the story of Little Bill, Gene Hackman's vicious, torturing sheriff who sought to rid his town of "assassins." After Eastwood's Will Munny kills all the putative "good guys," Rubinek sidles up to Munny to wheedle his way into that story. Eastwood threatens to shoot him and the writer, who thought he had become one of the tough cowboys, goes scampering off into the rain-soaked night.

Christ Weary of Supreme Court Nominees (and James Dobson), Part 2:
When President Bush declared that he chose Harriet Miers because of who she is and that her evangelical Christian worship is part of who she is, Bush was making a threat to the non-evangelical majority of the country: if he gets his way, he declares, it's their nation now. While he may not have meant it, since the Rude Pundit believes Bush has a bad habit of speaking whatever the demons in his grey head tell him to speak, Bush was throwing down a gauntlet: Fuck with this nominee, and you fuck with Jesus.

As others have pointed out, to declare that Miers' hotel-bound church-going is a reason to approve her for the Supreme Court is, at the least, to merge church and state, and, at worst, to quite possibly violate the Constitution. It's one thing to assure people that a nominee's religion won't influence his or her decision-making (a la John Roberts and his Catholicism). But it's quite something else to assure people that a nominee's Jesus-lovin' will absolutely have an impact on his or her decision-making.

But that's exactly what Karl Rove did for James "Behold My Stereotypically Creepily Effeminate Voice" Dobson, head of Focus on the Family and, apparently, someone who has so much access to the White House that he must be hand-jobbed into complacency by a much-distracted Rove. This week, Dobson took the pussy way out of his original statement of being assured by Rove in a "confidential" conversation that Miers was one of their own.

Parse these words, motherfuckers: "What did Karl Rove say to me that I knew on Monday that I couldn’t reveal? Well, it’s what we all know now, that Harriet Miers is an Evangelical Christian, that she is from a very conservative church, which is almost universally pro-life, that she had taken on the American Bar Association on the issue of abortion and fought for a policy that would not be supportive of abortion, that she had been a member of the Texas Right to Life." And then, later, Dobson said, "Karl Rove didn’t tell me anything about the way Harriet Miers would vote on cases that may come before the Supreme Court. We did not discuss Roe v. Wade in any context or any other pending issue that will be considered by the Court. I did not ask that question."

Goddamn, these assholes weasel the language worse than a used car salesman. Let's get legalistic on their asses: First of all, it's the outright lie: if Karl Rove mentions "the issue of abortion," then they discussed a "pending issue," no? And then you don't need to discuss Roe v. Wade or, for that matter, any "cases" in order to get the info you want. Look at this questions: Does Harriet Miers support abortion rights? No mention of Roe there. Dobson cannot state, explicitly, that he and Rove did not talk about abortion. What Dobson does say is that he was assured that Miers belonged to a wacked-out deluded Christian church and that she has fought against abortion rights because of her membership in said wacked-out deluded Christian church. (Miers' Cornerstone Christian Church is a breakaway group from the Valley View Christian Church of Dallas. The group claims they didn't disagree with doctrine, but over leadership, so one can assume that Cornerstone believes what Valley View preached.)

There's talk that Cheney and Alberto Gonzales were against the nomination of Miers, but maybe, just maybe, Bush (through Rove) want this war over faith. It's a great distraction from, well, other upcoming events. What they didn't expect was that the war would be fought by the faithful. Even as the feeble and mad Pat Robertson threatens the re-election of GOP Senators who might vote against Miers, even as little Dickie Land of the Southern Baptist Convention says he supports Miers because he "trusts the President," other Christian and right-wing organizations are either opposing Miers or staying on the sidelines.

Here's the latest from the Family Research Council's Tony "No, Seriously, It's Not Funny Anymore - I'm Not That Guy From Psycho" Perkins, which has decided to take a "wait and see" approach to Miers: "We are the last people on earth to object to the news that [Miers] is a committed Christian; the Good News is, above all, great news for her. And we reiterate, this fact about her is neither grounds for objection nor a fit object for examination by the Senate. By the same token, this fact is not grounds for certifying her to us or to the public. It's not just that religious conviction is an unreliable indicator of a judicial philosophy (though it clearly is), it's that inferences drawn from an individual's religious affiliation have no place in decisions to nominate or confirm a judicial appointee." As the Rude Pundit said yesterday, it's kinda fuckin' scary how rational the normally nutzoid are appearing in this case.

But let's also be clear: if Harriet Miers came out today and said, "If I'm placed on the Supreme Court, I will personally piss on the original Roe v. Wade documents so that the ink is erased from existence," the Concerned Women for America and the Family Research Council would be holding celebratory orgies at the local Embassy Suites in support of the nominee.

The worst, most gut-wrenching part of all of this is that, if Miers makes it to hearings, we face the very real possibility of Miers being questioned by Senators about her religious beliefs. Here's what this evangelical Christian will be faced with: the ultimate chance to try to convert a Democrat or two or shutting the fuck up and hoping she can hide her twitchy desire to witness. Bring the Good News to the Senate chamber or deny Christ. Actually, maybe that'd be a blast to see, especially if Miers falls to the floor of the hearing room, convulsing and speaking in tongues as Sam Brownback and Orrin Hatch compete to see who masturbate most furiously at the sight (the safe money's on Brownback) while Tom Coburn cries like a little bitch at the beauty of it all.

Sidenote: If you really wanna vomit up yer cornflakes, check out Matthew Scully's love letter to Harriet Miers in the New York Times today. After chiding conservatives for degrading Miers, Scully lays out how Miers is the ultimate proofreader: "If one speech declared X 'our most urgent domestic priority,' and another speech seven months earlier had said it was Y, it would be Harriet Miers alone who noted the contradiction." Jim-fuckin'-dandy that Miers acted like a good secretary - way to avoid the whole "sexism" charge. Scully also says that Miers gets to work early. And she'd be good for the Court because she'll make sure the sentences are punctuated correctly or some such shit. And, in a bone to secularists, Scully calls Miers "a gracious Christian woman."

There you have it: the best a friend of Miers can offer is that she's a Christian who's read Strunk and White and knows how to work an alarm clock.

Christ Weary of Supreme Court Nominees (Part 1):
There was a time, there was a time when the Rude Pundit flirted with a particularly crazed sect of Seventh Day Adventism, the kind that held services at a local hotel. This evangelizing group, call it the "Bugfuck Insane Creepy Christian Church," was having a weeklong series on the evils of popular culture at the local Holidome and, if you attended three of the seven "lectures," you received a free Bible. The Rude Dad knew a good deal when he saw one, and, since we had no Bible and RD had a perverse sense of humor, he decided it'd be fun to go. So we piled into the Chevy Malibu station wagon and headed off to the Holidome.

On night one, we learned about the Devil in rock music. This was in the heady days of backwards masking and similar sadly delusional bullshit, where "Hotel California" reversed said, "Suck my sweet Satan knob, crazy moonbat," which, apparently, if you looked it up the unpublished Alistair Crowley, "moonbat" is code for "one who worships the devil by blowing Alistair Crowley" or some such shit. Backwards voices sound eeevil, even if it's Kermit the Frog, so, for a ten-year old, so far, so brainwashing.

On night two, we learned about how sex and Satan are used to secretly lure us to buy Fruit Loops and nail polish remover. And then on night three, the preacher went on about the devil in movies. After it was over, the Rude Pundit, who was a fan of horror films old and new, went up to the preacher and asked what he meant - did Jesus not like Godzilla? No, no, the preacher assured the young Rude Pundit, but movies like The Omen or even Dracula were the problems because they make the Devil seem alluring. The Rude Pundit thought about this very quickly and, because he liked both of those films, he decided this was a punk ass religion that wasn't for him.

It didn't matter, really, because we had earned our free Bible, so Rude Dad didn't have any intention of returning. He had gotten his jollies, mildly scarred his kids, and could say that there was a Bible in the house - all in all, three nights well-spent. The preacher, though, didn't like to lose a soul, let alone an entire family of fresh, tasty, unbaptized souls. He showed up at our doorstep. RD let him in but quickly got rid of him. The next day, the preacher knocked again. "Pretend we're not here," said RD, so we cowered, and giggled, while the preacher fuckin' walked around to the back of the house to look in the sliding glass doors, knocking and calling out. There's been monster movies where flesh eating zombies have been less persistent. But, then again, he was the preacher of the Batfuck Insane Creepy Christian Church that met at the Holidome, scaring children with bugaboo demons in Beatles' songs.

The Rude Pundit was reminded of this story from the distant past when he learned that the "church" that Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers attends is a hotel-based breakaway group from a larger Dallas church, and they gave her a standing ovation when she walked in late to their worship this past Sunday. This crazed Christ worship mixed with the piquant aroma of chlorine from the hotel pool is what Karl Rove touted to James Dobson in his "confidential" phone call, and it's what the President said is "part of Harriet Miers' life."

The most surprising part of the whole conservative backlash is just how, well, rational many of the groups and individuals sound. Tired of being used and abused, the Concerned Women for America said, "We find it patronizing and hypocritical to focus on her faith in order to gain support for Miss Miers" in response, especially, to the notion that attacks on Miers are sexist. What's sexist, let's be clear, is to not hold her to the standards one might have for a Supreme Court Justice. What's sexist is to treat Miers with kid gloves because of her delicate constitution or her lack of delicate understanding of the constitution.

Clark Kent life calls. More on this later, including the threat to each and every one of us. (And, as ever, the Rude Pundit is open for your own tales of Christ weariness.)

George and Harriet - The Bestest of Friendsies:
So, apparently, George W. Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court, Harriet Miers, had a problem with taking shits on the sidewalks of Austin. Or else she couldn't stop herself from studying stray piles of turds on the streets of Laredo. It had to be one or the other because otherwise why would Bush, when Governor of Texas, write a P.S. to one of his "thank you" notes to Miers that reads "No more public scatology"? Now, one could say that maybe Bush was cautioning Miers that the two of them should avoid going to the parks of Dallas to engage in a little scat play, where Bush jacked off after shitting on Miers' face. Whatever the case may be, it's not a huge leap of logic to see that private scatology is fine with Bush, just not, you know, the public variety. Or Bush just doesn't know what the word "scatology" means.

Yes, the letters between Bush and Miers reveal quite the friendly relationship between them, with Miers' affections for Bush resting somewhere between cock worship and train porter behavior. One might say it's all just chummy. The rest of us would say it's creepy. Example: For the sake of argument, say that you're a grown woman, a professional, in your fifties, and you are friends with the governor of the state, as well as his occasional lawyer and a political appointee. Let's say that you're late getting a birthday card to the governor.

Chances are you would not send a Hallmark card with a sad puppy and "I'm Sorry I Missed Your Birthday" on the cover, with the pre-printed verse message, "This is the wish/That should have been sent/Before your Birthday/Came and went." Chances are you would not add a note that said, "You are the best Governor ever - deserving of great respect!" Chances are you wouldn't handwrite in "Sorry" next to the pre-printed message. Chances are you wouldn't write at the bottom, "At least for thirty days - you are not younger than me." You might do these things if you were writing to a child, a well-loved niece or nephew whose birthday slipped your mind while you were too busy with, say, your fuckin' job. But if you were that fiftysomething professional with your fiftysomething professional governor-friend, wouldn't you wanna act like an adult? 'Cause, really, and, c'mon, a fuckin' puppy dog card?

When you read the little notes Harriet and George sent to each other, especially the ones from Harriet, since George's writing style looks like that of a psychotic illiterate, you get the image of two people: a man desperate to be admired, to be seen as great, and a woman on her knees, assuring the man she's fellating that his dick is so huge, just sooo goddamn huge. In one letter thanking Bush for sending birthday wishes to her partner's mother, Miers adds, "You and Laura are the greatest!" (Miers is inordinately fond of the exclamation point, like a hyperactive cheerleader. It's suprising her i-dots aren't smiley faces and hearts.) In a thank-you card, Miers opens, "Hopefully, Jenna and Barbara recognize that their parents are 'cool'- as do the rest of us." Which sounds like code for smoking dope and swapping partners at parties in the governor's mansion, with Nathan Hecht and George watching as Harriet and Laura go at it like rutting weasels on the carpet emblazoned with the seal of Texas.

And then there's all the times that Miers assures Bush that he's just, gee-whiz, the bestest, most awesomest thing that everest happened to Texas: "Texas is blessed!" and "You are the best!" and "Thank you for all you and Laura do for the people of our State!" and "The state is in great hands" and "Texas has a very popular Governor and First Lady!" This kind of fluffing goes far, far beyond the usual compliments and gets into the type of flattery we associate with the official human footstools of the court of Louis XIV, a constant reassurance that the king is always right and noble.

What we witness in these personal notes is the infantilization that surrounds George W. Bush, which, to get back to the scatology, makes sense. Because those who are into scat play are often into diaper fantasies, where a strong woman who acts like a mother type, cooing and praising, changes the shit-filled diapers of a grown man who is behaving like a baby. What a hard-on the diaper fetishist gets when "Mommy" praises him for taking such a huge poop, powdering his grown bottom and balls, saying, "You're such a big boy, aren't you? Aren't you?" God, how the fetishist'll cum buckets when Mommy blows belly farts.

New Orleans -- Another Stop In Gitmo America:
Ahh, it's good to know no matter what the disaster, the New Orleans Police Department won't change. The Rude Pundit has known a lot of great NOPD cops, who are paid absolute shit wages, and he's been fucked with by a few nutsucking sack of shit pigs, one of whom threatened to "beat the living crap out of you if you tell anyone a fuckin' thing" when the Rude Pundit watched a couple of NOPD members shakedown an old black street musician who had gotten a little too toasted. And, yes, asshole cops have been putting the beat down on poor blacks (and whites) before Katrina and before the Bush administration. But we live in Gitmo America now, and everything must be viewed through the filter of state-sanctioned torture at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.

The New Orleans cops who beat the living crap out of Robert Davis, for, possibly and apparently, the crime of asking an officer a question about the curfew, have no doubt been under excruciating conditions since Hurricane Katrina, especially since they were abandoned by a couple hundred of pussy cops who just stopped showing up for work. So surely Rush Limbaugh's charming statement about the Abu Ghraib torturers would go for the three officers who bloodied Davis: "[Y]ou ever heard of emotional release? You ever heard of need to blow some steam off?"

And what about the AP producer, who was confronted by A.M. Smith, screaming about how he's been trying to survive in New Orleans? Surely filming such abuse by poor, overworked cops just aids the insurgents, all those looting black New Orleanians (which included, you know, some cops). Perhaps CNN's broadcast of the tape means that Bill O'Reilly will say that cops will be put in greater danger, as he says about the pictures of Abu Ghraib abuse will do to soldiers in Iraq. C'mon - the cop on the horse tried to block the filming of the event. Ain't it clear that official police business was being undertaken?

See, in Gitmo America, all bets are off when it comes to the treatment of citizens by people in authority. Davis's crime was to tell a police officer he was being unprofessional when a second cop interrupted Davis as the future victim of a head-bouncing was talking to the first cop, who was on horseback. Davis forgot that we live in a time when authority is absolute, that to question power is to automatically render you criminal, and that, indeed, we are mere subjects to the powerful. If you forget that, then you must be shown your place, on the ground, cuffed, abused, bloodied.

To its credit, the NOPD has gotten the officers off the street and decried the action. To his credit, Davis, who says he hasn't had a drink in 25 years, has not condemned the entire NOPD, which at one point in its recent history was so rife with stinking corruption that its cops felt free to rob and murder people. Yes, the three beating cops are rotten apples, but something made them feel free enough to beat a man on an open street without fearing recriminations, just like the torturers at Abu Ghraib.

Columbus Day Injun Spectacular:
Let's face it: it took some kind of cojones to jump on a sailboat 500 years ago, shove off into the big ass ocean, and hope for the best. Shit, back then, motherfuckers thought sea monsters might eat 'em, they might just fall off the earth into nowhere, or pirates'd gut them and take their ships, keepin' the pretty cabin boys for pleasure once Long Dong Pegleg pulled their teeth out. 'Course, it helped to be bugfuck insane, drunk, and so greedy that you'd sell your prettiest cabin boy for a gold chain. (And, c'mon, most of world history is about the deeds of people who were some combination of sloshed, stoned, or screwy.) But let's give props where props are due: when Columbus sailed that fuckin' ocean blue lookin' for that gold, it was a leap of faith, man, the kind of crazy-ass mission we associate with snowboarders or Unabombers.

And what's one civilization's hero is another civilization's terrorists, and Columbus and his band of merry genociders slammed into these shores with all the force of a jet into a skyscraper, full of God-decreed bullshit that the white was right and all others must be enslaved and/or killed. So, in honor of the mass slaughter, torture, and destruction of indigenous peoples all over the entire American land body, first popularized by Christopher Columbus in his book Ten Habits of Highly Successful Cultural Annihilators (Habit Number Three: Torture efficiently -- A cudgel on the nuts is more effective than burning down a village), the Rude Pundit offers a day of news from American Indians, who, strangely enough, give a shit about many of the same issues as non-Indians, but who, strangely enough, view things through the lens of being Indian. Let's hope this makes up for half a millenium of rape, bloodletting, plunder, disease, broken treaties, and cigar stores.

On Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers: Miers' time as George Bush's Texas Lotto chief is cause for concern and relief. The concern is Miers' possible support for shutting down a Texas reservation casino in the late 1990s, the Tigua tribe's Speaking Rock Casino, because of the fear that casino spending was taking away from Lotto gambling. The relief is that she has been praised for fairness in that position in standing up for gaming in Texas, even against an evangelical Christian onslaught. Indeed, as one article discusses, both Miers and John Roberts have experience with defending gambling in one form or another (Roberts's work was in Vegas, baby), which makes one wonder if Indian gambling screwer extraordinaire "Black" Jack Abramoff had any say in the choices.

On the environment: Over in Navajo country, the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency has declared that mercury and selenium concentration are so high in the catfish there, it's issued fish consumption health advisory for two lakes in New Mexico. In Tuba City, Arizona, former Navajo uranium miners, suffering from a variety of ailments, met to discuss the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, and how to make it easier for victims to file claims. Also discussed at the meeting was how open mines not only create blowing uranium dust, but affect grazing areas, thus affecting the cattle, thus affecting, maybe, perhaps, the rest of us.

On religion: In the Mohawk area of New York, in September, the board of education of the Salmon River district banned the recitation of the Mohawk Thanksgiving Address, which had been done every Monday morning for the last three years. The high school there is 65 percent Mohawk. The address thanks a "Creator" for all kinds of stuff, like water, and a school board member saw it as breeching the separation between church and state. "Several hundred Mohawk students conducted rallies and civil protest against the decision while the board denied any redress. Five sixth-graders were suspended. Things got a bit hot. Mohawk families sued, arguing that a reference to a 'Creator' does not define the address as a prayer." Although, you know, cultural erasure issues aside, it's a prayer, as the editors of Indian Country point out, although it does beg the question of why the Bush administration, flamin' Bill O'Reilly, and others don't get involved in the debate.

There - feel better and a little more white and a little more liberal? Now, go eat some pasta, you ever-lovin' Italians, with your crazy Spaniard-lovin' seaman.

Because It Needs To Be Said:
How soon before the Pentagon announces that today's earthquake killed the number two man in al-Qaeda?

Conservative Takedown Friday - Three For One:
Why Rush Limbaugh Ought To Be Force-Fed His Own Liposuctioned Fat, Part 714:
So, sittin' at his computer in his office at the Flatulence in Broadcasting building, Rush Limbaugh was balls deep in a Quizno's Angus Double Steak and Cheese sub (toasted, so it was warm, like a pussy), just fuckin' that sandwich away while watchin' George Bush's speech on all the terror and evil in the world that he's gonna squelch with a wave of his bony lil' fist. Limbaugh always fucks his subs before he eats 'em, always just before he goes on the air. Yes, if he was a svelter man, he'd contort enough to be able to blow himself. Instead he's gotta be content addin' his extra condiment to that sub.

In mid-thrust, his cock covered with sauteed onions, a message popped up on his computer from Daryn, sweet, corrupted Daryn Kagan, who loves to be placed in a bed of a giant seeded bun and covered with Cheese Whiz and mayonnaise before Rush slips and slides on top of her, forcing her to watch Fox "News" while he fucks her from behind. The message, Rush later claimed on the air, read, "This is great. This sounds like you wrote this speech. This sounds like you giving this speech." God, the sudden tightness in his tiny little nutsack Rush felt, as he thought about being up on that dais, explaining how the war on terror is like fuckin' a toasted steak sub. Then he came, shouting, "Rah, rah. That's exactly right." And he e-mailed Kagan back, declaring his love and telling her that she'd better sound objective on the air. Kagan, of course, e-mailed back for him to finish his sandwich - his fans were waiting next to their empty radios in the midst of their empty lives for him to fill the hours.

Why Ann Coulter Is a Cunt, Part 1540:
Because in her latest column (if by "column," you mean "shredded used toilet paper besmeared with shit stains that are to be read like tea leaves or a right wing Rohrschach test") she attacks the fuck out of Harriet Miers and Bush and she's fuckin' lying for her reasons for the smackdown. And, while fun and, as Aravosis says, demonstrates to conservatives that "You created these monsters. You can now deal with them," although that's a bit like saying, "You set off the bomb that awoke Godzilla; now we'll just stand by while you decide how to save Tokyo," it minimizes Coulter's real agenda: to have someone just as monkeyfuck insane as she is on the Supreme Court.

You'll have to go back to her depraved street rantings on the Roberts nomination to see how the problem ain't that, as the oh-so-witty Coulter puts it, "Harriet Miers isn't qualified to play a Supreme Court justice on The West Wing, let alone to be a real one." Coulter can play the she's-not-qualified game, but the real truth came out in her July 21 derangement. Dissing the future Chief Justice as a "Souter in Roberts' Clothing," Coulter fretted endlessly about Roberts' lack of explicit statements on positions that matter to her, and Coulter, who desires to be taken into cigar smoke-filled rooms where fat-bellied rich men can bathe her in the blood of dead Islamic children before they roughly fuck her while all the demi-men of her party are forced to watch and fondle themselves as they imagine themselves worthy enough to place their flaccid cocks near her hungry snatch, chided the Bush administration for not nominating someone who was a roaring Bork: "We also have a majority in the House, state legislatures, state governorships, and have won five of the last seven presidential elections - seven of the last ten! We're the Harlem Globetrotters now - why do we have to play the Washington Generals every week?" 'Cause, see, as for Roberts, "If a smart and accomplished person goes this long without expressing an opinion, they'd better be pursuing the Miss America title."

No, it ain't that Miers ain't qualified that makes Coulter's eyes spin just that much faster and her pulse race visibly through her translucent skin. If Miers had stated that she'll personally chew the heads off doctors who perform abortions, force all married homosexuals to never leave Massachusetts, and tell President Bush that it's his patriotic duty to send dogs in to attack uncharged prisoners, it wouldn't have mattered if Miers went to the DeVry School of Lawyerin' and was the lottery babe who sucks the balls out of the machine every night.

Then it would have been un-American to not let Bush have his choice.

William Bennett: The Easiest Takedown in History:
Takedown #1: William Bennett, speaking, he claimed, theoretically, says, "[I]f you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down." Aah, yes, Perfesser, and, theoretically, if you aborted every white fetus, crime would go down, as well as if you aborted every Asian or Hispanic fetus, 'cause, you know, theoretically, less people means less crime. What's not theoretical is that, without prompting on race - the caller was talkin' 'bout abortion and Social Security- William Bennett decided to make the leap to ridding the nation of the niggers. Defenders have yet to answer why he went so naturally to nigger genocide.

Takedown #2: Explaining his remarks on Hannity Rapes Colmes, Bennett said, in so many words, "I love the niggers, my wife loves the niggers, and she has done more for inner city nigger girls than all the niggers in the Nigger Congressional Caucus." Bennett was perhaps referring more directly to preventing abortion through his wife's abstinence education program. And while showing girls pictures of a nude, leering William J. Bennett may put them off the fucking for the rest of their lives, perhaps a gander at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's health services would indicate that the CBC cares more about inner city black girls than just what goes into or comes out of their inner city black girl vaginas.

Or, perhaps, one could just refer to the CBC's website and its emphasis on education and health care. Or maybe one could look at CBC members, like, say, the career of John Conyers, who has led the way in taking Bennett apart, who has worked tirelessly on issues like violence against women and health care, issues which might matter to sexually active teenagers and their parents. Or Diane Watson, who works on issues like youth violence and community development, issues that mean a whole lot more to stopping teenage pregnancy than just tellin' 'em Jesus doesn't want 'em to fuck.

Yeah, there's some gambling metaphor to be made here, but Bennett's addiction is/was the slots, and slots are just the laziest kind of gambling. It's a pussy wager, against a computer, not other people, so perhaps Bennett's just used to a beeping, blinking machine responding to him, not the real world where the opponents can answer you back.

There Goes Crazy Ass George Again:
Imagine you're at your favorite bar, a neighborhood joint, named after the owner in just one word ("Joe's" or "Juanita's"), where all the crap hanging on the walls is the real deal, stuff that Joe or Juanita actually picked up at real ball parks, stadiums, and rinks, not just ordered out of a bar decor catalog. It ain't the nicest place, but, hell, it's just down the street and Juanita knows just how strong you like your third and fourth whiskey sours.

At the end of the bar, in the dark corner near the tiny johns, sits Crazy Ass George, twitchin' and mumblin', clinging to that glass mug like it's a life preserver, swirlin' that shot around like it's holy water. And despite all the times he's passed out and fallen off that stool, all the times he's threatened to fight the pool players who bump him with their cues, he's always there. And Crazy Ass George, he's got those shakes, man, the never-quite-endin' DTs, always movin' with a little jitter. Crazy Ass George was a nuthouse schizoid for a good part of the 1970s, set free back in the Reagan era to wander the streets until he found this corner of this bar. He never served in Vietnam, but he sure can talk like he did.

Crazy Ass George sees things, shit no one else sees, and you get him tanked up enough, he'll start tellin' you about all the phantoms and demons that are floatin' around him. When he gets goin', like Henry Darger on his last Vivian Girl bender, Crazy Ass George'll spin whole universes of bugfuck insane shit. He calls them "evil," he calls them "radical," and he talks about how they wanna take over the world of human beings. It's a pity, Juanita'll tell you, how Crazy Ass George was just a crap-his-own-pants alcoholic until September 11, 2001, when all of a sudden his gibberish began to take on this apocalyptic tone.

You may even sit and listen to him for a moment or two, hearing him babble on about "Evil men, obsessed with ambition and unburdened by conscience, must be taken very seriously -- and we must stop them before their crimes can multiply." You can make out phrases like "enslave whole nations and intimidate the world" and "the rage of the killers" and "cold-blooded contempt for human life."

Yes, you listen to Crazy Ass George long enough and you're gonna start to sense harpy wings blowing a breeze that ruffles your hair, you're gonna feel claws testing the elasticity of your flesh, you're gonna smell a breath decadent with human gore wafting across your nostrils. When you're in that corner with Crazy Ass George, all sorts of horrors can seem real, immediate, and terrible. And those horrors must be stopped before they rip our children from our arms and drag them, screaming, into realms of hell we have only dreamt of.

You shake yourself free of Crazy Ass George. Surely, you realize, we live in dangerous times, times of monsters real and sentient. But we simply cannot exist as Crazy Ass George believes we ought to, on our guard constantly, scanning the sky for endless chimeric enemies, bolting our doors to our neighbors. It's soul-withering and, ultimately, renders us victims as well. And then there's the other possibilities: that Crazy Ass George is completely, utterly wrong, or that Crazy Ass George is the demon himself, and one day someone will show you the dump where he tossed the corpses of burnt children. Besides, Crazy Ass George is just a worthless, slurring drunk, right?

You turn to leave the bar, something Crazy Ass George won't do until he's pissed himself and the bar stool. And outside, where the rest of us are, there's only the cool breeze, smelling of rich autumn, blowing away the scent of summer decay, and stars, man, bright fuckin' stars, against a big, dark, endless sky, and earth under your feet that'll take you back home.

Computers, Sexual Preferences, and Bears, Oh, My:
This week, in honor of the start of his third year of bloggery, the Rude Pundit is your question-answering monkey. Today: more questions, all over the fuckin' place:

Steve asks, "Are you a homo?" The Rude Pundit welcomes orgasmic ecstasy in all its consenting-adult flavors. To believe otherwise in this cold world is to spend far too many summer nights, rainy days, and snowy mornings alone, enlarged, and weeping.

CAG wants to know, "Mac or PC?" The Rude Pundit welcomes computeristic ecstasy in all its available platforms. To believe otherwise in this cold world is to spend far too many summer nights, rainy days, and snowy mornings alone, unblogged, and weeping.

Jay would like to know, "Does the Rude family know that you write this blog?" Considering the years of psychological damage they've provided, as well as continuing stories of and free access to Red State America, the Rude family is well-informed and are, indeed, loyal readers who hope that Karl Rove knows how to take a "joke." When the Rude mom asked once, "Did you have to write about Dick Cheney going down on Lynne's enlarged clitoris?" the Rude Pundit could only say, "Yes, yes, I did."

The Rude Pundit has received many, many requests for his one-man show, The Rude Pundit in the Year of Living Rudely, to go to Washington, D.C., Miami, Houston, Phoenix, Cleveland, Memphis, London, Strangely-Named Australian City #472, and more. As the Rude Pundit does not have a theatrical booking agent, anyone who'd like the show to visit their burg needs to put the Rude Pundit in touch with a possible hosting theatre. For the time being, that is. There's some plans afoot that may be the start of a Rude in the USA tour. As he's said before, let the rudeness soar like it's never soared before.

Tomorrow: Spanking Joe Lieberman and more requests.