Denny, You're Doin' a Heck of a Job

Scandals, malfeasance, and ineptitude are nothing new in politics and both sides of the aisle have had their share of trips to the poisoned well. After all, politics is about people and people - despite their position high atop the food chain - are as perceptive as your average tree stump.

Getting blowjobs in the Oval Office wasn't exactly a bright move and it was even stupider to lie to a Grand Jury about it. Of course, Bill and his party paid for that stupidity with a painful impeachment trial and the loss of seats in Congress - as well they should have.

Bill surfed into office on the wave of stupidities committed by Bush 41. Now the pendulum has swung back and we may be in for some changes at the expense of Bush 43 and his cabal.

However, the current ruling junta seems to have tapped into an exceptionally deep reservoir of stupidity and they're apparently doing some large-scale drilling to get at every drop.

Shrub still has us "staying the course" with an unpopular war and no plan for withdrawal in sight. An ever lengthening line of reports, books, and investigations continues to hint that maybe Bushworld isn't as delightful as he regularly reminds us. We apparently have Secretaries of Defense who don't answer phone calls from Secretaries of State. And, we hear that black-hatted lobbyists are hardly known in the halls of 1600 Pennsylvania before finding out that, oops, they shared a bed with Karl Rove and knew about plans for Iraq before the public did.

Granted, the latest child abuse scuffle wasn't created by the boys at the Sigma Chi Bush fraternity, but they aren't handling it well either. They're letting the Congressional leadership, guilty by direct linkage or by association, swing in the wind for fear of having the scandal roll over their well-crafted episodes of ineptitude.

In fact, the person who comes out best is the perpetrator himself. At least he fessed up to what he did, said he was sorry, and went to get some help.

By contrast, Denny Hastert says, "What? We have pages in the House of Representatives? Who knew?!"

House Majority Doofus, John Boehner says, "It's all Denny's fault, but he's a good man and I don't see any reason to do anything rash like fire him."

House Republicans of all stripes say, "It's a damn shame and someone's head should roll, but not right now. Denny's good people. And besides, we'd rather wait until it's a little less embarrassing to make him walk the plank."

And finally, George does what he does best - deny the obvious.

Instead of quelling the Republican insurrection - which has already spread to some pretty tight conservative bastions like the Washington Times - he's content to pronounce the episode a big shame and resist calls for Denny Hastert to place his well-jowled head on the chopping block.

Nope, the Decider-in-Chief has decided it's better to borrow a page from his stellar book on the Gulf Coast and sugar coat things one more time.

"Denny," I can hear him saying soon, "You're doin' a heck of a job."

Truth Told by Omnipotent Poobah, Tuesday, October 03, 2006