Liar Liar Pants on Fire: Molly Ivins tells press corps to Do Your Job & Straighten Up & Fly Right

What follows -- and I hate to admit this -- is said better, and more bravely, than I could have said it, so I urge you very strongly, after reading Vleeptron's introductory words of wisdom, to read this column by the Texas newspaper columnist Molly Ivins. (In particular, make sure you read the last paragraph.)

But read my stuff, too. Thanks.

Because Vleeptron says things Molly Ivins won't say. Like blow job.

President William Jefferson Clinton lied about getting a blow job from a woman he wasn't married to. Also I think he stuck a cigar up her Nether Regions. (Please do not ask Vleeptron to explain the Sexual Desires & Habits of the Mighty, Vleeptron is largely clueless about these mysteries.)

So anyway, by this time, the Republicans had a majority in the House of Representatives, so two of the three branches of the entire federal government of the United States of America had to shut down for a year because he lied about a blow job. And I guess the third branch had to shut down, too, because the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court had to preside over the Impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate.

The Republicans had a majority in the Senate, too.

But Clinton got acquitted. He got to keep being President of the United States.

(When it came down to it, I think every male Senator and maybe the female Senators too figured out that having to go home to Hillary after all the blow-job tabloid publicity was more than punishment enough.)

But he lied. He lied under oath about the extramarital blow job.

So the Republicans said: He lied, so he must be Impeached, and removed from office. No man who lies under oath about a blowjob can possibly be allowed to keep on being President. We need to restore Integrity and Honesty to the White House.

The previous president who did not survive his Impeachment -- he hopped the helicopter and left town before it even went to Trial -- wasn't in the hot seat for blow jobs with a non-wife. He was on the hot seat for burglaries, warrantless wiretaps, sodomizing a presidential election, really weird stuff with millions of dollars of campaign cash, lying and covering up little things like that. He was a Republican, and the Democrats had the majorities in the House and Senate, but he hopped the helicopter when his fellow Republicans began screaming for his head on a pike. (There was a very nasty huge war going on in Asia during his presidency, too.)

Is there a chance this President might get his sorry ass Impeached? What has Bush done that could possibly justify Impeachment hearings in the House, followed by a Trial in the Senate?

Well, maybe that Lying thing ... his fellow Republicans in Congress made it absolutely clear just a few years ago that they absolutely cannot allow a President to lie.

I hope they were talking about Any President, not just Bill Clinton. If they were talking about Any Liar who happens to be President of the United States ... well, then we got some Hot Times Ahead.

And when it comes down to a vote, and individual Senators, of both parties, have to make up their individual minds ... it might come down to this:

President A: Lied about his knowledge of burglaries, wiretaps, money-laundering, criminal interference with election campaigns ...

President B: Lied about a blow job because he was terrified of his wife.

President C: Lied about the Weapons of Mass Destruction he used as reasons to start the Iraq War, lied about warrantless domestic wiretaps ...

Well, I'll just stop there. Democratic Senator, Republican Senator ... how will they vote when they compare the High Crimes and Misdemeanors in the Articles of Impeachment of President C?

Liar, Liar, pants on fire
Your nose is longer than a telephone wire

Oh, by the way ... Nixon pulled that "National Security" and "War President" shit, too, didn't help him in the end. Every time he sent his lawyer to the Supreme Court to argue "I am the President of the United States, I am Above The Law," the Supreme Court said that was total constitutional bullshit, usually by a 9-0 vote.

Of course first the American people have to figure out that the scoundrels who comprise the Bush administration are just lying their fucking brains out, about everything, constantly.

Molly Ivins points out that first, America's professional journalists -- the Talking Heads on TV, the people who wander around newspaper editorial pages, the White House press corps -- have to face up to the fact that the Bush administration is just lying their fucking brains out, about everything, constantly.

We have elected (or done something to end up with) a president who is a pathological liar and surrounds himself with pathological liars. That's the White House, that's the Cabinet. It would be nice if CBS News or CNN or ABC News or NBC News could just admit it, could just shake themselves out of their hypnotic coma of Respect for (and Fear of) the Mighty and say it out loud.

Because that's a journalist's job: When the journalist knows something's a lie, the journalist is supposed to say it's a lie. Out loud. The journalist is supposed to tell the people who read, watch and trust the journalist.

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syndicated newspaper column
Tuesday 24 January 2006

Bush administration
no longer a credible source

by Molly Ivins

AUSTIN, Texas -- We live in interesting times, we do, we do. We can read in our daily newspapers that our government is about to launch a three-day propaganda blitz to convince us all that its secret program to spy on us is something we really want and need. "A campaign of high-profile national security events," reports The New York Times, follows "Karl Rove's blistering speech to national Republicans" about what a swell political issue this is for their party.

The question for journalists is how to report this. President Bush says it's a great idea and he's proud of the secret spy program? Attorney General Gonzales explains breaking the law is no problem? Dick Cheney says accept spying, or Osama bin Laden will get you?

Or might we actually have gotten far enough to point out that the series of high-profile security events is in fact part of a propaganda campaign by our own government? Should we report it as though it were in fact a campaign tactic, a straight political ploy: The Republicans say spying is good for you, but the Democrats say it is not -- equal time to both sides?

Perhaps we have some obligation to try to sift through what it means that our government is spying on us in violation of the law and the Constitution.

Then there's the problem of reporting within the context of this administration's other propaganda efforts. "We do not torture," and, "We are not running a gulag of secret detention centers," are two of the more recent examples, superseding the golden oldies -- like the smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud.

Furthermore, the Rove offensive is not to admit that we are indeed running a gulag of secret detention camps, but to attack those who point it out and put them under investigation for revealing government secrets and helping the enemy. Even without the intimidation, how do you report something claimed by George W. Bush as though you hadn't recently heard him say he would support John McCain's amendment barring torture -- and then turn around and claim that he has the right to violate that law?

I genuinely appreciate the response by real conservatives on this issue -- the libertarians, the true heirs of Barry Goldwater, the all-government-is-bad grumps. It's called principle. But I am confounded by the authoritarian streak in the Republican Party backing Bush on this. To me it seems so simple: Would you think this was a good idea if Hillary Clinton were president? Would you be defending the clear and unnecessary violation of the law? Do you have complete confidence that she would never misuse this "inherent power" for any partisan reason?

The warrantless wiretaps reportedly covered thousands of calls, and the information obtained was widely circulated among federal agencies. I know one guy who is now on the federal no-fly list. His sin? Co-authoring an unflattering book about Karl Rove. What a menace to national security he is.

One of the odder features of our time is that much of our political debate is cast in "moral" terms, with such helpful authorities as Pat Robertson holding forth on whom we should assassinate next. A more useful contribution from this direction comes from Jimmy Carter in his new book, "Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis."

I am a great admirer of Carter's and glad to hear his soft Southern Christian voice once more. But it occurs to me that in his quiet way, many of his arguments are as pragmatic as they are moral.

As one with considerable faith in the common sense of Americans, it occurs to me we may yet rescue ourselves from this bootless skunk match over morality by using plain sense, instead. Many of Carter's points center on the fact that our war on terrorism is not working. Iraq is not working (hard to even count the ways). Major terrorist attacks themselves more than tripled from 2003, to 655 attacks in 2004. Our support in the Middle East sinks lower and lower. The region is not becoming more democratic.

What would happen if we had not a political, but a pragmatic debate about all of this: We have made a horrible mess of this entire war on terrorism, now how do we fix it? What do we do? I realize it's a bit simplistic of me after all this time, but I really think one of the best things we could do for ourselves is deal honestly with the facts. Because we have made a mess of this does not mean we are a pitiful, helpless giant -- the United States still has more sheer military power than anyone else on earth. But using it is not necessarily the best way to get the results we want.

Because we are stuck with this administration for another three years, I think it important to begin to get past the defensiveness and drawing attention away and blame games that big messes provoke. And part of that calls on American journalism to get over reporting the Bush administration as though it were a credible source. We need to face facts.

© 2006 Creators Syndicate