Ho, hum, the hits keep coming.

And since Il Papa represents the only true Christian Church, I'm really, really sure that Ratzinger's apology will be forthcoming immediately. "Millstone," "neck," "sea" and all that. (Luke 17:2) From The City of Fallen Angels:

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles will settle its clergy abuse cases for at least $600 million, by far the largest payout in the church's sexual abuse scandal, The Associated Press learned Saturday.

The archdiocese and its insurers will pay between $600 million and $650 million to about 500 plaintiffs — an average of $1.2 million to $1.3 million per person. The settlement also calls for the release of confidential priest personnel files after review by a judge assigned to oversee the litigation, the sources said.

Yes, the apostolic succession is really racking up the numbers:

Many have commmented on Sara Taylor's alas, no longer remarkable views on oath-taking, but nobody, so far as I know, has called it out for what it is. Here's the transcript of Leahy and Taylor's exchange via Big Orange:

LEAHY: And then you said, I took an oath to the President, and I take that oath very seriously. Did you mean, perhaps, you took an oath to the Constitution?

TAYLOR: Uh, I, uh, yes, you're correct, I took an oath to the Constitution. Uh, but, what--

LEAHY: Did you take a second oath to the President?

TAYLOR: I did not. I--

LEAHY: So the answer was incorrect.

TAYLOR: The answer was incorrect.

LEAHY: No, the oath says that you take an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States. That is your paramount duty. I know that the President refers to the government being his government -- it's not. It's the government of the people of America. Your oath is not to uphold the President, nor is mine to uphold the Senate. My oath, like your oath, is to uphold the Constitution.

The idea that a civil servant takes an oath to the Leader has a name, and a history:

Via Andrew Sullivan, Jeanette Maier, whose small business Senator David Vitter (R-Canal Street Brothel) patronized, tells her story:

Some of the fantasies at the Canal Street Brothel got a little rough. For those who liked that kind of stuff, there were whips, chains and a lot of leather. Jeanette says that most of the clients who wanted to be dominated were Republicans. She cracks a smile, then adds, "They wanted to be spanked and tortured and wear stockings--Republicans have impeccable taste in silk stockings--and these are the people who run our country."

(As an aside, that means that the Republicans must be terribly frustrated by the Democrats' overly-gentle approach, because they're not getting what they really, really want, even though they can't admit it to themselves. Maybe Dean Broder should recommend that Harry Reid shackle Mitch McConnell right there on the Senate Floor, then call for a closed session and, er, undertake a series of tricky procedural moves...)

Now, I really don't care what these guys do, although the base--assuming that the base isn't, en masse, chaining itself up and applying the lash, just like you saw in The Passion... Oh, wait. Let's just not go there. Reboot.

I don't really care what kind of pain-, humiliation-, and torture-filled dramas the Republicans enact in the privacy of their own bedrooms, and I'd sure like it if they left me alone to do what I want to do in mine. And the Jeannette Maiers and Deborah Palreys of this world work a lot less evil than, say, Lynne Cheney, let alone Shooter.

So, yawn? Not exactly. The problems come when Republicans confuse abuse, torture, and sex as fantasies in private with abuse, torture and sex out--as they say--in the public square.

Because then the public square starts looking like this:

Nice work on that "family values" thing, Dr. Laura:

The soldier son of talk radio relationship counselor Laura Schlessinger is under investigation for a graphic personal Web page that one Army official has called "repulsive."

The MySpace page, publicly available until Friday when it disappeared from the Internet, included cartoon depictions of rape, murder, torture and child molestation; photographs of soldiers with guns in their mouths; a photograph of a bound and blindfolded detainee captioned "My Sweet Little Habib"; accounts of illicit drug use; and a blog entry headlined by a series of obscenities and racial epithets.

Just another one of Dobson's kids, eh? Beaten as children, they torture others as adults.

The site is credited to and includes many photographs of Deryk Schlessinger, the 21-year-old son of the talk radio personality known simply as Dr. Laura. Broadcast locally on 570 KNRS, "Family Values Talk Radio," the former family counselor spends three hours daily taking calls and offering advice on morals, ethics and values. She broadcast a show from Fort Douglas, in Salt Lake City, last week.

Military leaders have long grappled with how to balance positive publicity and operational security with technological opportunities for troops to tell their personal stories.

They don't call it the "base" for nothing, do they?

Torture good, gay marriage bad. That's the face of today's conservative movement (and its front organization, the Republican Party.

But notice how the Salt Lake City Tribune veers from the essential point in the last paragraph:

Bloomberg:

In written answers to supplement his congressional testimony, ex-U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden of Nevada said William Mercer, acting associate attorney general, gave him that rationale for his firing. Bodgen's firing angered Republican Senator John Ensign of Nevada, who joined bipartisan criticism of the way Attorney General Alberto Gonzales handled the dismissals.

Mercer explained that ``the administration had a two-year window of opportunity'' to give someone ``the experience of serving as United States attorney'' so ``the Republican Party would have more future candidates to the federal bench'' and political positions, Bogden wrote.

The disclosure came as the Justice Department said its inspector general is investigating an allegation that former Gonzales aide Monica Goodling used political affiliation as criteria for screening applicants for career-level prosecutor positions.

Hey, all the Republicans want is the unity of state and Partei become the state. What could be wrong with that, especially since God is in the White House?

And it's always nice to have yet another opportunity to see authoritarianism in action:

I somehow missed this capsule history of post-World War II from Matt Stoller. I think there's a lot to be said for it, so I'll quote a huge excerpt:

[The supplemental] is one step, not just directed at ending the war in Iraq, or at stopping Bush, but at ending a long-term trend towards an authoritarian national security state. Many of our media, economic, cultural, and political institutions have been directed towards such a state, and this is very much a bipartisan trend - it's not a coincidence that the 1984 ad had such resonance for IBM in the early 1980s and with Hillary Clinton today (I'm not arguing she's big brother, that's absurd, only that the ad resonates).

The roots of this state are traceable directly to an authoritarian South, a one-party unique region in America that has held the balance of power since the 1930s and that was and is dedicated above all to a race-based hierarchical society.

Thoughts? Read on:

[Updates below on blogosphere, media coverage.]

The only problem with firing all the attorney's who weren't "loyal Bushies" and who were investigating Republicans--Lam--or wouldn't smear Democrats--Iglesias?

The Explainer didn't do his job. But then, does he ever? From Bush's speech today at 5:45:

[BUSH] The Justice Department, with the approval of the White House, believed new leadership in these positions would better serve our country. The announcement of this decision and the subsequent explanation of these changes has been confusing and, in some cases, incomplete. Neither the Attorney General, nor I approve of how these explanations were handled.

I'll bet.

We're determined to correct the problem.

And how! Er, I mean, and how?

[BUSH] It will be regrettable if they choose to head down the partisan road of issuing subpoenas and demanding show trials when I have agreed to make key White House officials and documents available.

Sweet Jeebus! Since when is testifying under oath about potential obstruction of justice a "show trial?" Talk about overheated rhetoric! And since when does the executive determine who gets to testify before the legislative branch? And who said the exective gets to throw out chaff and then call it "unpredented disclosure"? Gosh, it's almost like Bush wants to be the judge and jury in his own case, isn't it?

Unbelievably, Bush takes questions. (So where's "Jeff Gannon" when we need him to throw The Explainer some softballs? Under Karl's desk?)

And speaking of obstruction of justice, Bush doesn't speak of it:

[A warm welcome to Red State's minuscule and demoralized readership. The teabags are over here. -- lambert]

Well, that should lay these rumors of discrimination to rest! And really, Abu G. was right on this "routine personnel matter," give him credit: After all, in corporate America, firing everybody is routine!

No, but seriously folks, why is that, no matter how hard I try, and I do try, I'm never cynical enough about the Bush administration? It's not the Mayberry Machiavellis, it's the Mayberry Sopranos! The mind reels. And the mind also reels that Pravda on the Potomac put this on A1, instead of burying it on A18:

The White House suggested two years ago that the Justice Department fire all 93 U.S. attorneys, a proposal that eventually resulted in the dismissals of eight prosecutors last year, according to e-mails and internal documents that the administration will provide to Congress today.

All 93? Oh. My. Fucking. Gawd. Where did they think they were going to find 93 replacements?

Hmmm, let me see... 50 states, 50 RNC chairs, plus 50 RNC assistants... Yeah, that's the ticket! And every one of those megachurches has a high-powered lawyer who knows how to keep his mouth shut to pay off the male hookers (Haggard 1:1) and deal with those pesky molestation eruptions....

Gonzales approved the idea of firing a smaller group of U.S. attorneys shortly after taking office in February 2005. The aide in charge of the dismissals -- his chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson -- resigned yesterday, officials said, after acknowledging that he did not tell key Justice officials about the extent of his communications with the White House, leading them to provide incomplete information [lying] to Congress.

Nice of Sampson to fall on his sword like that. I'm sure he'll get "taken care of" in some winger think tank toot sweet. As soon as he gets out of jail, has his conversion to Christianity, does the book deal, etc.

So who, you may ask, originated this idea? To rephrase: What Good Soldier in the White House is going to give The Boy King plausible deniability on this one? Wait for it--

Today's word: Befehlsnotstand.

Because when conservatives say "pardon," they mean "Befehlsnotstand."

WaPo gives the historical background:

Pardons in recent times generally have been granted to people who were convicted years earlier -- not of violent crimes -- and who have completed their sentences and redeemed themselves. Bush has granted 113 pardons over six years, nearly a modern low, and has never pardoned anyone who had not been released from prison. He has commuted the sentences of three others.

What the conservatives want is for Bush to "pardon" Libby immediately after the jury's verdict--if not sooner.

"Our number one goal is to see Scooter's conviction wiped out by the courts and see him vindicated," attorney William Jeffress Jr. said in an interview. "Now, I've seen all the calls for a pardon. And I agree with them. To me, he should have been pardoned six months ago or a year ago."

I can't think of a precedent for a "President" simply setting aside a court verdict right after the decision came down. Even Bush I waited a decent interval before pardoning the Iran-Contra felons.

Where does it ever stop with these guys? What next? Bush gets an automatic signature machine like the one Rummy used to sign condolence letters to the troops, and starts churning out pardons on a daily basis?

Anyhow, Befehlsnotstand:

There is a season, spin, spin, spin

And a time for every purpose under heaven

Purposes like helping a man of conservative convictions [DCOW] stay out of jail. It only took The Corner 2 1/2 hours to pump this out, and it shows:

President Bush should pardon I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby. The trial that concluded in a guilty verdict on four of five counts conclusively proved only one thing: A White House aide became the target of a politicized prosecution set in motion by bureaucratic infighting and political cowardice.

Sheeeit. Fitz as Ken Starr?

... when a customer said "Hey, where's my change?"

A reading from the book of Haggard, chapter 2, verse 1...

CBS:

Victims' advocates who dogged the Roman Catholic Church over sex abuse by its clergy have now turned their attention to Southern Baptists.

The group is accusing America's largest Protestant denomination of also failing to root out molesters.

The Chicago-based Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests — or SNAP — has started a campaign to call attention to alleged sex abuse committed by Southern Baptist ministers and concealed by churches.

Examples?

NPR is teh suck, really. They too have followed Pony Blow and migrated to using "extremists" to describe whoever the Fuck Bush sent to troops to fight in Iraq. There are some big problems with this:

The delusional, fascist rump of the Republican Partei--please, please, can we start calling them The Rump instead of The Base--are purging and surging (and binging on Cheetohs). Hugh Hewitt [DCOW] has posted a pledge:

If the United States Senate passes a resolution, non-binding or otherwise, that criticizes the commitment of additional troops to Iraq that General Petraeus has asked for and that the president has pledged, and if the Senate does so after the testimony of General Petraeus on January 23 that such a resolution will be an encouragement to the enemy, I will not contribute to any Republican senator who voted for the resolution.

(Hilariously, I could take this pledge, since I would never under any circumstances contribute to any Republican's campaign. Maybe I should encourage the breakup up of the Republican party by going over there and signing it. Throw 'em an anvil...)

Anyhow, as usual, the Republicans--until the Republicans repudicate The Rump, they're all the same to me--are accusing Democrats and war opponents of treason ("encouraging the enemy.") Same old, same old.

What's interesting, then? It's a classic case of winger meme transmission--but/and this time initiated by The Last Honest Man, Joe Lieberman:

Our Betters, the permanent Beltway ruling class, the cocktail wienie-gobbling clowns and Republican creatures and think-tank dilettantes and shadowy Christianist billionaires who created the Iraq Clusterfuck and now can't figure out how to evade accountability for the greatest strategic disaster in American history...

Well, they're doing the same thing and expecting a different result. They're going to follow Dear Leader deeper into the qWagmire! And drag us down with them. The Grey Lady reports with a straight face:

Bush’s Task: Thrusting New Strategy on ‘a Sovereign Nation'

(Note that, as usual--"thrusting"--it's all about the size of The Deciders's rapidly shriveling cock manly "firmness". These guys really need to come up with some new language here. But let that pass.)

Now, as President Bush prepares to unveil his new strategy for Iraq on Wednesday night, the question is this: Can American officials compel the Iraqis to follow the new American plan?

“It’s a sovereign nation; it’s their system, they make those decisions,” Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the American command’s chief spokesman in Iraq, said last week.

“Let me put it this way: at the end of the day, we’re going to have to do some forcing,” said Kenneth M. Pollack, an expert on Iraq at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.

“We have to make it impossible,” he said, for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki “not to do the right thing; for him to say, ‘Look, we have no choice, the Americans are forcing us.’ ”

So, Maliki might as well lay back and enjoy it, eh?

That's the question you should ask every Democratic representative and Senator--especially the new ones.

The Republicans are saying they will never disgorge their authoritarian gains. Listen to this bravado from the Republican losers in the White House. They just don't know any other way to behave. Mike Allen:

Because otherwise he's have a lot to answer for.

Authoritarian relationships are abusive relationshiops.

Exhibit A:

I’m really tired from a long weekend of (wholesome, consensual) debauchery, so this will likely be a little sloppy. But the unfolding Foley/Hastert scandal is too rich to pass up even in my worn out state. I sure picked the wrong weekend to skip out on obsessive blogging.

Anyway, a comment from a reader got me thinking. While discussing the uselessness, in terms of producing reliable intelligence, of torture on this post by MJS, reader Scarshapedstar asks:

Why couldn’t they skip the torture part and simply make shit up? More than they already do, I mean.

Indeed. One could ask a variant of this question about many Republican “strategies,” political and otherwise. Bush is evil, probably stupid, but if I were an evil mastermind in charge of the greatest nation on Earth, I know I would’ve done things quite differently. As much damage as Republicans are doing, they could’ve done far worse. To their own gain. So the question becomes, why have they chosen such a clumsy course in so many of their actions?

The short answer? Because they are thinking with their dicks.

When you think of it, isn't that the common thread between a lot of Republican failures and failings?

Iraq, torture, Abramoff, Foley coming on to an an underage page--It's all "Because they can."

Authoritarian relationships, where the strong prey on the weak, are all like that.

"Sick sick sick sick sick." To coin a phrase.

... that's what the Republican pro-torture [gag] "compromise" allows:

In recent days the Bush administration and its House allies successfully pressed for a less restrictive description [Hmm....] of how the government [i.e., the extremely legitimate Bush regime] could designate civilians as "unlawful enemy combatants," the sources said yesterday. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of negotiations over the bill.

Uh oh. When Republicans start parsing, look out.

As a result, human rights experts expressed concern yesterday that the language in the new provision would be a precedent-setting congressional endorsement for the indefinite detention of anyone who, as the bill states, "has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States" or its military allies.

Look, I'd say that voting Democratic "purposefully and materially supports hostilities against the United States." Liberals are traitors [DCOW]! At least, that's what Moderate Republican Joe Lieberman tells me, and I believe whatever Joe spews, uh, says. Rush, Malkin, and the rest of the VRWC too.

Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, said that by including those who "supported hostilities" -- rather than those who "engage in acts" against the United States -- the [cough] government intends the legislation to sanction its seizure and indefinite detention of people far from the battlefield.

"Far from the battlefield," eh? Sounds like Bush has something in mind for the green, green grass of home.

Will deprogramming even be possible?

At a watermelon festival in Chickamauga, in the mountains of northwest Georgia, substitute teacher Clydeen Tomanio said she remains committed to the party she's called home for 43 years.

"There are some people, and I'm one of them, that believe George Bush was placed where he is by the Lord," Tomanio said. "I don't care how he governs, I will support him. I'm a Republican through and through."

Just to show what we're up against.