Spine Spotting, the Sequel


Bookending the Molly Ivins column I cited yesterday is this effort from William Pitt. His own modest proposal is a Democratic walkout during ShrubSOTU IV (Correction: actually, it's ShrubSOTU V. Apologies)--and he articulates both how and why:

George W. Bush's delivery of the State of the Union address will take place on Tuesday, January 31, a little more than a week from now. It is my strong belief that every single Democrat present in the House chamber for the speech should, at a predetermined moment, stand up and walk out. No yelling. No heated words. Every Democrat should simply stand silently and leave...

Understand this, congressional Democrats, and understand it well: you are not dealing merely with a body of political opponents in the GOP. You are dealing with a group of people that want you exterminated politically. The days of walking the halls of the Rayburn Building, sharing a bourbon with a colleague from the other side of the aisle, and hammering out a compromise are as dead as Julius Caesar. Collegiality is out. Mutual respect is out. They want you gone for good. Erased. Destroyed.

And you have been far too polite about this. The writing has been on the wall for a while now. Back in 1995, Republican Senator Phil Gramm said, "We're going to keep building the party until we're hunting Democrats with dogs." That was eleven years ago. If you listen close, you can hear the beasts baying in the distance, waiting to slip the leash. Your limp tactics in the face of the assault upon you, your vacillation, your strange hope that maybe the GOP will be nicer tomorrow, has left you all smelling like Alpo.

For the love of God, you are being compared to Osama bin Laden all over network television because some within your ranks have had the courage to question the war in Iraq. It hasn't been subtle. Bin Laden, according to the right-wing talking heads, is getting his talking points straight from Howard Dean. These are the out-front spokespeople for the folks running the GOP right now. If you think there is compromise to be had with these people, if you think there is quarter to be given to you, then I have a nice, big red bridge to sell you in San Francisco...

You can stomp your feet and yell at the wall. You can put your head in your hands and weep. You can sit silently and be simply satisfied that your own job-for-life is secure, thanks to your friendly district back home, and be damned to actually doing anything of substance. In other words, you can continue to do what you've been doing since this outrageous assault on basic American democracy began.

Or you can stand up.

It takes a spine to stand up. Find yours. Get up and walk out of the State of the Union speech. Turn your backs on the blizzard of lies and empty promises that are sure to pour forth from that podium. Give it exactly what it deserves.

Walk outside to the steps of the Capitol Building and hold a Counter-State-of-the-Union. Lay out your plans for a better future. Explain how you will reform the system that spawned Mr. Abramoff. Demand answers and explanations about what is happening in Iraq, what is happening over at the National Security Agency, and why this administration believes itself to be completely above the law.

I can even offer a bit of text for your opening statement. "Three years ago during this very speech," your leading spokesperson can say from those steps, "Mr. Bush told us that Iraq was in possession of 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 500 tons - which is one million pounds - of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent, 30,000 missiles to deliver the stuff, mobile biological weapons labs, al Qaeda connections, and uranium from Niger for use in a robust nuclear weapons program. He said all this three years ago, during this all-important annual address, and all of it was a lie. The American people deserve an explanation."

What I am talking about is political theater on a grand scale. No opposition party in American history has ever turned their backs on a President and walked out of a State of the Union address. No opposition party has faced the degree of potential extermination the Democrats face today. The stakes have never been higher. You are dealing with a President who wants to make his Executive powers absolute, and with a Republican party that has been usurped from soup to nuts by extremists that would be cartoonish if they were not so very real.

Abramoff won't help you. The fear factor will subsume you. You can sit there and take it, clapping politely as the ram rolls towards you, or you can stand up and make yourselves relevant again. To walk out of the speech would be a huge statement, bold and potentially dangerous. But if you don't do something bold, something grand and unprecedented, something to take back the initiative, you will join the Whigs in the dustbin of history.

And if any additional proof is needed to demonstrate the vicious, vindictive nature of the modern Bushpublican party, Glenn Greenwald provides a nice sledgehammer to the temple: back in 2002, the administration itself testified that NO loosening of FISA standards was needed (DUH--again, I defy ANYONE to identify a single FISA judge who would be recalcitrant when it came to authorizing wiretaps against suspected terrorists). Need more? How about this: over 34,000 insurgent attacks in Iraq last year--Dick Cheney said we'd be "greeted as liberators", i.e., either he's stupid or a liar...or both. Dependable Renegade has photos up showing students turning their back on Abu Gonzales--then raising a banner defending...Liberty and Freedom, with a Benjamin Franklin quote. Bushpublicans are content to cower before bin Laden's threats (even as, curiously, they neglect to raise the terror alert level in light of his latest, overt threats...which makes me wonder just why they were so goddamn pollyannaish back in 2004). They cower and give up OUR RIGHTS. And they're supposedly fighting for freedom?

And, as far as 9/11 is concerned, it's about goddamned time someone called Team Bush out on this: they wear the biggest terrorist attack in the nation's history like some sort of fucking merit badge when in point of fact they ought to be ashamed of their singular lack of performance that day--and the almost NINE MONTHS leading up to it. You wanna run the country? Then run it. Bush ran FROM IT on 9/11--and evidently spent January through September of that year doing pretty much the same.

Finally, Dan Froomkin notes correctly that Bush's most recent public appearance was as stale as month-old bread sitting in a Katrina fridge.

Team Bush, when you get down to it, has nothing. That's a big reason why they're about as civil as a rabid wolverine when it comes to playing politics. But it's all bark. Stand up to 'em--or walk out on 'em--and they won't know how to react.

Besides, like John Murtha said (talking about Iraq, but it could be almost any political issue) the public is way ahead of the politicians. They know what a screw up Bush is. We just hope the nightmare ends before the whole country ends up looking like the Gulf Coast post-Katrina.