HILLARY – NO POLCY, NO BELIEFS, NO NADA, BUT PEOPLE MAGAZINE LIKES HER
Hillary Clinton pokes her nose out of the tent to bark at something only when she’s found an issue that’s safer than Cheney’s bunker. And she’s found it – yes, the Taliban-tinged United Arab Emirates poised to take over six U.S. ports. Opposing this stupid, crazy deal is no more dangerous politically than coming out against avian flu.

But notice that Hillary, the leading ’08 candidate, has yet to oppose the Iraq war that’s sucking the juices out of this nation as we speak. Because, yes, folks, she’s moved center, and therefore has never, not once, said anything of substance about our quagmire over there, except maybe that it’s been mishandled. As though there’s some good way to handle a policy initiative that kills and cripples people, costs a trillion dollars and is the biggest boost to Iran and Al Qaeda since Rumsfeld took over the Defense Department.

Hillary has never tackled the question of whether this invasion maybe wasn’t such a hot idea after all. If she can't bring herself to oppose this criminal, pointless death pit, the worst foreign-policy mistake in U.S. history, what’s there to like about her? I mean, what’s the attraction?
The answer: people like the fact that she’s a celebrity, a People magazine kind of person -- a Clinton. Americans are more comfortable with dynasties than actually rolling the dice on a real election. That’s why we’ve got Bushes, Clintons, Kennedys, Byahs, etc., running all through our government like mice in the kitchen. It’s America’s dirty little secret – our longing for a monarchy. Come back, King George, all is forgiven. But of course that King George is long gone and it’s tough to root for Liz and Charlie Windsor, who are no more equipped to run a country than Dopey, Sneezy, or Smirky.

So we whip up putative royalty of our own, and Baroness Hillary stands ready to haul us aboard her bandwagon to nowhere. But bear in mind that if she has any core beliefs, she has yet to reveal them. She’s also an unaccomplished legislator and, at least in public, a crashing bore who's a lock loser to whichever Republican dynasty steps up to the plate next.

SENATE DEMOCRATS LINE UP TO ENDORSE SMIRKSTER'S 'PATRIOT' ACT
Lots of folks were disappointed when the Democrats in the Senate voted along with the Republicans last week to kill any attempt at filibustering the Patriot Act. That’s because they don’t really understand what the Democrats were up against.

They were just doing what other prison bitches do every day under similar circumstances. Senate Democrats deserve our compassion, not verbal assaults. After all, when they leave Congress many will try to resume heterosexual practices. Not John Edwards, of course, but many of them. They didn’t ask to be locked in a D.C. cellblock with all those tattooed Republican nasties, and they’re trying to survive as best they can.

The Democrats figured, well, it is true that the Bush administration cited the Patriot Act as a key enabler of their agents who as we speak are reading our mail, listening in on our phone calls, sending some of us off to live in Syrian dungeons between torture sessions, and all the rest of those Big Brother scenarios that are life imitating Orwellian art. But the Senate Democrats, optimists, all, figured, hey, their stud daddies really want this thing, and if you look a little closer, you find some great stuff in the Patriot Act. For instance, some of its passages have made billions for Haliburton.

Incidentally, praise is honestly due to Russ Feingold, Robert Byrd, and Jim Jeffords (Independent), the only senators who had the balls to fight off the Republican prison gangs. They voted to filibuster, kept their assholes shut, and, to paraphrase the angry mortician in The Godfather, they kept their honor.

CONTRARY TO POPULAR belief, the Cheney shooting was actually good for the bush administration. Anything that draws attention away from the way they run the country is good for them. The hotshot D.C. lawyer who took one in the face for the smirk king will no doubt be rewarded in one of those secret ceremonies at Bohemian Grove, when the world’s movers and shakers dance naked in the forest and renew their vows.

Listen, I'm no gay-baiter, but when you think about it, there do seem to be a number of gay themes all around the Republican scene, starting with that male prostitute Bush liked to call on in press conferences. Maybe if Clinton had been getting fellated by a male intern instead of Lewinsky, the Republicans in Congress would have been more supportive.

PHONE CONVERSATION PICKED UP BY NSA SURVEILLANCE TEAM

Dickie? I told you never to call me here. Anyway, I thought you were busy with that bird thing.

Georgie, is there anything you can help us out with? Anything at all.

The Iranians, they’ve got Chalabi. That’s all I can tell you. . . . I swear to God I didn’t know it was gonna be a real election, Dickie. They bumped into me at the U.N. and they said that you and -- and – them were in on a -- a -- big deal together. And that there was something in it for me if I'd help ’em out. They said that -- they said that -- you were bein’ tough on the negotiations. But if they could get a little help -- and close the deal fast – it’d be good for the family. They wanted to talk . . .

You believed that story? You believed that?

They said there was something in it for me -- on my own.

I’ve always taken care of you.

Taken care of me? You're my vice president and you take care of me? Did you ever think about that -- did you ever once think about that? Send Georgie off to do this -- send Georgie off to do that! Let Georgie take care of some Mickey Mouse fund-raiser somewhere. Send Georgie to pick somebody up in the helicopter. I'm supposed to be the President, and I was stepped over!

That’s the way your Pop wanted it.

It ain’t the way I wanted it! I can handle things. I’m smart – not like everyone says. Not dumb, smart. And I want respect.

Is there anything you can tell me about that Iraqi election?

Sistani, he belongs to them.

Georgie, you’re nothing to me now. You’re not my caddy anymore, you’re not a friend. I don’t want you near my office. When you see Condi, I want to know a day in advance so I won’t be there. Understand?

Wait, I have to know -- what's the deal with this Iraq thing anyway? Those reporters are asking about it again.

The Iranians, they left us a couple oil wells, but that’s it. They get the rest. They said we could have that crappy loot from the museums, but I told them the same thing I told Leahy.

They can go fuck themselves, right? Oh, you always know what to say. Dickie. I need you, Dickie.

You should have come to me Georgie. I’d have made you an offer you couldn’t refuse.

Can’t it be like the old days again? Remember when they let me bring you into that congressional hearing? You and me, Dickie. A team. Remember?

You know, Georgie? I just can’t stay mad at you.

So we’re still pals, Dickie?

Sure, let’s go hunting next weekend.

THINKING ABOUT HEALTH SERVICES IS BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH

(This post moved from previous blog spot http://diggingdeeper.wordpress.com/, where it was first posted January 25th, 2006)

Now that the Medicare prescription law has taken effect it’s become clear that no one understands it — not even the people in the administration and congress who supposedly wrote it. That’s because they never thought about seniors having to actually use it. Their goal was to shovel more money to their paymasters — the drug, insurance, and HMO Mafias.

I said “supposedly” wrote it because, like all legislation dealing with real money, it was created by the corporations themselves and passed on to their government schlemiels to prance around it at midnight in a voodoo blood ceremony I’m not supposed to say much about. I wish I could tell you no chickens were harmed.

Some of the people who voted for this swamp puss of a bill are considered friends of the people – Senator Diane Feinstein, for instance. I wrote and asked her how she could defend her vote and her little staff person got back to me in with an email that said she figured she’d rather get a start on some kind of prescription payments than have no bill at all. Which is like saying, hey, if I can’t get a health care bill that aids our health, why not vote for one that screws it up? Good plan, Feinstein. She also voted to kill the estate tax. Don’t get me started about that vampire. She looks damn good for 73. She’s juiced up her system of replacing her worn-out parts with organs from desperate Third Worlders. But that’s for another column.

We get people like Feinstein and her corruptomaniac friends in the House because it’s nearly impossible to dislodge incumbents anymore. Ninety-nine percent [no exaggeration] of all House incumbents who run for re-election are re-elected. And some Senate seats – Feinstein’s for instance – are even better protected.

Gerrymandering is now married to computerization and has produced a bastard zombie of a system that’s even more predictable than the old Soviet model.Remember when we used to laugh at Soviet elections because incumbents got 95 percent of the vote? The commissars were Jeffersonian Democrats compared to the jerks we have running Washington these days. If the Founding Fathers were around, the cockamamie rulings from this King George would be at risk. But our system has failed to react to the power of multinational corporations, and while we weren’t noticing, they bought the government. They’ve legalized so many bribery schemes that taking down Abramoff and his network will be like pissing into a hurricane. (For my zero salary, I figure I’m entitled to at least one crappy cliche per column)

This country has already been sold. Bush is just more blatant than the others, because he’s been brought up to hide nothing from servants because after all, they’re just servants. We are a nation of bozos, lulled to harmlessness by electro-media, Prozac, and other news-o-tainment from the same forces that bought Feinstein.

But these Enron-esque lunatics are programmed to keep acquiring new assets no matter how lopsided the ownership equation gets. Maybe when all of us are running around in rags enslaved to the last dauphin, some of us will ponder our go-along-get-along attitude.