CSotD: Happiness and other fairy tales

Today’s Pardon My Planet (KFS) provides a coincidental coda to the impeachment, because, come on now, what did you expect?

I’m actually more optimistic now than I was at 24, when I was sure, along with a whole lot of other people, that Nixon would escape the revelations of Watergate.

In fact, I wrote a parody of Gilbert & Sullivan’s “Titwillow” that began

On a seat in the Senate, ex-counsel John Dean
Sang “Nixon, Dick Nixon, Dick Nixon”

and concluded

Now, I feel just as sure as I’m sure that my name
Isn’t Nixon, Dick Nixon, Dick Nixon,
That the chief will find some way to shrug off the blame
(He’s Nixon, Dick Nixon, Dick Nixon)
For he’ll go on TV shake his jowls and he’ll boast
How he rescued our boys from the communist host*,
“So go shove Watergate up your Washington Post!
“I’m Nixon, Dick Nixon, Dick Nixon!”

*Nixon had brought home the POWs about a year before and continued to bask in the achievement, which many thought could have happened far earlier.

When the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Nixon must release the White House tapes, it was a thunderbolt, particularly in the wake of the Saturday Night Massacre that made it seem we were on the edge of tyranny.

So this time around, I held out some hope and watched the vote count. I didn’t expect to hit the necessary 67, but I hoped to see a few more Republicans vote their consciences rather than clinging to party loyalty.

Which is to say, I didn’t expect 17 but I hoped for maybe 10 or 11.

Oh well, what the hell, as McWatt said, as he flew into the mountain.

Happiness is indeed the stuff of fairy tales.

Ann Telnaes (WashPo)‘s ongoing daily coverage includes the question that should have been sent up to the Chair during deliberations, and, to repeat something I’ve said before, it seems at once very odd and yet not at all surprising that the people who want God in the public schools and prayer before every public event can swear to defend and uphold the Constitution “so help me God” and then not do so.

But neither do they willingly feed the hungry, clothe the naked or nurse the sick, so, once again, what the hell did you expect?

 

Pat Byrnes (Cagle) expresses both the mystified disappointment of those who believed Senators would do their sworn duty and the insouciant glee with which they break their oaths and their promises.

Several people had posted clips of McConnell, Graham and Cruz before the 2016 election decrying Trump’s character and fitness for office and noting that Trump had called Cruz’s wife ugly and accused his father of involvement in JFK’s assassination.

But when you’re a Jet if the spit hits the fan, you got brothers around, you’re a family man.

 

Chris Britt (Creators) puts things a bit harshly, accusing the GOP of not simply ignoring the death and injury to the police who saved their lives but of reveling in the outcome.

But, after all, Pontius McConnell did bring out a bowl and ewer to wash the blood from his hands after the vote, declaring that he really did care, conceding that Trump really was guilty, and explaining that he only voted for acquittal because of a technicality mostly caused by his having insisted on delaying things until Dear Leader was out of office.

 

And besides, as Clay Jones points out, they voted to honor the Capitol Police, so, y’know, no hard feelings.

Rand Paul is complaining about a video showing him barely standing and not applauding this proclamation, insisting that it is falsely edited. Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn’t.

But the moral to that story is that you should behave in such a way that people don’t so readily believe such things of you.

 

As for McConnell’s explanation of his vote, David Rowe (AusFinRev) suggests from which end of the elephant such afterthoughts issue, while the true front end indicates the continuing loyalty of the Republican Party to their Dear Leader.

 

And Kevin Kallaugher (Economist) builds on the concept, not simply depicting Trump as still head of the party, but showing that the GOP has morphed into both blind followers and blonde duplicates of their Dear Leader.

The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

The outcome has produced this contradiction:

Observers said that, if the Senate chose to ignore such clear and obvious evidence of such an outrageous act of sedition against the Constitution, it would mean the end of impeachment, that the Founders remedy would be rendered meaningless.

Yet, in the wake of the 57-43 vote, they suddenly discovered that parts of the egg were excellent because this was the largest vote in favor of impeachment in American history.

You can’t have it both ways, and the best that can be said of George du Maurier’s famous curate is that at least he was eating the rotten egg himself, not expecting anyone else to swallow it.

 

Bill Bramhall (NYDN) takes the former interpretation, suggesting that the GOP has not only brought to reality Trump’s signature boast, but given him their blessing to do it again, and again, and again.

There is no longer any price to be paid for hubris, or, at least, we cannot expect it to be administered by those we elect if we elect greedy quislings and aspiring tyrants.

Perhaps the real takeaway is not that we elected Trump. That can be dismissed as a momentary folly, since corrected, perhaps the result of people who didn’t think he’d win and only wanted to undercut Hillary Clinton’s mandate.

But we also elected 47 Senators who not only witnessed a violent insurrection against our system of government but were themselves threatened by the riot, and yet voted to absolve the demagogue who unleashed the mob of all responsibility.

Still, this is not the end.

 

If you’re tired of my featuring this video, put on some comfortable shoes, pick up your clipboards and make it irrelevant.