But it’s important to remember that the enemy of my enemy isn’t necessarily my friend. They might just be fighting over which one gets to eat my tender bits.

Bush has been gone awhile now, and it’s become disturbingly evident that this Barack fella ain’t much to look at with the lights on, either. Widespread indignation over the Busheviks fueled a prObama fervor that was frankly a lot more about Bush and anything remotely connected to him (like his hugbuddy John McCain) than it was about a cold-eyed appraisal of the man we were voting for, and we now find ourselves crawling inch-by-inch through a minefield strewn with cognitive dissonance. “That sold-out corporatist son of a bitch,” we begin. Pause. Shuffle. Mumble under breath, “…that I voted for.”

Mon semblable, mon frere – I feel your pain. For reasons I’ve never fully understood, my natural tendency is to oppose whoever is in power at the moment, and the process of shifting my spite every few years from one party to another is never pleasant, because it’s in those moments that it’s most clear how doomed I really am. And if these transitional moments, where that small measure of hope gives way to despair, are so difficult for people who think as deeply about politics as I do, imagine the insensate bafflement that must torment the mass of the citizenry, which has always been encouraged to approach the machinations of political life with nothing but raw emotion.

Tea parties. Coffee parties. People who devoted eight years of unquestioning support to the thugs who gave us the Patriot Act and FISA and conspired with AT&T on patently unconstitutional wiretapping all of a sudden dressing up like Revolutionary War battle reenactment asshats (I guess those would be “asstricorns”) and raging against governmental oppression. Crowds that had nothing to say as the kleptocracy looted the economy for the better part of a decade now foaming at the mouth over the current administration’s mishandling of the economic crisis, as if they hplayed no role whatsoever in helping create it. Flying airplanes into IRS offices. Carrying assault rifles to political rallies. A hallucinatory longing for the utopian kumbayah of “bipartisanship.” (Is “kumbaypartisanship” a word? If not, it ought to be.)

Well, raw emotion and a healthy dose of ignorance, is more like it. But you take my point. This is not the golden age of reason that Jefferson might perhaps have dreamed of as he pondered what this brave experiment in self-governance for rich white men might look like.

We can look at people who say things like “Republicrat” and “they’re all the same” and feel some sympathy, especially when we read a righteous screed like my colleague Lex’s flamethrower on the morally corrupt Sen. Kyl (R-Health Insurance Industry). The truth is that neither party has done a very good job of serving the interests of those who elected them, instead focusing their efforts on the interests of those who paid for their campaigns, and that ought to enrage us. The problem is that these kinds of statements can reflect a dangerous false equivalence, because they’re not all alike. Not precisely. A bank robber and a mass murderer are both criminals. Neither should be wandering the streets. Still, it’s difficult to argue that their crimes are more or less the same just because both met a minimum standard of “broke the law.” I jaywalk all the time but I’m not Charles Manson.

Nonetheless, I spent eight years drilling the hell out of the Bushies. And you haven’t heard me waxing eloquent about the glories of the Obamites, either, have you? (Or should I refer to this as the Emmanuel White House, much as I used to talk about the Rove administration?) Both groups have done an appalling job and when all is said and done both will have left the nation worse than they found it, and far worse off than it needed to be.

So, I hate them all – how am I not in the “they’re all alike” camp? This was the question put to me the other night by a drinking acquaintance as we enjoyed a nice bourbon stout down the street at my favorite steak house/brew pub. He’s a proud member of the radical hang-’em-all party and was having a hard time understanding how I wasn’t just like him.

So here’s how I explained it.

Imagine that Washington is the OK Corral. There’s a gunfight going on and I’m in the middle of it. The progressive Democrats are right there with me. They share many (if not all) of my views on what we’re fighting about and I can trust them. Sadly, they’re not the most effective of allies. There are a few tough nuts in the bunch, but most are useless in a fight. Either they’re weak-willed, or they’re bad shots, or they’re fervently in favor of running up a white flag so they can negotiate away what little position they have. Right now, they’re behind me all the way. Operative words: behind me.

Over to the right there are the Blue Dogs and some other assorted moderate Democrats (to the extent that anybody to the right of Nixon can be called a moderate, anyway). Now, they came up here to the corral with me. They fought with me in that bar fight the other night. They say they have my back. But they’re actually related to the people we’re fighting against on their momma’s side. They shoot, but they never seem to hit any bad guys. And, often enough that I’m starting to suspect that they’re doing it on purpose, they’ll “miss” really badly and nearly hit me. I have to be honest – I’m not sure I quite trust them.

Then, on the other side of the corral you have the Republicans. And those motherfuckers are trying to kill me. And you. And our families. And our friends. And anything they don’t kill, they want to loot, rape and/or sell into slavery.

Me? I don’t exactly know what it would mean to “win” the fight. Mainly I just hope I get out of here alive.

That’s how I see the gunfight at the DC Corral. The liberals are useless, but at least their hearts are in the right place. The Blue Dogs aren’t shooting at me at the moment, but I’m keeping an eye on them. The GOP, though, they’re slinging so much ammo my direction that I’m afraid I might catch lead poisoning just from breathing the air.

See the distinction?

So yes, Obama is a problem. Rahm is a problem. Harry Reid is about as helpful as a kickstand on a garbage scow. But enough with the false equivalence, okay? There are varying degrees of suck, and where the American political system is concerned, there’s probably still some value in distinguishing between “bad” and “worst.”

For an idealist like me, anyway.

So today S&R leaps into the fray with some recommendations for new sports we’d love to see added to the 2014 Winter Games.

• Bobcross: We love skicross. We love snowboardcross. We love bobsledding. Give us four sleds and a course carved out of the side of a mountain of ice – first to the bottom wins. We think you’d need a two-man (men’s and women’s, of course), a four-man and an eight-man coed competition. Trust me, ain’t nobody beating Jimmie Johnson, the driver of the US-1 sled, to the bottom of the hill.
• Nude Luge: We really can’t wait for the mixed doubles here.
• Men’s Pairs Ice Prancing: Hell, we’re 99% of the way there already. To make it interesting, teams will be paired with contestants from Project Runway on the costume design portion of the competition. Tim Gunn can coach the US team and judging will be handled by Heidi Klum, Nina Garcia and Topamericandesignermichael Kors.

Scholars & Rogues supports the ongoing mission of the International Olympic Committee to grow the Olympic tradition. In fact, I personally am already in training for the 2016 Summer Games, where I hope to medal in the Walking Down to the 7-11 to Grab a Quick Cup of Coffee competition.

Most importantly, his apology will be carried live by CBS. By NBC. By ABC. By CNN, CNBC, HLN, Fox News, Fox Business and MSNBC. That makes it a bigger story than health care. It’s bigger than the guy who crashed a plane into the IRS building in Austin. It’s bigger than Iran’s nuclear ambitions. It’s even bigger than the Winter Olympics, which are offered on tape-delay.

And it’s sure as hell bigger than this assortment of crybaby hippie socialist bullshit. Democracy. Survival of the planet. Will you whiny bitches please shut the fuck up?

As my colleague Dr. Slammy is wont to say, welcome to the Fall of Rome. Will somebody pass me the Dom?

• Under TABOR, Colorado declined from 35th to 49th in the nation in K-12 spending as a percentage of personal income.
• Colorado’s average per-pupil funding fell by more than $400 relative to the national average.
• Colorado’s average teacher salary compared to average pay in other occupations declined from 30th to 50th in the nation.

Also,

• Under TABOR, higher education funding per resident student dropped by 31 percent after adjusting for inflation.
• College and university funding as a share of personal income declined from 35th to 48th in the nation.
• Tuitions have risen as a result. In the last four years, system-wide resident tuition increased by 21 percent (adjusting for inflation).

A report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities last year summed it up nicely: TABOR Has Hampered Economic Growth and Reduced Quality of Life in Colorado. Responding to some pro-TABOR silliness bubbling up in Maine, the Center lays out some inconvenient details:

TABOR has, however, harmed Colorado’s economy since 2001, when TABOR prevented the state from recovering adequately from the recession. Incomes grew more slowly in Colorado than in Maine during the first half of the decade. Coloradans voted to suspended TABOR in 2005, but the state still has had trouble recovering. Overall, per capital personal income growth has been higher in Maine than in Colorado since 2000 – both in the post-recession period during which Colorado’s TABOR was in effect, and after its suspension.

Oddly, while we’re near the bottom in national spending on public education, we lead the country in spending on prisons. I can’t imagine how those two factoids might be related, though. Can you?

Hang on to your hat, though. It just got better.

Welcome to Teabagger Paradise

It’s a shame about Colorado Springs. It’s a beautiful city, with spectacular mountain views, one of the finest liberal arts colleges in the nation and great microbreweries. Of course, it’s also home to Focus on the Family, the air wing of the Christian theocracy movement and one of the most notorious political pigfuckers in America, Douglas Bruce. It’s the kind of place where, if you don’t keep a close watch, the church down the street might kidnap your kids and baptize them without your permission.

Now, the Springs is also becoming the nation’s foremost case study on what happens when people decide that by god, they’re not going to put up with all those outrageous taxes anymore. Get a load of this:

This tax-averse city is about to learn what it looks and feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the urban fabric.More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.

The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.

Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.

Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.

City recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and a handful of museums will close for good March 31 unless they find private funding to stay open. Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends. The city won’t pay for any street paving, relying instead on a regional authority that can meet only about 10 percent of the need.

“I guess we’re going to find out what the tolerance level is for people,” said businessman Chuck Fowler, who is helping lead a private task force brainstorming for city budget fixes. “It’s a new day.”

Some residents are less sanguine, arguing that cuts to bus services, drug enforcement and treatment and job development are attacks on basic needs for the working class.

“How are people supposed to live? We’re not a ‘Mayberry R.F.D.’ anymore,” said Addy Hansen, a criminal justice student who has spoken out about safety cuts. “We’re the second-largest city, and growing, in Colorado. We’re in trouble. We’re in big trouble.”

Turn off the street lights and fire some cops, huh? Hard to imagine how that could go wrong.

I appreciate your concern, Addy, but the truth is that you’ve been in trouble since, oh, I don’t know, let’s call it 1992. That’s when the state let itself get Bruced. None of this is a surprise, though. It’s pretty much what smart folks have been warning you about since, oh, I don’t know, let’s call it 1992.

At the risk of sounding condescending or elitist, I can’t help thinking that this is the kind of thing that happens when a culture goes without education for too long. It’s kind of like when the fetus doesn’t get enough oxygen.

Teabagger paradise, indeed.

A Meaningless, Yet Emotionally Seductive Corrective

Here’s what I’d like to do. I want to get a microphone and a bat – maybe a nice 33-ounce Louisville Slugger – and head down to the fair city of Colorado Springs. I’ll go up to random people on the street and here’s how it will go:

Me: Excuse me, I’m conducting a man-in-the-street survey for FOX News. Do you have a moment?

Citizen: Of course! I get all my news about the world from FOX.

Me: First question. How do you feel about all your public services being discontinued?

[Option 1]
Citizen: I think it’s ridiculous that people are so stupidly anti-tax that they’re willing to let such a beautiful city go to hell like this.

Me: Thank you. Have a nice day.

[Option 2]
Citizen: I think it’s ridiculous. This is happening because of the liberals and their overpaid government bureaucracy.

Me: Next question. How did you vote on TABOR?

Citizen: I voted for it, of course.

At this point, I whip out the bat and club them like baby seals. (The microphone was just a prop, in case you haven’t figured that out already.)

Or not. When all is said and done, the most satisfying course of action will be to grab some popcorn, pull up a chair and enjoy the show. There are few things I enjoy more than watching stupid people reaping what they have sown (which explains my love of reality television, I suppose). What we’re seeing right now in the Springs are the first few scenes of a morality play. The question is whether or not the denizens of America’s foremost Anti-Tax Utopia are bright enough to figure out the moral: to wit, where taxes and services are concerned, 2 -2 = 0.

I doubt it. The smart money says that their solution will be to cut taxes. In fact, I’d put money on it.

Any takers?

Click here to view the embedded video.

The purpose of the ad, of course, was to change people’s opinions on the issue of abortion. I don’t know how effective it was overall, but in my case it was successful. Before the ad I was pro-choice. Now I’m pro-abortion.

Thank you, and good night.

Click here to view the embedded video.

By the way, all that bitchin’ great stuff that Carly Fiorina has done (vaguely alluded to right there at the end of the Fellini Faillini epic)? Best we can tell they have to be referring to her memorable stint as CEO of HP. How’d that go, you ask?

“When Fiorina became CEO in July, 1999, HP’s stock price was $52 per share, and when she left 5 years later in February, 2005, it was $21 per share—a loss of over 60% of the stock’s value. During this same time period, HP competitor Dell’s stock price increased from $37 to $40 per share.”

All of which led the folks at Portfolio to name her the 19th worst CEO of all time.

A consummate self-promoter, Fiorina was busy pontificating on the lecture circuit and posing for magazine covers while her company floundered. She paid herself handsome bonuses and perks while laying off thousands of employees to cut costs. The merger Fiorina orchestrated with Compaq in 2002 was widely seen as a failure. She was ousted in 2005.

I guess they don’t call her “Carly Failorina” for nothing, huh?

But hey, what do I care? I live in Colorado and Carly’s in Cali. Even better, that vid features GOP-on-GOP action, which any aficionado of fine poli-porn can tell you is the hottest kind. You know, hot in a “Jesus H. Tebow, now I have to go scour my fucking eyeballs with Comet and steel wool” way.

One thing’s for sure, though – the 2012 Republican prez primary between Carly and Sarah Palin is gonna be a hoot. Here’s hoping they can get past their differences and give us political comedy fans the Carly/Sarah or Sarah/Carly ticket I know we’ve all been dreaming of…

Following the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission to allow unlimited corporate funding of federal campaigns, Murray Hill Inc. today announced it is filing to run for U.S. Congress. “Until now,” Murray Hill Inc. said in a statement, “corporate interests had to rely on campaign contributions and influence-peddling to achieve their goals in Washington. But thanks to an enlightened Supreme Court, now we can eliminate the middle-man and run for office ourselves.” Murray Hill Inc. is believed to be the first “corporate person” to exercise its constitutional right to run for office.

“The strength of America,” Murray Hill Inc. said, “is in the boardrooms, country clubs and Lear jets of America’s great corporations. We’re saying to Wal-Mart, AIG and Pfizer, if not you, who? If not now, when?” Murray Hill Inc. added: “It’s our democracy. We bought it, we paid for it, and we’re going to keep it.” Murray Hill Inc., a diversifying corporation in the Washington, D.C. area, has long held an interest in politics and sees corporate candidacy as an “emerging new market.”

The announcement represents a landmark moment in American politics, as former President George W. Bush’s dream of an “ownership society” is finally realized. Still, important questions remain for the candidate. For instance:

• How will Murray Hill go about modernizing the nation’s antiquated system of “elections.” Surely there’s a more efficient way of generating broad consensus, and citizens shareholders will be looking to emerging politicorporate leaders to quickly craft best-of-breed solutions to maximize return and lower total cost of ownership going forward.
• Is it safe to assume that under-performing sectors of the country will be spun off or sold? (Specifically, it’s anticipated that Nebraska, New Jersey, South Carolina and Texas will come in for much-needed scrutiny.)
• What role will outsourcing play in bureaucratic reform? Certainly business units like Health & Human Services and Interior could be managed more cost-effectively in Bangalore.
• Opposition to corporate/government merger and acquisition activity remains and buy-in will be needed from significant segments of the marketplace. However, Murray Hill has so far presented no marketecture for how it will capture sufficient mindshare to ensure the campaign’s success.
• What strategies will be employed to insulate United States of America, Inc. against hostile takeovers by international competitors?
• What does the company see as its key differentiators with respect to competitors in the crowded “governance” space?

It’s still early in the game, of course, but investors will be anxiously awaiting as Murray Hill’s brand group crafts a mission statement and works to socialize its unique value proposition among key stakeholders.

So here’s what we have to do. Let’s forget separation of Church and State and accept that we are One Nation Under God, In God We damned sure Do Trust, and that we are a Christian nation (this part is crucial). Let’s get past all that soulless secular humanism and By God establish a state religion. Better yet, let’s charge Congress with the job, since so many of the members of that august body have thought long and hard on the subject already.

Here’s how it works. The U.S. will adopt as our national religion that which Congress can agree on sufficiently to pass by a two-thirds majority, and by this I mean they must pass each plank of the resolution by that margin. Understand, “God” is way too vague, and you can’t very well build a moral society around vagaries. We have to insist that Congress agree on what God is and how He (She) should be worshiped.

For instance, we’ll need Congress to decide whether the Bible is intended as a metaphorical guide or as literal, journalistic fact. Was Mary literally a virgin? Did Abraham literally live 900 years? Did Moses literally tie his ass to a tree and walk 40 miles? These are not small issues, and if they are settled by legislative fiat we risk another millennium of sectarian strife.

Other issues we’ll need Congress to rule on:

• Should baptism be by sprinkling as an infant or by immersion once one is born again? And, how quickly can we set in place an emergency re-baptism program for all those people who had it done wrong the first time?
• Is God a man, a woman, both, or neither?
• What race is God? This will be important when we do physical and artistic representations of Him/Her/It.
• What about those places where the Bible appears to contradict itself, as in Genesis 1 & 2? Are we to take these as tests by God, or error by monks, or what?
• How old is that darned Earth, anyway? I mean, it’s important to know what to tell kids about dinosaurs if the world is only 6000 years old.
• We’ll need a plan to transfer power from the President to Jesus when He makes his triumphant return to Earth after the Rapture.
• We’ll also need a policy of engagement for Armageddon. When do we launch the nukes, and at who? Once we know who’s on God’s side and who’s on the side of Satan, shouldn’t we just go ahead and launch a pre-emptive strike?
• What the hell do we do about those damned Jews, who have made clear that they aren’t on board with Jesus as the Son of God? Do we wait and let Jesus deal with them himself or should we set about making them either believe what we believe or leave?
• And don’t even get me started on Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and other varieties of Satanists. If we’re truly a Christian land, is it right that their blasphemy should be tolerated, and worse, that they should be able to benefit from social programs paid for by Right-thinking Christians?
• Should the Office of Homeland Godliness be a Cabinet-level appointment reporting to the President? Should the President be the de jure head of the Church? Should it be a separate branch of government insulated from the meddling influence of future secular legislators, and especially from Satanic minions on the Supreme Court? Or, for that matter, should we rework the government and Constitution so that we replace the democracy with a Christian theocracy?
• What should our foreign policy toward non-Christian nations be like? Some of them are Godless, but strategically important (Britain, Canada, anybody with oil, etc.) Should a nation’s relationship with God be a consideration in conferring most-favored-nation status?
• There’s also the woman problem. Are they to be submissive to their husbands, as dictated by some, or are they to be accepted as full partners in God’s Church of America? Can they be ministers, for example? And while we’re on the subject of troublesome sorts, is the Church going to take the “accepting” stance toward gays or are they all going to hell? If the latter, should we get them on their way or let God deal with them in His own good time?

Give me another hour or two and I’ll come up with more of these issues, but you get the idea. The success of a faith-based government hinges on getting these issues settled and chiseled into stone sooner rather than later. If Congress leaves wiggle room and unanswered questions we’ll be at each other’s throats until the Second Coming, and I’m pretty sure that’s not what the Framers intended.

Lawmakers in staunchly Catholic Ireland passed the law in July, but it came into force January 1.

A person breaks the law by saying or publishing anything “grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion.”

Errrm, wait a second. “…saying or publishing anything “grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion…”

Sonofabitch. I think I can get the Bible outlawed in 15 minutes, tops….

Thanks to Ubertramp for passing this item along.

When House Democrats gathered on Friday for their end-of-the week caucus meeting in the basement of the Capitol, caucus chairman John Larson (D-Conn.) told the group he wanted them to hear first from Rep. Michael Capuano, who’d just returned from a primary campaign for the Senate seat in Massachusetts vacated by the death of Ted Kennedy.

Larson asked Capuano, who finished in second place, to share the wisdom he learned on the campaign trail.

Capuano took to the microphone, looked out at his colleagues and condensed what he’d learned into two words. “You’re screwed,” he told his friends in the House, according to one attendee. The room’s silence was broken only by soft, nervous laughter.

Indeed, although I suspect there’s a word that comes closer to conveying the full measure of the predicament better than “screwed.”

Over the last few years of the Bush presidency I feared that the Republicans had a strategy in place, a clever and cynical strategy to loot and pillage everything in sight, leaving a smoldering and irreparable waste to the Dems (since the strategy took a long view, the plan was to trot out the reserves and forfeit in 2008). Then, since the public is dog-butt stupid and incapable of remembering who made the mess in the first place, and since the Democrats can be counted on to fuck up even the obvious stuff, the GOP would then be positioned to march triumphantly back into DC as the responsible, competent saviors in the mid-terms and 2012. “See,” they could say, “that silly librul socialist Democrat Party doesn’t know anything about the hard word and smarts that goes into actually governing. They’re good at sitting on the sidelines and bitching, but you can’t put them in charge of anything. Now look at the mess they made. Remember this the next time things look bad and you’re thinking about ‘change,’ all right?”

So far it looks like the plan is right on schedule, huh?

Still, if that whole scene set your plausibility alarms to ringing, you might want to brace yourself for this one.

Think Progress makes a great catch on C-SPAN this morning: Someone calls in while Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) is answering the lines, practically in tears because Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) missed this morning’s procedural vote on health care.

He was apparently concerned that — after following Sen. Tom Coburn’s (R-OK) instructions to pray that someone couldn’t make a manager’s amendment vote Sunday night — his prayers for Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) to die struck the wrong senator.

“Our small tea bag group here in Waycross, we got our vigil together and took Dr. Coburn’s instructions and prayed real hard that Sen. Byrd would either die or couldn’t show up at the vote the other night,” the caller said.

Let’s review. A teabagger, following the lead of his duly elected Congressfolk, gets together with his fellow Christians and prays that God will kill a political opponent.

WWJW? Sen. Byrd, that’s who.

There’s so much wrong here it’s hard to know where to start. But suffice it to say that these mouth-breathers worship one more hateful god. Further, this god is apparently a bad shot – if you’re aiming for Byrd and only manage to wing Inhofe, well, omnipotence is right out the window, huh?

Maybe in the next Spidey sequel they can cast Sen. Coburn and his drooling band of lobotomized Christian teabaggers as the villains. But while we’re waiting on the fantasy to arrive at a theater near us, isn’t it nice to know that these people are free to roam the streets in reality?

UPDATE: TPM wonders if the caller was a prankster. Could be, could be. Hard to say for sure, but it’s certainly plausible. It’s just a shame that we live in an age where we have things like “citizens” carrying assault rifles to political rallies to consider – makes it hard to sort reality from fantasy.

Image Credits: Panchosoft.com and Raymond Pronk

If I might appropriate some phraseology from my colleague Dr. Slammy and popular conservative telepundit Stephen Colbert: Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., can gargle my velvety smooth mansack….

• Abusive GOP lawmaker
• Slips her something that distorts her perceptions
• Beats the hell out of her during allegedly consensual sex
• No safe word to make it stop

Damn. Sounds kinda like a metaphor for American political life, huh?

UPDATE: Woops – now it’s a felony assault charge….

The other day our friend MentalSwitch offered up a delightful little post entitled “Hello Nurse!” It featured a photo of an attractive model dressed as … well, hell, rather than me trying to describe the shot and failing miserably, why don’t you just click on over there and see for yourself. But before you do, please be forewarned that the photo is NOT SAFE FOR WORK!!!!

Ahem. Well, actually, its worksafeness (or unworksafeness thereof) became the topic of some discussion here. Initially the pic was posted without a cut, meaning that the image itself would appear on the front page of S&R. Later, after some complaint and brief deliberations, we moved it behind a cut with the dreaded “NSFW” tag, indicating that the content would most certainly get you fired if it were accidentally viewed by any decent, God-Fearing American^® co-worker. And since way too many of our readers work in places where others might be looking over their shoulders, this was a practical concern. As one colleague put it – and we’ll let that colleague name himself if he wants to – “if the wrong person had walked behind me with that image up on my screen, I could have been walked out the door that day, no appeal.”

Such is the reality for millions and millions and millions of people living here in the Land of the Free^®, the Home of the Brave^® and the Birthplace of the Religious Freedom^®.

As badly as it griped me to see such a fine, artistic photo hidden behind a cut like some tawdry porno you’d pay a Times Square carney a dollar to see (price adjusted for inflation), I also had no interest in seeing any of our intelligent, hard-working readers escorted out of their places of employment at gunpoint.

However, my colleague Dr. Slammy suggested that the all-too-standard NSFW tag – the Modern American Internet’s version of the Scarlet Letter – was a lingering stain on the credibility of the artist, and in due course I (apparently being ill of will and sharp of tongue) was enlisted to pen what you may take as an official Scholars & Rogues policy position.

Briefly stated, when you put an artist behind the Scarlet NSFW, you convey a general social verdict that shame should be attached to the work. It is not fit for general viewing; it is likely to be deemed offensive to some people; and those who choose to click the link, well, that’s between them and Jesus.

It does not matter whether such a judgment is reasonable. For instance, in the case of “Hello Nurse,” what really is there to be scadalized by? Let’s take a close look:

What is the supposed objection? The subject is of consenting age. No aberrant sexual acts are depicted. Hell, she’s not even partially naked. No vajayjay showing. No boobies. She’s not fondling herself (at the moment, anyway). There is an aspect of the erotic in her pose, of course, but let’s be clear here: whatever obscenity might arise from the communication of this image lies entirely within the mind of the viewer.

Goddammit, people, you can see more NSFWing imagery any goddamned night of the week on any goddamned channel on television during goddamned prime time. If this is NSFW, then the publishers of every fashion magazine available in America need to be hung in the public square right fucking now!!!

Oh, I’m sorry – is my invective NSFW?

It is true, as another of my unnamed colleagues pointed out, that good art seeks to provoke. MentalSwitch isn’t an especially in-your-face artist, but it is also true that his work routinely challenges convention in ways that are guaranteed to provoke, and it’s not hard to conclude who the targets of his critiques are. As he explains in the notes accompanying a portrait of “Lizzy”:

If all Christians were like this guy then the world would be a better place. On the other hand, if all Christians were like this guy we wouldn’t even recognize Christianity anymore….

Well played, that.

Welcome to 17th Century Salem, folks. Welcome to neo-Puritan America, a land where dismemberments and flying body parts and mushroom clouds and elected officials intentionally and strategically lying to their constituents are cool but a woman wearing four times more clothing than every teenaged girl around every swimming pool in the United States is NSFW. Because she looks suspiciously like she might enjoy sex in a non-missionary position. And sex is not to be imagined. Pictures that might make us think of sex are not to be condoned.

In neo-Puritan America, millions of people wake up every morning praying that the Lord will afford them an opportunity during the day to be offended. Hypocritical offense is next to godliness and the Constitution apparently has a clause about the right not to be exposed to anything you don’t like. Lawyers will be summoned. Human Resources policies will be invoked. Sinners will be terminated. And Hester Prynne will have a red NSFW branded on her twitchy, hellbound little ass, BY GOD!

In case the theme of my rant hasn’t yet made itself apparent, the Scarlet NSFW brands the wrong person. Those whose visions challenge are to be positioned behind the screen of shame, while those who are afraid of ideas have their narrow prejudices reinforced by official policies and unspoken self-righteous bullying.

We will know America has finally attained a measure of enlightenment when the reverse of those statements is true.

In the meantime, I mentioned something about a policy, so here it is. Since, as I noted above, we have no interest in damaging the careers of our readers, and since we’re smart enough to know the reality of many workplaces, we’ll be placing things that we believe might offend the average granny-panty neo-Puritan behind a cut. But when we do, understand that it is not the artist whom we are indicting. It’s the Scarlet Letter crowd.

In addition, don’t be surprised to see NSFW replaced by NSFP – Not Safe For Puritans. (My original idea, Not Safe For Repressive Puritan Asshat Jesus Nazis, was deemed a bit unwieldy.)

At Scholars & Rogues, we don’t shrink from challenges. We’re not kept up at night by the unconventional. And we are absolutely, positively not afraid of ideas.

And we will not quietly pander to those who are.

• Obama is “more African in his roots than he is American” and is “behaving like an African colonial despot”
• “Barack Obama has picked up another endorsement: Halfrican American actress Halle Berry.” Limbaugh then said: ” ‘As a Halfrican American, I am honored to have
• Ms. Berry’s support, as well as the support of other Halfrican Americans,’ Obama said.” Limbaugh then conceded that Obama “didn’t say it.”
• “Obama has disowned his white half … he’s decided he’s got to go all in on the black side”
• Obama “the greatest living example of a reverse racist”
• Limbaugh sings “Barack, The Magic Negro”
• “Here you have a black president trying to destroy a white policeman”
• “[W]e saw white firefighters under assault by agents of Barack Obama”; “Now white policemen are under assault”
• Obama would not have acted if he’d known that the Somali pirates were “actually young, black Muslim teenagers”
• Limbaugh suggests Dems, media believe “you can’t criticize the little black man-child”
• Obama’s nomination “goes back to the fact that nobody had the guts to stand up and say no to a black guy”
• “The government’s been taking care of [young blacks] their whole lives”
• “The days of them not having any power are over, and they are angry”

There was also the time ESPN was dumbass enough to let Limbaugh on their pre-game show. That didn’t work out so well, did it?

Let’s set aside for a second the obvious troubling question about how a team with Rush at the helm would get new players, since presumably it would dodge the draft. And the also-obvious question of whether, given its stance against illegal drug use, the league would be forced to ban Limbaugh from his own facility. Instead, let’s ask a more basic question: why would a guy like Limbaugh want to own an NFL team, knowing all the hassle involved in the process?

I think I have it figured out. Because it’s the closest he can get, in this day and age, to actually being able to buy, sell and trade Negros.

There. I said it.

Outrage is palpable – on both sides. Yes, there are two sides. In addition to the “hang the pedophile” side, there’s the – if I might repurpose Wilde here – unspeakable in defense of the unconscionable crowd. Hey, lighten up folks. It’s not like the guy was a priest or anything.

Anyway, those in the hang-the-pedophile camp are offering up as aggravating evidence some wild shit Polanski said back in 1979.

“If I had killed somebody, it wouldn’t have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But… fucking, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to fuck young girls. Juries want to fuck young girls. Everyone wants to fuck young girls!”

Appalling. Just disgusting, isn’t it?

So, for those of you who are as revulsed as I am, I have a little exercise for you. Think of it as a seminar question.

Q: Roman Polanski has asserted that everyone wants to fuck young girls. Using the artifacts of Western popular culture – network and cable television programming, movies, magazines, popular music and the products of the various fashion industries – attempt to disprove Polanski’s claim. Avoid the temptation to cherry pick anomalous examples and please, be thorough.

Thanks. We now return you to your regularly scheduled righteous indignation.

For a second, let’s set aside any arguments over whether or not Rowling’s work merits such a lofty honor and do something that we simply don’t do enough these days. Let’s dig beneath the surface silliness and examine the deeper implications of what this revelation really means.

Put simply, would you be worried about “encouraging” something you didn’t think was possible? It’s one thing to want to discourage, say, meth use or binge drinking or texting while driving or unprotected sex. Those things are real and they have real, observable consequences. If Rowling’s books were encouraging angel-dust-fueled arson sprees, we’d all be advised to support the former president and his merry band of loco parentis.

But did they see witchcraft as real? (Sure, practitioners of Wicca and other neo-paganisms indulge in the craft, but for a variety of reasons I think we have to assume that’s not what Bush was concerned with. After all, Rowling doesn’t talk about real-world Wicca, and real-world Wiccans don’t fly through the skies of London terrorizing the Mugglery. Whatever the real world’s witches may or may no be up to, it has so far proven very unHollywood-worthy.)

So, do we then conclude that President Bush and his cronies wanted to discourage children from learning how to change each other into rats? From flying around on brooms? From trying to outwit dragons? From teleporting via fireplaces? From sneaking around under invisibility capes?

Certainly these are the sorts of things that we’d want to keep our children away from, I suppose. But while Dubya may have resisted the corrosive effects of education, there are rules of logic and he is not magically immune to them. By definition, one wouldn’t actively discourage children from something that was in fact impossible. Not unless one were absolutely barking, anyway. It might theoretically be dangerous for young children to attack the Xyrxalian Star Fleet on Pegasus-back, for instance, but you don’t recall any Executive admonitions on the subject, do you?

Still, let’s remember, the Bible says that witches are real. Former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin consulted freely with a witchbusting “minister.” The shenanigans at Hogwarts are barely more outlandish than some of what went on in the White House when Nancy Reagan, wife of Bush’s intellectual hero Ronald Reagan, was in residence.

And we’re talking about a man who believes that God commanded him to run for president.

Therefore, I believe we have every reason to believe that our former president did, in fact, view the kinds of powers imagined by Rowling in her best-selling series to be plausible.

Since this is America, we have to respect his faith.

Q: Let’s say you’re sick with a potentially deadly disease. Who do you want for a doctor?
A: The smartest, most experienced and highly qualified expert in the field.

Q: You’re looking to invest your life savings. Who do you trust to handle your money?
A: The brightest, most agile financial mind I can find.

Q: You’ve been selected to participate in a “private citizens in space” program. Who do you want in charge of building the rocket?
A: The most brilliant and reliable engineers in the nation.

So far, so good. One more.

Q: You live in a time of unimaginable complexity and danger. Who do want to be the leader of the free world?
A: Somebody I can have a beer with. You know, a regular guy, a Joe Sixpack.

It’s said that people tend to get the leaders they deserve, and I can’t imagine better proof than the United States. At present we’re watching as a new president attempts to arm-tackle an array of national political and economic crises of evil supervillain jailbreak proportions, and at this early stage it’s far from clear that he’s Rushmore-bound.

• He may or may not get health care reform passed, and if he does it may or may not be as comprehensive as the programs pursued by previous arch-progressives Richard Nixon and Dwight Eisenhower.
• He may or may not bog us down in a vastly expanded quagmire in Afghanistan, although at present only an idiot would bet on him meeting his campaign promises regarding getting the heck out of Iraq.
• He may or may not decide to honor the pledges he made to the gay community.
• He may or may not spearhead a green revolution that saves the species from itself.
• And his economic policies may boost us to new, unprecedented levels of universal prosperity. Or they may plummet us nards-first into a meat grinder of a global recession so epic it will make the Great Depression look like a weekend in the Hamptons.

So the jury is still out on Mr. Obama. But… While past performance is no guarantee of future results, there’s also that thing about those who don’t understand history being doomed to repeat it. And America’s history of electing dolts, buffoons, scoundrels, knaves, low-jackers, pig-fuckers, gomers, dog-whistlers, Kloset Klansmen, recidivists and sheep pimps to the Highest Elected Office in the Land does not make one optimistic about the prospects for Barackapalooza. I’d love to be wrong, but let’s be honest. An indicator that can pick a loser 100% of the time is every bit as valuable to the shrewd investor as one that always picks the winner, and the Electoral College is as reliable a Finger of Doom as the world has ever seen.

Let’s review, shall we?

George W. Bush: Worst president ever? Dumbest president ever? Hard to say for certain, although put me down for “hell, yes.” The nation apparently elected a string of semi-housebroken wombats in the 1800s, and contemporary polling feels obliged, in the name of “balance,” to humor the estimations of conservative “scholars” who rate him the sixth-best ever. For my money, that opinion alone is sufficient for the credentialing institution to revoke the PhD, but such is the price we pay for the privilege of living in an society that not only tolerates fools gladly, it gives them television shows.

Bill Clinton: In so many ways, Clinton was the archetypal president of our age. He was the distilled, undiluted essence of the modern political animal. He was like everything in Washington, only moreso. And I don’t mean that in the good way.

Bubba may not be the man who invented the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, but he was damned sure the one who established it as the only wing that mattered. The irony, of course, was that he was reviled by the GOP. I’ve always wondered if the source of that rage was that Clinton was a better Republican than they were.

In addition, he cheapened the office at every turn: whether renting out the Lincoln Bedroom to the highest bidder, pardoning Marc Rich or “hiking the Appalachian Trail” like mink freebasing Viagra, it seemed as though his every action left us feeling the need for a shower. From the poor house to the penthouse to the whore house, we’ve never seen anything like him. God willing, we never will again.

George HW Bush: It’s still hard to fathom how this mealy-mouthed little wimp stumbled into the White House. All the Democrats had to do in 1988 was find a candidate with a pulse. Instead, they trotted out Mike Dukakis, a man with all the charisma and passion of an accountant on a phenobarbital drip.

Bush the Elder was the latest incarnation of an established and thoroughly corrupt dynasty, and between him and his fuckwit kids there is no better argument, could be no better argument, in favor of a 100% inheritance tax. If they’d had to earn anything on their own merit their only entree into a country club would be as assistant assistant assistant greenskeepers reporting to Carl Spackler at Bushwood.

Ronald Reagan: Wow. Where to start. Back in the 1960s Marshall McLuhan, in writing about where television was taking the culture, predicted Reagan in terms so accurate that you’d think you were reading a history instead of a precognition. The only thing missing was the name and home address. The failing in McLuhan’s analysis, if there was one, was this: as cynical as he was, the reality turned out to be even worse than he feared.

Ronnie was as anti-intellectual a leader as we could have imagined prior to Dubya. A man who somehow managed to remain immensely popular despite the fact that most Americans disagreed with his policies. One of the most corrupt collections of advisors, staffers and appointees in history. And the man who represented the grand triumph of years and years of scheming by wealthy conservatives bent on by god rolling the rich-poor gap back to feudal levels. An intellectually void, amoral cesspool of a human being who will nonetheless go down as one of our “great” presidents.

Jimmy Carter: Carter has the distinction of being one of the very few politicians that Hunter Thompson ever said anything nice about, and his record since leaving the White House has made clear what an outstanding statesman and humanitarian Carter really is. History will not mark him down as the most adept practitioner of the presidential arts, however, and for those who bemoan the erosion of the line between church and state, let’s remember just how very publicly Baptist Jimmy was. Now, thanks in part to him, we’ll never get the smell of the fundamentalists out of the furniture. (Which reminds me – Phish is playing four dates at Red Rocks, so those of us who live in downtown Denver are hoping the wind isn’t blowing straight west-to-east for the next few days.)

Gerald Ford: Nice enough guy, seemed like. For a politician and all. But he wasn’t ever elected.

Richard Nixon: Please tell me we don’t really need to talk about this one.

Lyndon Johnson: Ever heard of Vietnam? It’s hard to recall the last time somebody took an idea so bad and managed to make it even worse. He does get credit for important civil rights legislation, at least.

Still, in the final analysis he was a president from Texas with a lust for illicit, unwinnable wars. If that reminds you of somebody else, don’t blame me. I’m just reporting the facts.

John F. Kennedy: He invaded Cuba, and once the troops started landing he changed his mind. He nearly got us into a hot nukular shooting war. Then there was that Vietnam thing – he and LBJ can share this honor. Marilyn Monroe was either a plus or a minus, depending on where you stand with respect to the marital infidelity issue.

Ultimately, though, the only thing that saved his legacy was death. Had he lived to serve out his term(s) he’d be judged today based on his record, which falls somewhat short of the legend.

So, when was the last time America elected a president it could be proud of? By today’s standards Ike isn’t looking bad at all, and his two predecessors, FDR and Truman, also score high marks.

If you look at that chart in the link above, it seems like maybe the country’s ability to elect somebody half decent runs in cycles.

Let’s hope that’s the case, and that the wheel is turning back in our direction. Because damn, America is due.

It’s been entertaining watching American public “discourse” since the election. (I use that word in its broadest, most ridiculous sense, since nothing that hinges so completely on self-absorption, rank ignorance and pathological dishonesty can be accurately characterized by such a noble word. But indulge me. I’ve been working on my irony lately.)

On the one hand you have conservatives fainting dead away that we’re now in the clutches of a “socialist” president. Never mind that these folks wouldn’t know a real socialist if he was gnawing their balls off. Never mind that most of these folks think “socialist” is the French word for Negro. Never mind that Obama demonstrably is to socialism what Joe the Plumber is to brie-sucking Northeastern intellectualism. As arch-conservative TV pundit Stephen Colbert says, “this is a fact-free zone.”

On the other you have the righteous outrage of the progressosphere, which feels six different kinds of betrayed by a president who promised them the moon and stars and has now left them to what looks like at least a four-year walk of shame. If I might borrow from an old fraternity joke, imagine the following scene from the Oval Office:

Barack: Hey everybody, what’s the difference between a progressive and a toilet?
Rahm: I give up, Mr. President.
Barack: The toilet doesn’t follow you around after you use it.
[Entire Cabinet]: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

A few days ago Chris Bowers, one of the progressive blogosphere’s smarter and more influential voices, announced that he was becoming a conservative Democrat. His reasoning was compelling. Let me sample a bit for you (and encourage you to go read the rest as soon as you’re done here).

You can “endorse someone other than a Democrat for President, and then have the Democratic leadership do whatever it takes” to keep you in the Party. “You get ten times the media mentions that one gets being a progressive.” You get “more money, too. You can proclaim that you are a conservative Democrat, and still have small, progressive, grassroots donors be by far your top contributors.” You can “hold up, water down, and threaten whatever Democratic legislation you want” with no consequences at all. “You get frequent meetings with the President and proclamations that he is one of your own.” If you bitch about it you get “threats about never hearing from the White House again.” You’re “far more likely to receive a major cabinet appointment. Not even counting the Republicans, New Democrats outnumber Progressives in President Obama’s cabinet by 7-1.” And that’s not nearly all.

Okay, so maybe Bowers isn’t really abandoning his fellow progressives. Maybe he was just being a smart-ass to make a point. I can’t say I approve of such tactics, but hey, my old pal Jonathan Swift was known for the occasional snark, so who am I to judge?

The point is that progressives have a beef with the new fauxcialist administration, and regardless of what you think about their issues, their analysis or their personal hygiene, a review of the facts certainly justifies their pique. Think about it.

• Obama the Campaigning Man was pretty clear in his disdain for the Defense of Marriage Act. Obama the President has apparently decided that gay rights can wait. (Don’t Ask Don’t Tell? Don’t bother.)
• Candidate Obama was balls-to-the-wall about greening the economy, and I mean yesterday. President Obama, whose favorability rating is running better than 2-1 for, seemed unable or unwilling to expend some of that political capital on the just passed ACES bill, which many experts think will accomplish diddley (or worse). (Again, whatever the eventual reality about this bill turns out to be is irrelevant – the point is that Obama did not act in accordance with the more progressive stance he had taken earlier.)
• And what about health care? A recent New York Times/CBS News poll showed overwhelming support for “a government administered health insurance plan like Medicare that would compete with private health insurance plans.” How overwhelming, you ask? Overall 72% were in favor of the “public option,” and 57% said they’d be willing to pay higher taxes to get it. Hell, 50% of Republican respondents want it. So, you have very high approval ratings. And you certainly have a significantly greater mandate than George the Conqueror did after nipping John Kerry in 2004. You have significant majorities in both houses of Congress. You have overwhelming popular support for a public option. And you can’t get it done? Seriously?

I’m sitting here trying to figure out why corporate America, which would stand to benefit tremendously from having the burden of insuring the citizenry lifted from its shoulders, isn’t in open revolt. (That part of corporate America that doesn’t include the insurance industry, I mean.)

It has been observed that the Republicans seem to be more effective with a minority than the Dems are when they have the entire country by the balls. GOPpers derail the train by threatening a filibuster, but the Democrats can’t seem to head off a bad idea with a damned-near buster-proof majority. How the hell is this possible?

This, of course, is what’s known as a “rhetorical question.” The butt-obvious answer is that the contemporary Democratic Party is not really a party, at least not in the same way that the GOP is. Instead, it’s a bizarre amalgam of progressives, “moderates,” bipartisan fetishists, “New Democrats,” DINOs and opportunistic Republicans (see Specter, Arlen). The median at present lies significantly to the right of Richard Nixon, who despite the recent revelation that he was in favor of abortion in the case of half-breed fetuses, posted a record that would make him pretty darned progressive by 2009 standards. (Good thing you dodged that bullet, huh Mr. President?)

Ultimately, Bowers and other frustrated progressives are right. The Democratic party just isn’t that into them. They’re useful when votes are needed, but are utterly incapable of leveraging that into actual influence. As far as the “responsible” centrists are concerned, progressives are the late-date with no self-esteem, the unwitting fat chick at the pig party.

So, what to do?

Playing along isn’t working. So how about rounding up all the members of the Progressive Caucus (and their many allies around the country) and opting out? Leave the Democractic Party. Form a third party of their own (or just join the Greens). All of a sudden the Democratic Party has a numbers problem. All of a sudden they lose majority status, chairmanships, agenda-setting stroke, etc.

I’m no expert on the rules of the American legislature, so I’m sure there are nuances I’m missing. Nonetheless, I imagine the Republican wing of the Democratic Party would wet itself. And in the short term this could be very good for the GOP, which would find itself in the plurality.

Longer-term, though, it seems like the progressives can make an argument – and one that is supported by some actual evidence – that they represent the will of a goodly slice of the American public. Even better, given how the youth vote seems to be trending, they can also argue that their hand is going to strengthen over time. Are these premises accurate? Hard to say. But they are testable hypotheses, and the posit is certainly plausible enough to be worth examining.

Maybe the remaining Dems respond by making the reality of the situation official and decamping for the GOP. Maybe the Blue Dogs and the “moderate” wing of the GOP abandon those pesky snake-handlers on the right and form a new “centrist” coalition. Who knows. If that did happen, however, America would at least have the refreshing luxury of an opposition party that, you know, opposed. We could get all that corporatist DC clutter, which thrives because it dominates both parties, up for a real referendum. What a campaign hook – America vs. the Beltway.

Part of me says “what if it backfires?” But the other part of me looks at the state of the current union, at the looting of the last eight (or, depending on your taste for the long view, 29) years, at the energy way too many Americans have to devote to worrying about what happens if they get sick or injured, at the staggering cost associated with continuing to fuck around with the environment, at the fact that millions and millions and millions of citizens have no hope at all of financial solvency, at the knee-buckling stupidity of a populace that’s been victimized by a brilliantly conceived War on Education, at…. Fuck it. You get the picture.

Off your knees, progressives. The worst that happens is more of the same. At the least do us the favor of dying on your feet.

Well, move over Hank Steinbrenner. Just a few days ago Spanish futbol superpower Real Madrid ponied up a £59M transfer fee to pry Brazilian midfielder Kaka loose from AC Milan. If you don’t have your currency calculator handy, that’s roughly $94M US. And to be clear, that figure does not include salary. That’s just Milan’s take on the deal. The good news is that Kaka’s weekly earnings probably won’t come to more than the GDP of a mid-sized European country.

Wow. That’s a record that was bound to stand for a very long time three days. Today it’s been announced that those same bottomless-pocketed Los Blancos have reached an agreement to purchase Portuguese midfielder Cristiano Ronaldo from Manchester United for £80M – or $131.6M. Again, that doesn’t include salary and benefits, which include hot and cold running hookers and unlimited use of the club’s gold-plated jet.

Last we heard Real was still on the trail of Valencia’s David Villa, too, but he’d be a comparative bargain with a price tag in the $50M range. However, if they’re unable to land Villa, Madrid president Florentino Perez says the club plans to buy the Czech Republic.

Hey, wonder if they need a large auto manufacturer?