And People Wonder Why I Drink

Still processing an awful lot of the information from EschaCon II. I'd list the wonderful people I met, but I'd be sure to leave someone out, due, entirely, to my own Stoli-soaked brain. All of the panels were wonderful and any one of them could easily have been a full-day event. But one that really stands out for me was the lunchtime panel on Creating Constitutional Accountability. The panelists were Scott Horton, Bob Fertik (moderator), Kagro X, and Eric Johnson (Chief of Staff, Rep, Robert Wexler). Their message would have sobered up a six-day drunk on a ten-day bender.

Eric Johnson was an incredibly nice guy and one who's heart is really in the right place. But he said things that just made me want to take a hostage. He kept describing how the Bush junta would break a law, throw the Dems up against the chain link fence at the back of the schoolyard, pants them, make them hand over their lunch money, and then say, "What are you going to do about it, punk? Cry to your mommy?" and then the Dems would solemnly go, "Oh, no Mr. Bully. I'm brave. I'll never go cry to my mommy. Would you like my new baseball glove?" Sweet Lilith on a laptop, am I supposed to be impressed that, after Bush tore up the Constitution, turned it into a paper mache dildo, and fucked the Statue of Liberty in the ass with it, the Dems finally screwed their courage to the sticking point and managed to censure his AG or something? Oooh, censure. I'm sure that scared Bush and Cheney to fucking death. No, I'm not. I'm sure they almost killed themselves laughing, though.

Mr. Johnson took a question from the audience about why Nancy Pelosi took impeachment "off the table." He explained that, before the 2004 election, when the Dems weren't sure that they'd re-take the House, the Republicans said that, if the Dems won, they'd spend all their time impeaching Bush. So Nancy promised not to do that. Great. Way to get played. D'ja ever think that may have been their precise goal, Nancy? And we all know the Dems have done so much other v. effective shit since then. No. It's win/win for the Republicans. Do the Democrats ALWAYS have to let the other side frame the debate?

The straw that broke my back came when, at the end of the panel discussion about just how many laws the Bush junta has broken and how abjectly the Dems have stood by and allowed that to go on and on and on after the Republicans IMPEACHED THE LAST DEM PRESIDENT FOR GETTING A GODDAMN BLOWJOB ABOUT WHICH NO FUCKING SANE PERSON IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE GIVES A FLYING FRAP, Mr. Johnson began to list for us some of the legislation the Dems are introducing that would (except for the fact that the Republicans and the Blue Dog Democrats will never allow it to pass) basically make it illegal for the president to ignore the law.

Dude. Sit down. Take a deep breath. Another one. One more. Good. Ok, now focus. (/Makes two-fingered "points to my eyes/points to your eyes" gesture over and over.) Listen to me. I'm your friend. If the entire problem, as you and your fellow panelists just spent an hour proving, is that Republicans ignore the law at will, passing more laws is -- I'm going to put this gently -- NOT THE FUCKING GODDESS DAMNED ANSWER. It may make the Dems feel better as they basically piss away our Democracy out of abject fear, but it's no more effective than the kid who just gave away his new baseball mitt daydreaming about the day when he turns into Superman and makes that bully really, really, really sorry. This would all be funny if the Republic weren't at stake.

Don't make me turn you into a newt. If I do, you won't get better.