"Mine mind has meditated on the spinning of the Chao
It is hov'ring o'er the table where the Chiefs of Staff are now,
Gathered in discussion of the dropping of The Bomb;
Her Apple Corps is strong!

Grand (and gory) O Discord-ja!
Grand (and gory) O Discord-ja!
Grand (and gory) O Discord-ja!
Her Apple Corps is strong!

She was not invited to the Party they held on Limbo Peak
So she threw a Golden Apple 'stead of turned the other cheek
It cracked the Holy Punchbowl and the nectar it did leak;
Her Apple Corps is strong!"

- Battle Hymn of the Eristocracy


Remember kids, every Apple Corps is the beloved home of a Golden Worm. Just don't accept one from Michael Jackson.

So yesterday we got to shout "Hey hey - ho ho - Karl Rove has got to go!" at the White House. The signs were provided, a few hundred people showed up, and we all marched in this circle which had the curious problem of slowing down and speeding back up again like a confused Grandmother on the Beltway. There were some interesting people there: one guy brought his own sign ("Impeach Bush"). I think this is a terrible idea: like setting off the finale fireworks before the main show.

Really now, anyone who knows how puppet theatre works knows that the best way to disrupt the show is to disrupt the puppeteer. And I'd love to watch Georgie squirm on TV without Karl's arm up his ass.

Let's face it, America: as Douglas Adams so presciently wrote in the Hitchhiker's Guide, the function of the President isn't so much to wield power as to draw attention away from those who really do. However, I'm a firm believer that the President should be entertaining: if not a witty charmer like Slick Willy, then at least let him fall on his face and be a laughingstock so we can get a few laughs.

Honestly, I believe that the GOP would have done much better had they let Georgie be a natural jackass and quietly gone about their business. It would have been the perfect distraction: nobody in the world would take him seriously, they'd let down their guard. And that's precisely the advantage Uncle Sam would need to quietly get the Big Sticks into position.

Really now. I think we need a changing of the guard; the old assholes aren't getting the job done, or they're doing the wrong jobs. This is a different America, a different world. These schmucks got their training facing off against the Soviet Monolith in a two-superpower system. Now we've got one confused Hyperpower, some rivals, both old allies and adversaries, and a bunch of rats sneaking around the outskirts of our influence. These rats will try to trip us up to make themselves feel better about being lowly rats. We need a better mousetrap for these vermin... and we can't be picking which vermin to exterminate and which ones to hold court with.

We need a better standard, boys and girls. We need to hold our elected officials accountable, as well as our corporate leaders. We need WYSIWYG government, and transparency in the right places. We need to keep our word. We need to be such a solid voice and force of Honor in the international community that no power could question our right. Under such an ethic, the world would unite; our moral superiority would shame those of questionable ethics and bond us to the morally upright. We need to put our money where our mouth is. We need to call a spade a spade. We cannot shrink from the truth into our comfortable fictions. Americans need to get real; more real than any other nation. No more soft hypocracy or "do as I say, not as I do" politics. A real vision for real people; a vision of RESPECT. A government that respects itself, respects its people, and respects the other nations of the world. This doesn't mean that we won't have to kick the shit out of people or nations every now and then: it just means that we'll kick the shit out of them for the right reasons. We're going to find Osama, mark my words, and we're going to hang that son-of-a-bitch. But we'd damn sure better be Irish Spring fresh when we haul his ass in front of the cameras.

To do otherwise is to court the same infectuous derangement.