Bush, Libby and Olbermann

1. Silencing myself

A day after our president issued his decree that Scooter Libby would enter the hallowed pantheon of such patriots in the cause of the monarchy as John Ehrlichman, H. R. Haldeman, G. Gordon Liddy, John Poindexter, and Oliver North, my blood boils, my fury is unbounded, and I am unable to articulate myself in a sensible manner.

But of course, that has been their strategy all along: to weave their schemes with such skeins of contradiction and blatant illegality that in our desire to make sense of it all we would be left swimming in confusion and helplessly disoriented.

This was their chosen path to revolution. And this is the making of a screaming liberal, screaming at the top of his lungs, ranting, but in his fury losing all credibility.

Best to just be silent.

2. Olbermann: Party above nation

But at least I will point to Keith Olbermann [MSNBC video, Salon article], whose fury is coherent.

George W. Bush took assent and reconfigured it and honed it and sharpened it to razor sharp points and stabbed the nation in the back with it. Were there any remaining lingering doubt otherwise or any remaining lingering hope, it ended yesterday when Mr. Bush commuted the prison sentence of one of his own staffers.

Did so even before the appeals process was complete.

Did so without as much as a courtesy consultation with the Department of Justice.

Did so despite what James Madison at the constitutional convention said about impeaching any president who pardoned or sheltered those who had committed crimes advised by that president.

Did so without the slightest concern that even the most detached of citizens must look at this chain of events and wonder to what degree was Mr. Libby told, "Break the law however you wish; the president will keep you out of prison."

In that moment, Mr. Bush, you broke that fundamental compact between yourself and the majority of this nation's citizens -- the ones who did not cast votes for you.

In that moment, Mr. Bush, you ceased to be the president of the United States.

In that moment, Mr. Bush, you became merely the president of a rabid and irresponsible corner of the republican party. And this is too important a time, sir, to have a commander in chief who puts party ahead of nation.

3. J'accuse!

And his fury spread to engulf the issues that have brought on so many silent (and not so silent) screams:

I accuse you, Mr. Bush, of lying this country into war.

I accuse you of fabricating in the minds of your own people a false implied link between Saddam Hussein and 9-11.

I accuse you of firing the generals who told you that the plans for Iraq were disastrously insufficient.

I accuse you of causing in Irag the needless deaths of 3586 of our brothers and sons and sisters and daughters and friends and neighbors.

I accuse you of subverting the Constitution, not in some misguided but sincerely motivated struggle to combat terrorists but instead to stifle dissent.

I accuse you of fomenting fear among your own people, of creating the very terror you claimed to have fought.

I accuse you of exploiting that unreasoning fear, the natural fear of your own people who just want to live their lives in peace, as a political tool to slander your critics and libel your opponents.

I accuse you of handing part of this republic over to a vice president who is without conscience and letting him run roughshod over it.

And I accuse you now, Mr. Bush, of giving, through that vice president, carte blanche to Mr. Libby to help defame Ambassador Joseph Wilson by any means necessary -- to lie to grand juries and special counsel and before a court in order to protect the mechanisms and the particulars of that defamation -- with your guarantee that Libby would never see prison and in so doing ... of you becoming an accessory to the obstruction of justice.

These are complex and painful [issues] to follow and too much perhaps for the average citizen. But when other citizens render a verdict against your man, Mr. Bush, and then you SPIT in the faces of those jurors and that judge and the judges who were yet to hear the appeal, the average citizen understands that, sir. It is the fixed ball game and the rigged casino and the prearranged lottery all rolled into one, and it stinks. And THEY KNOW IT.

Happy Independence Day.

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