Compared to the filthy, prurient coverage talking heads gave the Starr Report, the use of the word “blowjob” is practically chaste.

Being a Supreme Court justice is like being a baseball umpire, if every play was a line drive along the foul line during the World Series.

Let’s stop using sports metaphors to describe politics and start using political metaphors to describe sports.

Republican judicial philosophy – Unacceptable: “…wise latina woman” Acceptable: “Is that a pubic hair on your Coke?”

For the conservatives laughing over Obama photos today, Google the names “Bush” and “Merkel” to see what real embarrassment looks like.

It’s been said by more people that one can count that it is simply not possible to satirize Conservatives. Any exaggerated quality you can think up, they’ll have topped it by tea time (usually while fellating an underage goat). This tendency reaches baroque levels of complexity with their sex lives, but with the increasingly frequent outbursts of un-self aware racism, we’ve moved past baroque, past Roccoco, past even the entirety of Europe’s 19th century. We have now reached postwar Abstract expressionism. Case in point, Congressman Steve King, who cast a solitary “no” vote this week on a House resolution to honor the slaves who built the Capitol.

Now, if you’re like me, you probably can’t come up with a plausible reason to vote against recognizing the slaves on whose backs the FREEST COUNTRY EVARZ was built. That’s because you don’t have the benefit of evolved Republican biology. Or, because you’re reverse-racist (except on opposite days, when you become regular racist.) Fortunately, Congressman King offered not 1, but 2 equally plausible reasons for opposing this bill. First, he explained in thoughtful, rational language how honoring slaves gives Jesus a wicked case of testicular tortion:

“Last night I opposed yet another bill to erect another monument to slavery because it was used as a bargaining chip to allow for the actual depiction of ‘In God We Trust’ in the CVC. The Architect of the Capitol and liberal activists opposed every reference to America’s Christian heritage, even to the extent of scrubbing ‘In God We Trust’ from the depiction of the actual Speaker’s chair in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“This is just the latest example of a several year effort by liberals in Congress to scrub references to America’s Christian heritage from our nation’s Capitol. Liberals want to amend our country’s history to eradicate the role of Christianity in America and chisel references to God or faith from our historical buildings.

“Our Judeo-Christian heritage is an essential foundation stone of our great nation and should not be held hostage to yet another effort to place guilt on future Americans for the sins of some of their ancestors.” (emphasis mine, by decree of my liberal overlords).

Now, never mind the fact that his assertion that this recognition was somehow connected in any way to yet another In God We Trust assertion is just kind of crazy. And never mind that there’s no such religion as “judeo-christianity”, particularly since the Christianity part has spent the better part of the last 2000 years trying to ixnay the Udeaojay part. And never mind that “holding hostage” is kind of a weird word choice, when referring to the victims of slavery as somehow being unfair to other people. And never mind that fuck this guy for being an insufferable whiny little dickhole. The problem, clearly, is that America is a Christian nation that is somehow also filled to bursting with paganliberalhomos who hate the Lord. Which means nobody believed, or even understood what the hell he was saying.

Smith seems to have recognized that getting totes butthurt about the fact that not everyone thinks slavery was no biggie, and then blaming his glutial soreness on Racism Magic Jesus, is kind of a bad play. So the next day, he went on the radio to offer up a much more sensical, reasonable explanation for his heroic opposition to the tyranny of not being able to ignore horrifying truths anymore:

KING: I would just add that there were about 645,000 slaves that were brought to the United States. And I’m with Martin Luther King, Jr. on this. His documents, his speeches – I’ve read most of them. And I agree with almost every word that came out of him. Slavery was abhorrent, but it was also a fact of life in those centuries where it existed.

And of the 645,000 Africans that were brought here to be forcibly put into slavery in the United States, there were over 600,000 people that gave their lives in the Civil War to put an end to slavery. And I don’t see the monument to that in the Congressional Visitor Center, and I think it’s important that we have a balanced depiction of history.

Okay, now, first, we need to stop the funny for a few facts.

1) Starting your argument against [whatever policy would benefit or simply pay attention to slaves, slavery, or the descendents of slaves] by saying “I’m in agreement with Dr. King” is the 21st century version of “I’m no racist, but there are black people, and there are n******.” So fuck you.

2) He keeps repeating that number – 645,000. And wow, when you consider how many people lived in the US between the beginning of slavery and the end of it, it just must not have been very many of us who were slaves, right? Except, no. Turns out that there were 697,681 total slaves in 1790, and by the Civil war, almost exactly half of the entire population of the south were slaves.

3) “Slavery was abhorrent, but it was also a fact of life in those centuries where it existed. ” Okay, since we’re making this kind of argument, will Southerners shut up too? Sure, Sherman’s march was “abhorrent”*, but killing people who went into open rebellion by starting a war to preserve the institution of slavery was a fact of life in those days.

4) “over 600,000 people… gave their lives in the Civil War to put an end to slavery.” Actually, over half of those people were actually killed defending slavery. So in a sense they gave their lives to end slavery. Because we had to kill them in order to end slavery. What’s that old Southern expression? Oh yeah. Fuck you.

It’s simply astonishing to me that the Party of Lincoln has morphed wholeheartedly into the Party of Jefferson Davis. Then again, I’m surprised that Transformers 2 was a massive hit. So I don’t really get the way idiots’ brains work.

Meanwhile, we have a rare TV LOLcist outburst. On Wednesday morning’s Fox & Friends, during a discussion of a Scandinavian study linking marriage to lower rates of aging diseases and health problems, Brian Kilmeade revealed the curious fact that he recieved a Masters in Biology during the 1890s:

Kilmeade: Leave it to the Finns and Swedes to come up with something. Because that’s a — we are, we’re a, we keep marrying other species and other ethnics and other —

[Crosstalk]

Kilmeade: I mean the Swedes — the Swedes have, uh, pure genes. Because they marry other Swedes. Because that’s the rule. Finland — Finns marry other Finns, so they have a pure society. In America, we marry everybody. So we marry Italians and Irish and –

Dave Briggs: OK, so this study does not apply.

Kilmeade: It does not apply to us.

Just to be clear, this study didn’t mention anything about genetics. It mentioned behavior. So, way to make a creepy, unrelated point Brian. Also, is he accidentally letting it slip that he hates the Irish? I mean, wow, I was kidding earlier when I said he went to college in the 1890s, but now I’m not so sure. That’s the kind of out-of-print racism you can only find via torrent!

This situation reminds me of my dad, who I love, but who in his old age has developed into a charmingly angry combination of Abe Simpson and John Birch. During a recent conversation with him, the subject of Health Care came up and he proceeded to mention last year’s hottest trend in wingnut opposition to universal health care: health care costs are spiraling out of control because of illegal immgrants! He insisted he had a personal anecdote proving the disastrous impact of underpaid sweatshop workers on The World’s Greatest Health Care System, and then proceeded to tell me a story of his wife’s elderly aunt:

It seems said elderly aunt had her health insurance badly managed by a relative-caretaker. Insurance lapsed; she had to go to the hospital for treatment of a condition, at which point this lapse in coverage was discovered. Fortunately, after some back and forth with the Medicare people, coverage was restored, treatment paid for and voila! Problem solved, and she’s fine and getting her meds and financial assistance right on schedule.

By which I mean that my dad seemed to realize that he’d forgotten to say anything about how some cheap jerk’s gardener caused this to happen, so he hastily added “and Mexicans keep going to the ER!”, in his delightful Oklahomish grumble. And to his credit, this rambling non sequitor-laden narrative actually works as a better explanation for Sarah Palin’s resignation than her speech did. Ditto Kilmeade’s eugenics lesson. Which proves, possibly, that Conservatives have also mastered hive-mind technology.

Finally, it wouldn’t be LOLcists Friday without a follow up on woman who helped define the genre, the ever adorable Audra Shay. The Daily Beast actually went through he facebook history and tracked down several more heartwarming Gems from this 38 year old vice chair of the Young Republicans**. Home girl has been spinning Facebook into gold for quite the time, as it turns out:

In October 2008, in the wake of news that an effigy of Sarah Palin was being hung outside an affluent Hollywood home as an offensive Halloween decoration, Shay replied, returning to the “LOL” style that she employed after the “coons” comment: “What no ‘Obama in a noose? Come on now, its just freedome [sic] of speech, no one in Atlanta would take that wrong! Lol.”

She picked up the thread again the next morning with a clarification and a new insight. “Apparently I could not spell last night. I am wondering if the guys with the Palin noose would care if we had a bunch of homosexuals in a noose.”

Actually, Audra, the correct grammar is “I could not has spellin.” But we digress.

Posting and endorsing a conspiracy-theory video that attempts to prove that Obama believes he can only “ensure his own salvation” and “fate” if he helps African Americans above whites, complete with Barnum-esque captions (“LISTEN AS HE ATTACKS WHITE PEOPLE”).

Numerous posts in which Shay says that President Obama is “anti-American” and has “disdain of this country.”

It only gets better so hurry over to read the whole thing for yourself. Punchline? Despite this, she is still heavily favored to become the Chair of the Young Republicans in tomorrow’s election.

LOL!

*not really. Sorry, you start a war to defend your ownership of other people, you don’t get sympathy from me when you lose badly.
**I told you it’s impossible to satirize these people didn’t?

I assume Republican Senators are lining up Ricci plaintiffs to testify against Sotomayor because they couldn’t find any angry ex-boyfriends.

I know I probably shouldn’t be writing this since Sarah Palin is set to become a private citizen again and thus, above criticism, but there have been multiple times in the past week in which I read/heard a Palin story that had me shaking my head thinking “What a $@%& dumbass”.

Case in point, the leaked email exchange between Palin and McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt over Todd Palin’s association with the Alaska Independence Party :

Palin blasted out an e-mail with the subject line “Todd” to Schmidt, campaign manager Rick Davis and senior advisor Nicolle Wallace, copying her husband on the message (all of the e-mails are reprinted below as written).

“Pls get in front of that ridiculous issue that’s cropped up all day today – two reporters, a protestor’s sign, and many shout-outs all claiming Todd’s involvement in an anti-American political party,” Palin wrote. “It’s bull, and I don’t want to have to keep reacting to it … Pls have statement given on this so it’s put to bed.”
. . .
Schmidt hit “reply to all” less than five minutes after Palin’s e-mail was sent. “Ignore it,” he wrote. “He was a member of the aip? My understanding is yes. That is part of their platform. Do not engage the protestors. If a reporter asks say it is ridiculous. Todd loves america.”

This clear cut response from the campaign’s top dog carried an air of finality, but it did not satisfy Palin. She responded with another e-mail, adding five more names to the “cc” box, all of whom traveled on her campaign plane.
. . .
Clearly irritated by what he saw as Palin’s attempt to mislead her own campaign and apparently determined to demonstrate that the ultimate authority rested with him, Schmidt put the matter to rest once and for all with a longer response to everyone in the e-mail chain.

“Secession,” he wrote. “It is their entire reason for existence. A cursory examination of the website shows that the party exists for the purpose of seceding from the union. That is the stated goal on the front page of the web site. Our records indicate that todd was a member for seven years.”

What kind of fool lies to their own campaign manager?! Schmidt’s job was to lie for Palin, yet she was such an amateur that she really thought she could bullshit a bullshitter.

Then there’s this doozy from her recent “Oh, I didn’t know the media would be here!” fishing trip-cum-press conference (via Steve Benen):

As to whether another pursuit for national office, as when she joined Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in the race for the White House less than a year ago, would result in the same political blood sport, Palin said there was a difference between the White House and what she had experienced in Alaska. If she were in the White House, she said, the “department of law” would protect her from baseless ethical allegations.

“I think on a national level, your department of law there in the White House would look at some of the things that we’ve been charged with and automatically throw them out,” she said.

There is no “Department of Law” at the White House.

Where the heck would someone get the idea that there’s a “department of law” that protects the executive branch? Did she sleep through the 90s? It’s one thing for Palin to think the Vice President is “in charge of the U.S. Senate“, but this is dumb, even for her.

Yeah, I’ll admit that writing about Palin is fun (her speech on Friday was a surrealist masterpiece that stands alongside the works of Luis Buñuel), let’s not forget that she almost became the Vice President of the United States. Dick Cheney was evil, but at least he had a post-Schoolhouse Rock understanding of how our government works. The thought of Sarah Palin being one of the most powerful people on Earth is enough to turn your hair grey with fright.

California’s economic troubles are the direct result of a severely disfunctional political system. A 2/3 budget requirement in the legislature that empowers Republicans to stymie every meaningful attempt at a solution, and a populace that doesn’t think twice about passing endless bond measures that tie the hands of legislators and irresponsibly borrow money, and relatively low taxes all fit together to irrevocably screw up our state. The only real long-term solution is a dose of maturity and political courage, but that’s asking too much of a state that twice chose the Terminator to be the governor.

But having said all that, my inner lower-case “d” democrat wants to remind the rest of the country of something : Since at least 1981, Californians have paid $489 BILLION more in federal taxes than we’ve received in federal spending. For decades, while being derided as little more than out-of-touch coastal elites who look down on “real” Americans, we’ve been picking up the bill and seeing our tax dollars get disproportionately funneled to smaller, redder, more “fiscally conservative” states like Alaska, Montana, the Dakotas, and Mississippi. I’m not saying these states are undeserving of their federal hand-outs (or over-representation in the Senate for that matter), but…well…you’re welcome, America. Can we plleeeeeaaasseee have a bailout?

Huffington Post is reporting something that only makes sense in a world without the internet* – Apparently Alec Baldwin, hilarious actor, but not-so-hilarious angry MRA douchebag, is indulging the fantasy that he could possibly win an election:

Playboy: Will you run for office?

Baldwin: I’ll put it this way. The desire is there… I have sometimes thought I could move to New Jersey or Connecticut and run. I’d love to run against Joe Lieberman. I have no use for him. But it’s all fantasy. I’m a carry-me-out-in-a-box New Yorker. Here, anything can happen. Who thought Eliot Spitzer would go down the way he did? Senator Hillary Clinton left to serve as secretary of state. Two of the biggest forces gone. Maybe Andrew Cuomo will run for one of their old seats. How much longer will Chuck Schumer stay as senator? After 2013 Bloomberg will be gone. What happens then?

Do I run for Congress on Long Island? What’s Tim Bishop going to do? He represents my district. People get sick, die. They’re offered lucrative deals and want to cash in and make money for their retirement. People misstep. Unfortunately, an opportunity for me may mean bad things for someone else. I don’t wish that.

Okay, as much as replacing Joe Lieberman with someone who isn’t an evil corporate whore-slash-evil warmongering liar appeals to me, Alec Baldwin needs to stay in an industry more forgiving of, ahem, the personal failings of difficult people. However, in case Alec doesn’t understand why he’d lose faster than you can say “Nobody wants to end the war more than I do”, I give you the only commercial Baldwin’s opponents will ever need:

Give up the dream, please. Please.

*Remember – on the internet, everything is forever.

Cornel West said Jackson devoting his life to entertainment was “like a crucifixion”. All due respect, but Jesus never recorded Thriller.

So, once upon a time, there were three kinds of Bigots:

1) Out and Proud.

These guys love being prejudiced, and want everyone to know it. They like to say things like “I hate the [expletive deleted] [racial/religious/social group] and want them eliminated.” These people used to join the Klan. Some still do, but that level of organized racism against African Americans is way uncool now, so they’ve replaced it with hatred of Muslims, or they join the National Organization for Marriage.

2) On the Down-Low.

Down-Low bigots are smart enough to know it’s not okay to be a bigot, but too stupid to understand that the problem people have with bigots is the bigotry, not the rude language. They typically keep quiet until they’re fairly certain they’re in a room full of like minded haters, at which point they cannot wait to let out what they’ve been thinking in private, usually with a creepy joke. Otherwise, they tend to couch their hate behind pretentions of having reached their views via rational thought and real world experience (always failing to acknowledge that they simply found a way to sexy up their tiny minds with big words and ex post facto deduction.) They also tend to be libertarian.

You remember that one asshole back in the day who liked to say things like “Oh, I used to believe what you think about [racial/religious/social group], but then I got out in the real world and now I know the truth. They really are as [dumb/evil/desirous of raping white women/predatory] as people say.” This is his category.

The biggest problem they have is that they don’t normally get to be in a room full of like minded haters, and the rest of us just aren’t as obsessed with the objects of their resentment as they are. This makes convenient “since you asked” opportunities to hate with educated language a very rare commodity. Therefore, the pressure of having to appear sane in front of the normals inevitably leads to unusual outbursts – for instance, while employed as an ESPN commentator, they accuse the the NFL of reverse discrimination for hiring a black quarterback.

Typically, they act shocked and offended when actually called out on their bigotry. Of course, what they really offends them is that they can’t be type #1. And also that Obama was born in the US.

3) In-denial:

These pitiful people have internalized cultural notions about the essential wrongness of bigotry, but still have volumes of unexamined anger and resentment inside them. They cope by relying on a bizarre, passive-aggressive method of expressing these feelings: comfortably using language similar to that of people opposed to prejudice, in order to express their obvious-to-everyone-but-them bigotry.

They tend to say things like “there are [racial/religious/social group], and there are [horribly offensive term used by bigots to refer to said group].”, or “we ended [oppressive policy against racial/religious/social group], but [racial/religious/social group] wants to live in a perpetual victim state, acting like a bunch of [horribly offensive term used by bigots to refer to said group].”

The biggest problem engaging them is that they typically have been completely screwed over by conservative policies, and quite often lead genuinely tough lives. The hardship they’ve experienced should have triggered their latent ability to feel, but a lack of critical thinking skills, combined with a very narrow range of media exposure, channels the rage they should have for Reagan and Dubya onto Faggosexualislamic single mothers who want to take their guns. You can recognize these poor saps because unlike #1 and #2, these people actually believe that “reverse racism” exists, rather than just being a convenient euphamism for “people should know their place”.

Obviously, I’ve just described 3/4 of the Republican base.

“But Ross!”, I can hear you say. “3/4? Surely you mean 4/4, right?” Au Contrair! If you’ve learned anything from the last 8 years, it should be to never underestimate the ability of crazy wingnuts to mutate with the times, and our current times are no different from, um, other times. Since the election of Barack Obama, we have witnessed the birth and rapid development of a delightfully 21st century kind of hater.

This new model bigot is a bizarre, post-modernist combination of all three categories. This is a cognative leap previously believed (by all but the most insane psychological theoreticians) to be impossible for the human brain. It was, or so it was believed, the equivalent of simultaneously believing that Jesus and God are the same entity, and yet somehow also different entities with distinct personalities. In other words, cataclysmic Epic Logic Fail.

Enter The Internet. The vast data storage capacity of a world wide network millions of computers strong, sharing information endlessly (mostly about naked women, but never you mind just now). Add to it the perpetual motion machine that is right wing paranoia, a community of millions made up of conspiracy freaks, end timers, gun hoarders and get off my land jerks, all of them whining eternally about their lot in life, separated from 911 truthers only by their unwillingness to criticize George W. Bush.

Somehow, these two powerful entities combined in the same way bacterial life combined with Earth’s primordial soup, and the result is that the right wing brain has… evolved. I admit that it feels dirty using that word in this context, but how else do you explain it? Conservatives have shed such cumbersome hinderances to personal fulfillment as “basic empathy”, “intellectual honesty”, and “learning from mistakes”, allowing these people to live lives free of the kind of concerns normal people experience before making decisions. Liberated, they stand ready to lead America into a glorious golden age that, apparently, is a combination of Red Dawn, Casablanca and Caligula.

However, of all evolutionary advantages they have acquired, the most compelling is the development of something that philosophers and religious leaders have dreamt of since the first skeptic asked “so, how do we know that this god person actually spoke to you?”: The ability to hold contradictory thoughts in their head, at the same time, and experience absolutely no confusion or uncertainty. In short, the end of Cognitive dissonance.

Which brings us to the newest form of Bigot.

Like Type 1, they have awful, sometimes psychotic veiws and they truly do not give a frack who knows it. In fact, they’re proud of it.

Then again, like 2, they know you cannot be racist in public.

And, like Type 3, they honestly believe that they are not racist, often going so far as to insist that they are themselves the greatest defenders of the rights of the minorities and social outcasts they disparaged.

The combinations are endless and awe-inspiring. Filled with a deep seated need to share their bigoted ideas, they also long for approval and to be told that they are correct, but also moral and good. But, and this is the most important part: unlike their predecessors, they possess a curious mutation that distinguishes them from their cousins in hate – these people almost never rant and rage, except at the people who have the audacity to get offended. Instead they spew their hateful stereotypes and vile rhetoric with a mirthful, cheeky sense of humor that for some reason they think is endearing. And whenever caught, the react with an Urkel-esque “mmmdid I do thaaat?”

The most recent example is the current Vice Chair of the National Young Republicans, the wovable and adowable Audra Shay, who landed in hot water because… well, let’s let Raw Story tell it!

The Vice Chair of the Young Republicans is in political hot water after being caught laughing — and seemingly endorsing — a racist “coon” joke on her Facebook page.

…

“On Wednesday, Shay—a 38-year-old Army veteran, mother, and event planner from Louisiana who has been endorsed by her governor, Bobby Jindal—was holding court on her Facebook page, initiating a political conversation by posting that ‘WalMart just signed a death warrant’ by ‘endorsing Obama’s healthcare plan,’” Avlon notes. “At 1:52, a friend named listed as Eric S. Piker, but whose personal page says his actual name is Eric Pike, wrote ‘It’s the government making us commies… can’t even smoke in my damn car… whats next they going to issue toilet paper once a month… tell us how to wipe our asses…’”

Piker then posted again. “Obama Bin Lauden [sic] is the new terrorist,” he penned. “Muslim is on there side [sic]… need to take this country back from all of these mad coons… and illegals.”

In reply, Shay wrote: “You tell em Eric! lol.”

Okay, now first I was a bit taken aback by being informed that a 38 year old woman is a member of the “Young” Republicans. I’m 35 and while I’m quite immature, “young” is something I increasingly ain’t. But then I remembered – you know how they say “anyone under 30 who isn’t a liberal doesn’t have a heart; anyone over 30 who isn’t a conservative doesn’t have a brain?” That’s 50% right. Hioo. But seriously, since the average Republican is approximately… Let’s see, Satan is 6,000 years old and Dick Cheney is 68, so 500 years? Well, point is, based on this woman’s post, 38 in Republican is approximately 13 in normal person years, so she’s obviously in the right organization.

Anyway, here’s a screen cap.

Audra claims she was referring to Eric’s previous comment. And maybe she’s serious. Probably not. The thing is, there’s something about this – it’s insanely adorable, you see, because first, you have something we think should behave in a specific manner (a human being, “rational”), juxtaposed with poorly written, grammatically incorrect phrases they don’t really understand. Plus, these hilarious outbursts seem to happen exclusively online, almost as though they don’t understand that whatever they post to the intertubes is forever. It reminds me of something. Right on the tip of my tongue. But what could it be?

Could it be:

No, that’s not it. Wait, how about:

No, that’s not it either. Hang on, it’s right there… I GOT IT!

That’s it! The modern face of Conservatism and Bigotry isn’t Rush Limbaugh, or crazy ass people who show up at Palin Appearances, or even murderous sociopaths. It’s the cutesy, aw shucks “ain’t I a stinker” purveyors of casually adorable hate.

Let’s call it the LOLcist.

I simply cannot wait to see the next manifestation of this wacky online trend.

The National Review thinks Barack Obama wants to put his finger in your butthole.Don’t flatter yourselves, Republicans. http://bit.ly/Nf4ug

So unless you’ve been living under a rock, or you’ve set your RSS Feed to “Michael Jackson ONLY”, you’ve no doubt heard that Robert McNamara, evil businessman, Secretary of Defense under both Kennedy and Johnson, and nefarious mastermind behind the Vietnam War, has died.

Now that he’s dead, it’s time to speak ill of him, with gusto. By way of that, let’s get some facts about the Vietnam war out of the way:

* It was a shameful, evil thing we ought never have started;

* It wasn’t about defending democracy, but about preserving western colonial dominance of a sovereign nation who’s only real offense was wanting colonizers to get the hell out of their country;

* It served no strategic purpose and furthermore, with it’s ignoble completion proved that the domino theory was crackpot insanity at best and a vicious lie at worst;

*It could never have “won” for the same reason the British could never have defeated us in our war for Independence – namely because, in order to do so, indiscriminate slaughter on a scale rivaling Nazi Germany would have been required, something the citizens of our country thankfully would never have accepted;

*Despite this, we still managed to deal out a shocking, and disgusting level of carnage and mayhem, dealing that unfortunate country a near mortal blow from which they have only recently recovered.

To restate, there is literally nothing about that was that can be justified. It was indefensible, even at the time, and only hardened idealogues could possibly have felt otherwise. Making matters worse, it seems to have been escalated, in part, to provide commie-hating cover to Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society plans. So in a sense, 50,0000 dead American soldiers, and more importantly, more than 2 million dead Vietnamese, were slaughtered so we could have a barely provisory welfare system and the meagerest possible health care system for the elderly (but for no one else). How’s that for cost/benefit analysis?

I jest, slightly, but only slightly, and none of this should detract from the fact that Johnson was egged on by his national security and foreign policy team, of which McNamara was at the head. All of that terrible destruction, needless waste and countless killing, it can be lain at McNamara’s feet. All the apologies in the world, and all of the favorable documentaries ever made, can’t make up for it.

Much has been said about the banality of evil that made that war possible, but to really measure just how terrible it was, one must look to its aftermath. Few things in life can be seen as an either/or situation, but the Vietnam War is just such a thing. Had we been willing, as a country, to admit the truth about this war, to acknowledge our cowardice, our greed, our stupidity, our casual brutality and our henious, wrongful attempt to genocide the communism out of the brown people, and I mean, admit all of this immediately upon the war’s completion, our subsequent history might have been vastly different.

Instead? Well, We seem to have these kind of indefensible national calamities every few generations, and the result is always the same: The bad guys increase their power by exploiting resentment over their own failed endeavors while those who were right sheepishly refuse to defend their position until they lose by default as the wrong side’s version of events becomes conventional wisdom. This is, of course, an American tradition, as those of us with roots in the south can attest. Even so, it’s one thing to know this, and another entirely to see it develop within one’s own lifetime. Especially as we should know better.

Post-Vietnam, in place of honest assessment and correction, we got 30+ years of Right Wing lies about how Vietnam was “lost” because liberals, protesters and squeamish politicians refused to do what “had to be done to win”. Year after year from 1975, continuing all the way into the 2004 election, a cadre of sociopaths and liars perpetuated the awful myths regarding our failures and defeat, extending the life of Mcarthyist slurs as an effective political tactic, and in the process convince millions of Americans to let them completely fuck the country up.

The recessions that have worsened with every occurence; the slow motion dismantling of our national safety net; the debt ridden, social darwinist culture that even now tears us apart; the millions who find their formerly well paying jobs flee the country as cost of living and health care costs increase expoentially; Katrina; right wing terrorist violence; even 911 and the terrifying 8-year long national nightmare that was the Bush Adminstration. All of these national calamaties, and more, can be traced back to how we as a nation coped with the end of Vietnam.

Luckily for us, we remain as a nation unwilling to honestly assess the Vietnam war, and we now have political and social culture in which Americans blithely debate the usage of torture not as a question of good or evil, but of “necessity”, with the issue of morality dismissed as “anything we do is, by definition, the right thing to do”. So we can look forward to many more such wars in our future. Apologies in advance to third world countries who happen to have resources we need or happen to be in our way. I mean, who happen to need “liberating” for “freedom” and “democracy”.

My point: McNamara spent his entire post-Vietnam life trying to apologize for his creation of America’s sociopathic political and foreign policy culture. And one must give him credit for realizing the awful monstrosities he inflicted on this country and on the world. But it wasn’t enough. His life’s work not only led to the slaughter of millions, it also helped give us a generation of insanities of which we are only now receiving full benefit. His death only serves to underscore the depravity that now defines national political culture and it is likely that it will end all discussion of the matter.

One hopes that on his death bed, he understood that. Based on his inexplicably lauded performance in The Fog Of War, I doubt it. Good riddance.

In the wake of Robert McNamara’s death, you should check out Errol Morris’ “Fog of War” if you haven’t already. One of my favorite docs.