Larry Beinhart: Fear the Penis

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Larry Beinhart, author of "Wag the Dog" and "Fog Facts"

Thank God for Mark Foley.

It proves that the American people still care about something.

It happens to be penises. But still.

They care about who talks about them, who plays with them, who covers them up, who uncovers them, who covers up the uncovering of them.

Even Jon Stewart put the big penis cover-up ahead of the fact that this government just passed a law that says that George Bush can say, “Hey you, you’re an enemy combatant,” and once he says that, they can whisk you away.

This is literally true. It’s like that joke in the first grade:

Make me a milkshake

Poof: You’re a milkshake

If George Bush says: you’re an enemy combatant. Poof! You are one. And then they can take you to Guantanamo, do not pass go, do not call your attorney, do not see a judge, do not hear the charges against you, go straight to the cage they want to put you in. The cage comes with lights that stay on 24 hours a day and wake-up calls every fifteen minutes so you never get to sleep and special exercise programs where you stand for hours in ‘stress’ positions, upward screaming cat, squatting tortured turtle, and other lite abuses that used to be quaintly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.

Today’s joke:

Q: What do Americans do after they commit war crimes?

A: They pass a law that says they can’t be prosecuted for committing war crimes.

If you don’t find that funny, if you actually think that’s serious, then ask how come nobody else does. How come CNN doesn’t care, NBC, the NY Times? How come the Democratic leadership doesn’t care?

How did that that bill –- that contains all those provisions and more -– get passed without a filibuster? Without a fuss?

Thank God for Mark Foley. An old congressman hitting on teenage boys, that’s real news.

I was watching CNN yesterday. It was All Penis, All the Time.

Here’s a quote, from one of their reporters, “One question always rises to the top who knew what, and when did they know it?”

That’s true, but only when it has to do with a penis.

Last week Bob Woodward’s new book came out. One of the things he revealed was an additional meeting between the head of the CIA and Condoleeza Rice, back in July, 2001, in which he tried to shock her, shake her up so she would do something about terrorism.

That meeting is important for several reasons.

The fact that she didn’t anything about it led to the deaths of at least 3,000 people. Call me crazy, call me irresponsible, but that seems more important than an old queen hitting on young teens.

That meeting was kept secret from the 9/11 Commission, congress and the American people. There’s no security reason for it to be secret. Only a political one. Proof -- once again -- that 9/11 happened because the Bush Administration was asleep at the wheel.

When the book came out, Rice denied the meeting had happened. She flat out lied about it.

Documents proved it took place.

I don’t see CNN, or anybody else, hounding the White House about Condoleeza Rice’s cover up and her lies.

“One question always rises to the top: who knew what and when did they know it?”

Yeah, when the warnings are about the use of a penis. But not when the warnings are about a terrorist attack on New York.

The Rice lie and cover-up is not insignificant. It’s not ancient history. Because the whole point of Woodward’s book is that it’s still going on. The real experts are still warning the Bush administration that their policies –- and lack of policies -– are deadly disasters. Costing lives, costing money, creating enemies, with no chance of success. The president is still putting his fingers in his ears and not hearing them. His spokespeople are continuing to pretend the information doesn’t exist and lying, by omission and commission, to congress and the American people.

Even if we concede that obscene instant messages are a greater danger to the Republic than a military quagmire into which we entered based on deliberate lies, the danger from Mark Foley is done. The danger from additional congressman trolling for young stuff, if there are any, is easily met (A War on Congress, does have a certain appeal and would be vastly cheaper than the War on Terror). But the war in Iraq, and the war in Afghanistan, go on and on and on, like toxic Energizer Bunnies, killing and maiming, laying waste to the landscape and breeding virulent new strains of violent jihadists.

A few years ago, there was a play -- still around –- called the Vagina Monologues.

American politics, at the same time, turned into the Penis Monologues.

Anything else, in between penises, is just marking time. Fail to get bin Laden, who cares? Discover proof that the administration made up stories so they could have their war in Iraq, no big deal, according to the NY Times it wasn’t even news. Best estimate is that American bombs and artillery killed 100,000 Iraqi civilians; it would be rude to mention it. Then there’s all that money that disappeared. Paul Bremer blew through twenty billion (yes, Billion) dollars that was supposed to be held in trust for the Iraqi people and there’s no records and nothing to show for it. After that was gone, the occupation authorities blew through another twenty billion that was supposed to go for the reconstruction of Iraq. Let’s not ask where the money went –- no major media outlet has.

If you’re in the cable news business, you’re happy. This is the first really good penis since Bill’s.

If you’re anti-Republican, there’s another bit of good news. The Republican’s are slipping. It took Dennis Hastert a full week before he remembered to blame Bill Clinton.

Let me close with this. Advise to the youth of our country.

Dear youth; if you have dreams of going into politics, you should be fearless. Do not fear committing war crimes. Do not fear lying about terrorist warnings. Do not fear losing billions of dollars or reconstructions that never happens. But if you have a penis –- whether you’re a man or a woman -– leave it at home, before you venture forth to do battle in the field of America’s political wars.

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION

Larry Beinhart is the author of Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin, and The Librarian, which just won the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière.

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