Measuring the circle

[womzilla]

We shall pick up an existence by its frogs. Wise men have tried other ways. They have tried to understand our state of being, by grasping at its stars, or its arts, or its economics. But, if there is an underlying oneness of all things, it does not matter where we begin, whether with stars, or laws of supply and demand, or frogs, or Napoleon Bonaparte. One measures a circle beginning anywhere.

—Lo! Charles Fort

I've been thinking for many days about the phrase that sums up the era now ending. I think I have to go with "They created a lawless prison.".

Even in a courtroom that was closed to the public and the press, and with the detainees allowed access to the proceedings only by telephone, the court could find no reason to hold these men. This decision makes it clear once again that even with presumptions in its favor, the government cannot muster the barest evidence in support of its arbitrary detentions. For seven years, the Bush administration sought to avoid the courts because it had no evidence and sought instead to create a lawless prison.

Let me tell you, it was a tough choice. Another leading contender is "cock-headed man-whore":

Not only is Jeff Gannon not interesting, the whole sordid crendentialling of Gannon isn't itself such a big deal, except as it is symptomic of the way the White House uses their power and your tax dollars to replace real journalists with friendly political operatives.

Or perhaps "whiz with":

While running for president, John Kerry ordered a cheesesteak with Swiss cheese. The sane response to that fact is, of course, "who cares?" The media response was to mock Kerry for ordering the "wrong" cheese. Supposedly, it reinforced his "elitist" image. Kerry's cheesesteak order continues to draw media attention years later.

During that same campaign, President Bush told Pennsylvania voters "I like my cheesesteak 'Whiz with,' " which The New York Times dutifully reprinted, spelling out for readers the contrast Bush sought to draw: "Mr. Kerry made the mistake of ordering a cheese steak last August and requesting Swiss cheese -- when the choices included Cheez Whiz, American and provolone -- for which he was widely lampooned."

But Bush was apparently lying. A less credulous reporter than those employed by the Times -- Kathleen Carey of the Delaware County Daily Times -- did some investigative reporting and found that Bush actually orders his cheesesteaks not with Cheez Whiz, but with American cheese.

I've mentioned before the principle of "the self-similarity of the wingnut function"--that one sees the same patterns reflected at every scale of the Republican crime that is tomorrow being moved out of, at least, the Oval Office. The same disrespect for truth, for law, for decency, the same shamelessness and monomaniacal pursuit of power is the driving force at every level, from the black sites, kidnappings, and torture-murders at the macrocosm down, through hiring an actual, literal prostitute to feed softball questions during presidential press conferences, to the microcosm of lying about how one ordered a sandwich.

The other unifying factor of the Bush administration is that the public and private apparatus of the civil society stood meekly aside and let it happen. We have been sleeping. We have to wake up.

Wake up and get to work. Because, you know, the world isn't going to fix itself.