| At some point the legislative branch may want to wake from its slumber.... |
Reichstag, erwache!
’Tis not a bad slogan, Mr. Bones, considered in itself, neither in Old High Vaterländisch nor in neovernacular holy-Homelandic™.
Nevertheless, is this a slogan suitable to the time (06/12/2009 0615 EST) and place (the keyboard of Princess Neoterica and the dank crypts of Heritagitarianism) were we encounter it, sir?
These are the very same self-servers, I fear, who, a few human events back, used to keep barkin’ that what passed at that point for President Obama's economics was a mere congeries of old wish lists from Sen. Reid and Speaker Pelosi.
Still, I daresay that when studying weekly standardisers one must always be quite sure which week they were in when they vouchsafed each individual standardisation. Moreover, their Hate-’68 factionette bein’ but one humble (?) cog in the Vast Militant Extremist Conspiracy, "History is bunk!" and "That was THEN, this is NOW!" are two of the few fixed stars in the political firmament visible to the astrologers up at Castle Podhóretz.
Furthermore, aren’t these kiddies cute, sir, when they attempt political science in the lofty Hellenic spirit of ktêma eis aiei? Here’s the latest fortune cookie from Castle Bakeries LLC, an ideoproduct with a tacit sell-by date written all over its shrinkwrap, and yet what is inside the cellophane and pastry? "Legislative Supremacy forever!"
(( Do you suppose, that some Designer Providence or Invisible Hand™ might be staging this whole show primarily to make Hell hotter for the late MacLuhan, S. J.? "Behold, O vile sinner, what happened after your victims gave up hard Prod thinking and printing and relapsed into squishy-soft ‘empathetic’ Papish village-’n’-picture-think?" Mais je ne que m'amuse pas, Mr. Bones, when I start working the "But is it good for the [Irish]?" angle -- at least usually. Anyway, we agreed that nothing inside double parens really counts. ))
There is really quite a lot to be said in favor of "Legislative Supremacy forever!," which makes it a relief to reflect that Her Imperial Highness will have moved on to somethin’ even neo-er in about fifteen minutes or so. So that's all right!
Meanwhile, H. I. H. (and presumably Her heritagitarian flunky) are not actually occupyin’ the same square that you and I do, Mr. Bones. They're located three blocks down to your far right, sir, at a viewpoint from which they can only view one wing of
In fact if you look close enough, you'll see that the Princess and Neocomrade R. C. Flunky are standin’ in separate squares themselves. I find it natural in such a case to concentrate on the Near Enemy (der Peretz-Podhoretzismus) rather than the Far Enemy (Heritagitarianism), but even at our safe distance one can make out that poor Flunky might not be too happy how his ordnance was shot off. Did Flunky ever say anythin’ reasonably to be paraphrased as "virtually no Congressional consent, funding, or oversight"? Quite likely he did, but not in what the Princess graciously condescends to borrow from him and throw at the head of the merely elected president of Her Imperial Highness’s country. If you go strictly by what Flunky is quoted as sayin’, Mr. Bones, you may safely conclude that he has not much use for czars. That he likes (even piously militant and extremist) Congresscritters (from the Party of Grant) any better than he likes Románovs is sheer speculation: the quoted Flunky says nothin’ to exclude that possibility, but also nothin’ to enforce it.
For all one positively knows from H. I. H., Neocomrade R. C. Flunky may take the line that "too many czars spoil the broth" -- his preferred broth bein’ (in that supposed case) the nifty neosystem evolved in the fertile brainpan of Neocomrade Viceroy R. B. Cheney. "Unitary executivitarianism" they call it, or somethin’ close. The foundational fortune cookie of Cheneyite U. E. might be expressed "One good Vice-President can lick seventeen czars any day of the week!"
Though the U. E. scheme does not appeal to me, it does, if one can swallow its accompanyin’ neomythology, have one immense advantage over czardom and polyczardom when it comes to undermining the dangerously obsolete work of Mr. Madison and the Gang of 87: all those horribles that R. C. Flunky musters and parades -- "Pay Czar, Border Czar, Energy Czar, Urban Czar" &c. &c. -- are unambiguously agents of the Executive Branch. A good Vice-President, on the other hand, does not belong to any branch at all. She moves serene above all the clatter and clashin’ of triune coëqual branches,
Setting Neocomrade R. C. Flunky and the broad sweep of heritagitarianism aside, and attributing every word of this contention to the Princess Herself, I must still find a little fault with it. Havin’ only the aforesaid fifteen minutes, She no doubt does not care to invest too much cogitation in any one ideoproduct. If H. I. H. had thought Her latest neostuff through to the bloody end, one would not be puzzled by exactly how Her GOP-only Congress relates to "the opportunity for public opinion to register."
I suppose it would be only an (in context) worthless objection from the liberal-democratic-Democratic side of the aisle to claim that the 101st Congress of the United States of America, simply as such, constitutes an authoritative registration of public opinion. The illiberals and antidemocrats of America’s Otherparty have never thought that way and are most assuredly not go’n’ta start doin’ so at a time when they are but a pitiful helpless minority on Capitol Hill. If Their Ford's maxim about bunk be political Holy Writ unto them, why, it is no more so than the late Mr. Calhoun of SC’s ever-immortal soundbite, "Who knows not that to save the people one must often oppose them?"
Thinkin’ fifteen-minutely, the Princess appears to have inadvertely put Herself at odds with another of the very few fixed pillars of the Big Management Party and the AEIdeology. Tusk, tusk!
Neither separately nor combined can Congress and "public opinion," registered or unregistered, satisfactorily perform the rôle that H. I. H. envisions them performin’. Loyal Party lemmin’s and, above all, the exclusive neolemmin’s up at Castle Podhóretz, cannot seriously propose to relinquish their own demented views on right and wrong either to Senator Foghorn in the Chamber or to Ms. Jane Sixpax out in the Naked Public Square (Pat. Pend.).
What’s rightist is rightist, and ought to be done solely because of the rightism of it! Period. Full stop.
It may be nice for the neocomrades to have Senators and Representatives and Neocomrade Dr. Rasmussen’s pollin’ results -- even, on occasion, popular opinion proper and election outcomes -- be in agreement with their rightism, yet these things are only icin’ on the cake of Party ’n’ Ideology.
Keep your eye on the ball, Mr. Bones! When you find a common terroriser like Princess Neoterica here seemin’ to say that Congress or vox populi can cause a position or policy to be rightist, the chances are godzillions to one that there has been a slip-up somewhere. Either we humble have misunderstood, or the gentlebein’ in question has expressed itself hastily and injudiciously. If the gentlebein’ really believes in such stuff, it will change its party registration. Otherwise, give it the benefit of a charitable doubt, sir!
Even that demanding shibboleth may not, I suspect, be perfectly adequate: how much confidence does that "(D-PA)" after the name of Citizen Arlen Specter inspire in you, sir? (But Father Zeus knows best.)
Happy days.
___
[1] How you say in holy-Homelandic™? "standing above the country, above – above the world ... a sort of God" -- was that it?
We are safe enough, I trust, from Mr. Biden of Delaware attempting this trick at home, and our safety is unfortunate only from a strictly Fedguv-constitutional point of view. The failed impeachment of a Cheneyiser is the only mechanism that can definitively establish that "Legislative Supremacy forever!" has finally and become as Utopian a fortune cookie as (say) "Fifty-four forty or fight!"
Update
All that Neocomrade R. C. Flunky in fact had to say for himself turns out to be not much :Rory Cooper, Dir., Strategic Communications, Heritage Foundation: We are living in scary times, when a few people with oligarchic intentions can so easily take control over the fundamentals of capitalism The wheels are off the wagon. I was going to sensibly advocate against this outrageous growth in government and its control over the free enterprise of America. But then I saw some commentators say it didn't go far enough, and throw around words like ‘accountability.’ We are living in scary times, when a few people with oligarchic intentions can so easily take control over the fundamentals of capitalism, freedom and enterprise. And they deliver these big government measures and czars with promises of “restraint.” Have you ever trusted the federal government to show “restraint.” President Obama has a Pay Czar, Border Czar, Energy Czar, Urban Czar, Tech Czar, Faith Based Czar, Health Reform Czar, TARP Czar, Drug Czar, Stimulus Accountability Czar, Non-Proliferation Czar, Terrorism Czar, Regulatory Czar, Guantanamo Closure Czar, AIDS Czar, Weather Czar, Intelligence Czar, Economic Czar, Green Jobs Czar and Cybersecurity Czar. I’m not making any of that up! All of these people report directly to the President, and most of the new positions expand government’s reach into the American daily life to a troubling extent. Up until the 1950’s the President had nine cabinet officers. Now we have nearly 50 (fifty!) people directing their own corners of government. As John McCain said, even the Romanovs who ruled Russia for 3 centuries only had 17 czars. This is madness. |
That performance is so OnePercenterly that it's a wonder this neocomrade has not made it to the really big league and been snapped up by the AEIdeologues!
As you can see for yourself, Mr. Bones, R. C. Flunky is much concerned to rescue Finanzkapitalismus from its own doo-doo. The substance of the neocomrade's moan was anticipated by Parkinson, him of the Law, many years ago: when a committee gets larger than twelve members, you can be sure the real work is going on somewhere else. That is just the sort of point on which your run-of-the-mill Harvard Victory School MBA mentality might have been expected to fix.
If this gentlecreature is also a fan of Congressional Government, you must admit that he manages to hide it admirably. BGKB.
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