This could scarcely be clearer - Molly Ivins

The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Thirty-five years ago, Richard Milhous Nixon, who was crazy as a bullbat, and J. Edgar Hoover, who wore women's underwear, decided some Americans had unacceptable political opinions. So they set our government to spying on its own citizens, basically those who were deemed insufficiently like Crazy Richard Milhous.

For those of you who have forgotten just what a stonewall paranoid Nixon was, the poor man used to stalk around the White House demanding that his political enemies be killed. Many still believe there was a certain Richard III grandeur to Nixon's collapse because he was also a man of notable talents. There is neither grandeur nor tragedy in watching this president, the Testy Kid, violate his oath to uphold the laws and Constitution of our country.

The Testy Kid wants to do what he wants to do when he wants to do it because he is the president, and he considers that sufficient justification for whatever he wants. He even finds lawyers like John Yoo, who tell him that whatever he wants to do is legal.

The creepy part is the overlap. Damned if they aren't still here, after all these years, the old Nixon hands -- Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the whole gang whose yearning for authoritarian government rose like a stink over the Nixon years. Imperial executive. Bring back those special White House guard uniforms. Cheney, like some malignancy that cannot be killed off, back at the same old stand, pushing the same old crap...

Oops. :blush:

http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/1/2005/1284

but would appreciate a link.

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They got an earful, I'm willing to wager! She is fabulous though, isn't she?

We all thought it was like some German ruler. We were sure his Quaker teaching did not take.

Just this morning I was reading of how Nixon designed new uniforms for the white house guard detail, complete with gold-trimmed tunics and peaked Prussian hats. It actually occurred, then people saw how really lame it looked and it was quietly withdrawn.

government rose like a stink over the Nixon years.''

truer words were never spoken.

would win the Democratic Nomination for President in 2008.

And he would win.

that's how far to the Right this country has moved.

excellent article.

This could scarcely be clearer. Either the president of the United States is going to have to understand and admit he has done something very wrong, or he will have to be impeached. The first time this happened, the institutional response was magnificent. The courts, the press, the Congress all functioned superbly. Anyone think we're up to that again? Then whom do we blame when we lose the republic?

Go, Molly, go!!!

but I also don't see a republican controlled congress impeaching him. Our only hope is to take back congress and then impeach him.

Yeah, take back congress in '06. Riiiiiiiight.

Forgive me if I'm skeptical. Dems would have to have a lot more chutzpah than they do now to even have half a chance at taking back control of even ONE chamber of congress.

particularly among Texans that is profoundly antidemocratic and un-American. The Shrub has drunk deeply from that stream. Molly Ivins would know having borne witness to this plague for many years. Unfortunately, she often highlighted its comedic features when it has proved to be decidedly unfunny.

I have always thought that Texas should politely be asked to leave the Union. Could we give it back to Mexico? Texas tried to leave the Union in 1861. This should have been permitted to occur peacefully. I would even be in favor of letting them take the little pieces of Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico with them. American republican values have never really taken root in Texas. It is a gaudy parade of control freaks in high-heeled boots with funny hats stoned on testosterone and booze. Or at least this what I see on TV at football games and what they send to Washington, D.C.!

Ivins at her very best!

Arianna and even Maureen? Go, girls!