Special Graphic Post:
Midnight in the Garden of Ghosts and Lovers
Slip now the whispers about a man whose piety bids him stand in righteous defense of the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman. So hear these whispers; then hear the whispers more.
Are the scandalous rumors of infidelity, adultery, and perhaps more shocking carnal excesses true? We'll never know, for unlike the President before him, who was compelled to choose between humiliation and perjury, George W. Bush will not suffer such an unkind fate. If a federal prosecutor investigating the destruction of a spy network by top aides to the President declined the opportunity to compel sworn testimony from Mr. Bush, what possible chance is there that he will ever be brought before the bar of moral accountability, much less due justice?
It is, then, for Mr. Bush to suffer whatever punishment his own ghosts should choose—in their own time and in their own way—to render unto him.
That might be for the best: ghosts are said to live longer than the judgment of history anyway.
The Dark Wraith wishes our President many good nights of sleep.
Published 6/04/2006 07:41:00 PM
<< 28 Comments Total
Oh Dark Wraith, I read this from PoLT over at blondesense and have to ask, is there any truth to this? Not that I don't think it's possible, but this makes a blowjpb look, as a repug lawyer once said, "quaint".
Good evening, Dark Wraith.
Is that picture for real? I'm thinking it is, but you never know. You are a wizard at photoshopping!
The Dark Wraith wishes our President many good nights of sleep.
You are too kind! I hope the bastard sits up at night, worrying.
Worrying about what? Perhaps, all those dead and wounded troops, all those dead and wounded Iraqis, all the war money spent causing huge deficit, and hoping Babs doesn't get wind of his "alleged" affair with Condi. (I have a feeling Babs would not be happy).
Very eloquent my friend... Beautifully written... Ghosts indeed! Hundreds of thousands of children and women and men and uniforms and hell...
Good morning, ThePoetryMan.
The sad part is that I doubt if Mr. Bush will ever be bothered much by his ghosts.
Not, that is, unless we make sure he will be.
The Dark Wraith isn't a wraith for nothing.
"...hoping Babs doesn't get wind of his "alleged" affair with Condi. (I have a feeling Babs would not be happy)." -- oldwhitelady
OWL, the "fat may already be in the fire":
"Informed sources (UGH! There's those words again. -- PoLT) Inside the Beltway report that First Lady Laura Bush has established temporary residence in the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC as a result of a tiff with President Bush over an extramarital relationship involving her husband."
Good morning, Old White Lady.
The graphic is a composite of four separate pictures, each one cleaned, cropped, trimmed, desaturated, then set into its own layer with its own lighting effects.
It took me quite awhile to find a picture of Victor at about the right age. The guy is pretty old looking now, so recent pictures just wouldn't have been appropriate.
Anyway, the whole graphic came out pleasing to me. Sort of 1950s retro.
Good decade. Hitchcock, Serling, and other excellent, creepy directors were around.
The Dark Wraith likes the oldies.
If this isn't investigated by Kenneth Starr or someone of his ilk, then nothing is going to happen to him. It would be much more interesting if a gay relationship was exposed, not that I have anything against gay people, but since bushie will spend today pandering to homophobes, it would be fitting to show what a two faced, political opportunist he is.
wow!!!!
Good morning, BlackDog.
We'll never know for sure. The stories of Mr. Bush's excess of sexual escapades seem, in their cumulative value, to make guys like Bill Clinton and Jack Kennedy sort of tame by comparison.
Not that I have any particular qualms about folks' choices and variety, mind you, but a guy who pawns himself off for political opportunity as a traditional values windbag ought to make sure his henchmen do a darned good job of shutting down the rumor mills, especially when the rumors have the taste of stuff that might really repel his political base if people started to believe the rumors just because of their sheer repetition.
Do I believe the story about Laura moving out of the White House because of George's affair with Rice? Well, something went down at the White House recently, and I don't see Laura as the kind of lady who goes down for much of anything.
Do I believe the story by the former dominatrix? I don't know yet, but there's just something curiously believable about the constellating stories of that incident and ones similar where Bush seems to have been showing a kind of wild-'n-crazy bravado. Maybe it's just a hearfelt desire on my part to believe just about anything negative about Bush, but I'm generally a skeptic, and I have a false alarm radar that's not terrible. I miss on occasion, but my skepticism has saved me from more than a few way-off-the-mark stories in recent years.
Besides, as a general rule, when a dominatrix says she's telling the truth, I'm not going to be the one to tell her she's not.
The Dark Wraith has a keen desire not to suffer the consequences of certain foolish acts.
I would be very, very careful with gossip of this nature. Is it possible? Of course; and I credit the Skull & Bones stuff the most - there having been multiple witnesses. I find what the dominatrix said interesting - I'm sure she realizes Bush wouldn't sue her for libel. It would put too much focus on the veracity of her statement. If it did happen - you'd think she would have been canny enough to gather proof of one sort or another, if you catch my drift. As for Rice - that I don't see - and I can think of many reasons why Laura would have moved out - this not being one.
This sort of shit was done to Clinton - and I don't like it - Bush notwithstanding. He's a dyed in the wool hypocrite of the first water - we all know that. Adding sexual impropriety doesn't seem that far a leap - but I prefer to impeach the bastard on his job performance. God knows we all have more than enough substantive proof of that!
Good afternoon, Fat Lady Sings.
My quote of the day to be published late tonight is quite relevant to your comment about the offenses for which the man should be impeached.
The Dark Wraith thinks it's a pity our media find the salacioius more important than the Constitution.
ummmm, good morning dark wraith: i, um, i, i, thought we were supposed to get a pass, on, you know, that, umm, stuff, while in college. like on the sopranos when mafia guys do prison.
if mangled and dead bodies piling up like cordwood in iraq and afghanistan are not sufficient cause for outrage, if installing inept and kleptocratic stooges in government jobs where their lack of competence kills people after a hurricane is not sufficient cause for outrage, if wiretapping without warrants and signing bills into law that you intend to ignore and say just that in a "signing statement" is not sufficient cause for outrage, what in the blue eyed world would lead one to expect that sexual highjinks, even homosexual highjinks would provoke anything past "boys will be (with) boys" or "kennedy did it too?"
Think of all the lives that would have been saved if Victor and Chimp Boy would have set up housekeepping years ago. If only Babs and Daddy would have stayed out of his love life. Sigh.....So much for tring to turn a pickle into a cucumber, eh?
what in the blue eyed world would lead one to expect that sexual highjinks, even homosexual highjinks would provoke anything past "boys will be (with) boys" or "kennedy did it too?"
My own knowledge of his base, having spent a portion of my youth among like-minded people (if from a little higher intellect than what one might expect to typically find).
- oddjob
As long as it was good wholesome sex for procreation, not some Clintonite Sodomy, I'm sure Babs will get over it...lol
Mandrake, I deny them my essence. As a blackdog, I may have a brain the size of a small lemon, but my sense of smell tells me, after evolving for millions of years, that something stinks. There may be something here, for a sanctimonious bastard like the shrub, I sure hope so. Nothing like a dork to stick it's head in the garrot.
Maybe I ought to shut up. But the grass mowing comes tomorrow, I don't want anyone in town to think I've been "born again". Gawddamn dallis grass.
Good Evening DW,
Nice positioning of the pix there Wraith!
Speaking of the "pretzel" incident, I always had my doubts about the "official" story. I actually thought it looked like someone had taken a swing at him and landed a good one. That was when I had my first doubts about the sanctitiy of our dear Leader's marriage and started wondering what was really behind the plastic smile on Laura's face. And concluded she probably had it in her.
That smile has never cracked. I have wondered though how much her face hurts after awhile.
What I'm really waiting for is, if Laura has indeed moved out of the White House (I suspect this is true), then, how will Rove & Co. spin this (in unofficial circles, of course, as the MSM will keep on ignoring this until it's Page One in the UK Guardian.) The reaction may be very revealing- will we see, on the Front Page of the National Enquirer, "First Lady Gives Bush Ultimatum over Drinking, Moves Out"? This would work well with their Red-State, Blue Collar base. What other options are available, anyone?
Good evening, LindiBee. I'm in the mood for a rambling rant, so grab a chair and some coffee or tea.
In my judgment, at this time far more damage will be wrought upon Bush by coverage of his marital problems in the tabloids—what we used to call "the scandal sheets" back in the old days. You are correct: what remains of his base is receptive to that kind of coverage, a subset of the Fox News audience.
While the quality of information in those scandal sheets varies quite a bit, one of the larger and sometimes rather accurate one, the National Examiner I think, had the scoop before Madsen. If the National Enquirer picks it up and runs with it as a front-pager, Bush will suffer an enormous hit, and that's just a matter of mathematics.
When Bush's popularity was, say, 65%, his core of highly unsophisticated followers was at maybe 18%—around half of his base. A scandal rag disrespecting him might have affected half (maybe more, maybe less) of that bottom 18% of his base, dropping him by nine percentage points. On 65% (assuming no one else took an article in a tabloid seriously), the would put him down to maybe 56% overall popularity.
Ah, but now, the situation is different: his popularity has plummeted, and as it has cratered, his 'core-of-the-core' base has contracted, too. We might be talking a total base, which is his only support remaining, of 30% or so. Now, that hard-core 18% is major survival turf for the man: if a scandal sheet hits him hard with a front page story and half of his hard-core base gives up on him, he's lost 9% on only 30% total support, putting him at just north of 20% overall popularity.
That's about as bad as it could get for him; but it's also about as bad as it could get for everyone else, too. Bush has no capacity to move to the center as a survival tactic; instead, he moves further Right, and the worse things get for him, the more he simply entrenches himself within a base that's shriveling even as he chases it into the deep, dark, and lonely woods of has-been Presidents.
My betting is that a rag like the National Enquirer is most likely going to be the hitter: it's going to wait until it's good and ready, and that means its editors are going to make absolutely sure they've got the goods. (Yes, the folks who run the higher end blue rags are actually real journalists. I've known some of them.) Now, my betting on the National Enquirer is based upon the assumption that those cats there have been holding a grudge against Bush for more than several years, and I'm thinking that it's about time for paybacks, which is something you just won't see the mainstream media get into in any meaningful way anymore, even though the list of grievances they've accumulated against the Bush regime is quite long.
So here's how I'm going to look at it. First, will the big, popular scandal rags start to beat Bush up on the morals issues? That's probably better than 50-50. If one or more of them latch on, they are capable of holding on with a near death grip.
Second, is what they're reporting true? In this vein, the issue is not that it has to be true, but rather that it has to be believable and survivable. (And I know I'm going to offend some very fine people whom I respect here by writing this.) Jason Leopold's story about Karl Rove was not true. The problem was that Leopold painted himself into a corner with actual dates, which means he had almost no tap dancing room, and the room he did have, he used to tap dance himself into an even worse corner. The only good news is that virtually none of the mainstream media even so much as noticed that this was going on, so the damage to bloggers and even to truthout.org was less than it could have been, although I think the full price has yet to be paid unless Rove ultimately really is indicted, in which case there will be a merciful release from credibility damage for what will then look more like nothing but a too-hasty call.
Anyway, the truth or falseness of the claim won't be nearly as important as the durability and the lack of a credible denial. Rove & Co. will do everything they can to get Laura and George okay again so there can be a full denial that anything at all ever happened. It will be incumbent upon the journalists who would cover this to hit it quickly, hard, and with something that looks verifiable.
If that happens, Bush is going to lose a good portion of his sub-basement core of support, regardless of how quickly and thoroughly Rove et al. cover the mess up with happy, lovey pictures of George and Laura together as if nothing happened.
Is this whole mess going to end Bush's Presidency, though?
No. Bush is as weak as any President would need to be to get destroyed by his enemies, and yet it's just not happening; and because his enemies simply refuse (out of fear, principle, or whatever) to be as ruthless as necessary to wipe out a bunch of SOBs like the cabal in the White House, his enemies will miss their golden opportunity, which is actually now, not after the November elections.
Now, why do I say that, LindiBee? I say that because my suggestion from a while back is still in play, and it looks like a very likely scenario: Cheney resigns, and Rice is appointed to the Vice Presidency.
Not one Democrat on Capitol Hill will take her on and take her down, so the neo-con legacy will survive even the worst that might come to Bush after November.
The Democrats decline the opportunity to wreck a vicious enemy by whatever means are possible, and—surprise, surprise!—that enemy is still standing and still, as it has been for the past nearly six years, willing and able to smite anything in its path.
But at least the Democrats will go to the gallows having stood on principle (or maybe sheer fear if one is to believe a thread going around the conspiracy theory circles these days).
But all the way, of course, they'll be saying, "2008 is just around the corner, and then we'll kick some butt."
The problem is that they may be disappointed to hear that we might just skip 2008 this time around and instead simply opt for the Red Eye Loop Express straight to a creepy, almost sci-fi version of 20th Century totalitarianism.
The Dark Wraith has rambled and ranted enough.
Good afternoon, Dark One.
As to you last comment, HERE, HERE!!
Excellent.
I hope you're right on parts, and wrong on others, but that's just my wishing for a bombshell to go off and get this snowball rolling.
You may be right on all counts. And that kind of scares me, that there may be no light at the end of the tunnel, in fact, that the tunnel may not end.
Time will tell, and there is always hope, not a bad thing. Notice that I did not use the term faith.
Blackdog has a dim understanding of infinite chimpanzees on infinite typrwriters, he did at one time escape three semesters of calculus. All we now need are infinite investigators to review the output.
txrad and I were discussing Laura last night and were hoping she'd just pack up and leave.
...The problem is that they may be disappointed to hear that we might just skip 2008 this time around and instead simply opt for the Red Eye Loop Express straight to a creepy, almost sci-fi version of 20th Century totalitarianism.
...
Now that's the kind of talk that scares me BECAUSE it seems not only possible, but more & more probable.
People say that the country (what? the sheeple population?) won't stand for this. I say BS. I ask, are you effin' kidding me?
This mama's boy has broken federal law several times now without repercussion. Apparently it is easy to do when you have a stranglehold on all three branches of the government and you haven't been significantly challenged by anything or anyone to date. He and his cabal are truly "The Untouchables".
It worries me. Really.
He isn't even the heart of the darkness, either. He's its vehicle and he's certainly culpable, but he isn't the engine.
The engine is Cheney.
- oddjob
Good evening, Dark Wraith.
Thank you for explaining the photo. It is very well done. Condi glaring at Laura is such a wonderful detail!
He isn't even the heart of the darkness, either. He's its vehicle and he's certainly culpable, but he isn't the engine. The engine is Cheney. -- oddjob
Anyone care to speculate on who or what the engineer and the owners of the railroad might be? As ghastly a bunch as these neo-cons are, they still display too much incompetence for me to believe they're the ones who are in control.
"Anyone care to speculate on who or what the engineer and the owners of the railroad might be? As ghastly a bunch as these neo-cons are, they still display too much incompetence for me to believe they're the ones who are in control."
Now there's a good question/observation.
Unfortunately we can only guess, but it does bring to mind the crew that was pulling the strings of that weasel Charles Logan in season 5 of 24.
OMG, 24 has lasted 5 seasons already??? I watched the first half of the first season, and had to give it up for fear of a stroke - there's just NO comic relief in that show... When I realized that I was looking forward to commercials for a break in the tension - I quit watching.
Good Afternoon Dark Wraith,
Bearding Chimpy McFlightsuit over his sexual dalliances might not rid us of him, since he's a lame duck; but would it put a damper on his little brother's rise? Could it put such a bad taste in the fundie's mouths that they just go home and concentrate on making their own spawn miserable rather than all of us? If so, then please, National Enquirer, please bring it on!
Where are the outraged right wingers demanding an investigation in to Bush's sex life?
Where's Kenneth Starr? Someone call up Linda Tripp and see if she will have lunch with Condi while wearing a wire.
Think that gag would work again?