Loose Lips Are Often Funny
There were amusing quotations that have come from the testimony of Attorney General Gonzales before a congressional committee about Bush's self-admittedly unwarranted and illegal surveillance of US citizens.
"Our enemy is listening, and I cannot help but wonder if they aren't shaking their heads in amazement at the thought that anyone would imperil such a sensitive program," he said.
[Dana Milbank, "In Quizzing a Reticent Gonzales, Senators Encounter a Power Shortage", Washington Post, 7 February 2006.]
The startling implication, of course, is that we should enquire of our enemies whether they find the public workings of our remnant democracy amazing, incredible, or otherwise ill-considered. Is it giving "comfort to the enemy" to work out strategy with them?
Then, of course, there was this little gem (quoted at Crooks and Liars) whose humor I hope I don't have to explain:
President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson, President Roosevelt have all authorized electronic surveillance on a far broader scale.
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on Tuesday, 7 February 2006 at 15.45
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If our enemies are shaking their heads in amazement, it's about how, despite his record — including protecting the country against terrorists — Bush managed to get re-elected.
That display of historical ignorance is the sort of thing I've come to expect from Bush cronies. I think whatever "eavesdropping" was done in Washington's day consisted of listening at keyholes and observing smoke signals. Somehow, it's hard to draw parallels with data mining the content of vast numbers of phone calls and such.
The thought occurred to me yesterday that if Harvey Kurtzman and the MAD magazine gang was just getting started now, instead of a half century ago, they would probably be hard put to do the kind of rousing satire that made them a success. For satire to work, you have to take the slight aberrations of serious people to ridiculous comedic extremes. But now, ridiculous comedic extremes are where Bush and his neocon nitwits start from.