The Twelve Days of Miers

10/23/2005

An inappropriately early holiday motif song parody/commentary.

Affixed to the political wall here at the Museum is a button from 1993 that reads “Clinton Yes, NAFTA No.”

It’s an artifact from the Capitol Hill campaign in which President Clinton hooked up with the Republicans to gain passage of the treaty over the objections of a majority of his fellow Democrats.

I’ve been pondering that button a lot in recent days (giving my navel a much-needed break). The modern parallel that prompted this pondering is President Bush’s nomination of White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

On the face of it, the Miers nomination is not nearly as antithetical to Republicans as NAFTA was to Democrats. Yet, Democrats, for the most part, responded politely in their expressions of outrage.

Compare “Clinton Yes, NAFTA No” to Ann Coulter’s latest tirade: “Things are so bad, the best option for Karl Rove now would be to get himself indicted. Then at least he’d have a colorable claim to having no involvement in the Miers nomination.”

Ouch. But Ann Coulter is a demagogue. Let’s try a right winger with brains.

Judge Bork, what say ye? “It is not just that she has no known experience with constitutional law and no known opinions on judicial philosophy. It is worse than that.”

George Will? “It is not important that she be confirmed because there is no evidence that she is among the leading lights of American jurisprudence, or that she possesses talents commensurate with the Supreme Court’s tasks.”

Okay, surely the Bible Belt will have something good to say about Bush’s nod to the evangelical Miers. How about it Gary Bauer? “Surely this isn’t the way for men and women of God to change minds and touch hearts.”

All right, these people are all on the extreme, how about the moderate Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter. “She Needs a crash course in constitutional law.”

Ouch, ouch and ouch again. Turn me bottom’s up and spank me till I squeal. What in the name of “Dubya’s political capital” is going on here? I walk the streets of Washington and the only one wearing a “best president ever” button is Harriet Miers. Everyone else is either gutting him like a sea trout or disavowing any connection to him.

How has our lovable wartime president fallen so far so fast?

After jamming a stick in his base’s eye on NAFTA, Clinton went on to coddle the right on welfare reform and China trade normalization. He bounced booties with Monica and pardoned a bunch of rascals as he was walking out the door. Yet he still enjoys the reverence of Blue State America.

And while you’ll find damn few who’ll admit it, do you think Republicans wouldn’t love to swap their man’s record with Bubba? (By the way, if anything could use a good blowjob more than Red State America, I sure don’t know about it.)

Perhaps the jaw-dropping, inexplicable Miers nomination was the proverbial “tipping point?” Is team-Republican finally awakening to the realization that they’ve elected a lunkhead to carry on their revolution. An inarticulate rube who substitutes certitude for informed judgment and rhetoric for reason.

Maybe that rumbling we’re hearing across the nation is not the latest hurricane but the sounds of a proud party awakening from a night of drunken reverie to find the last person standing after “last call” sleeping next to them.

And just maybe there’s a political paraphernalia shop in D.C. cranking out buttons for them that read “America Yes, Bush No.”

“Wait! Muse, don’t go. Where’s the inappropriately early holiday motif song parody?”

Oh, yeah. That. Okay, here’s the deal.

For reasons that can only be explained by the fine madness that has me in its grips, the Christmas Carol “Twelve Days of Christmas” echoed through my mind as I collected quotes for this post. You know, that schizophrenically repetitive tune that takes twelve hours to sing in its entirety.

However juvenile, it amused me to no end to substitute outraged Republicans for the gifts in the song’s lyrics. The result makes a hell of a drinking song and, I promise, wherever you are, you’ll be joined by thousands singing along in jagged harmony.

It works like this. Substitute “on my first day of Supco my governor gave to me” for “on the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me.” Instead of “a partridge in a pear tree,” the first day goes “Ann Coulter slandering me” and so on.

You know the melody so give it a go; I’ll fast forward to the end. If you’re the breed of cat that’s read this far, you are smart enough to work through each day without me parsing it out.

On my 12th day of Supco, my governor gave to me…

Judge Bork objecting,
Arlen Specter pecking,
Gary Bauer bitching
Trent Lott a leaping,
George Will a wailing,
Sam Brownback sulking,
Lindsey Graham grumbling
Rush Lim-baugh’s pissed!
Peggy Noonan’s nah,
David Frum’s harrumph
Bill Kristol’s hiss, and
Ann Coulter slandering me.

Happy inappropriately early holiday wishes to all!

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