Matt Taibbi’s cover-story in Rolling Stone on the Republican Congress is even better than I thought it’d be.
These past six years were more than just the most shameful, corrupt and incompetent period in the history of the American legislative branch. These were the years when the U.S. parliament became a historical punch line, a political obscenity on par with the court of Nero or Caligula — a stable of thieves and perverts who committed crimes rolling out of bed in the morning and did their very best to turn the mighty American empire into a debt-laden, despotic backwater, a Burkina Faso with cable.
Taibbi then spends a few thousand words proving it. He even conveniently breaks up the argument into five parts — Step one: Rule by cabal; Step two: Work as little as possible — and screw up what little you do; Step three: Let the president do whatever he wants; Step four: Spend, spend, spend; Step five: Line your own pockets.
“The 109th Congress is so bad that it makes you wonder if democracy is a failed experiment,” says Jonathan Turley, a noted constitutional scholar and the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington Law School. “I think that if the Framers went to Capitol Hill today, it would shake their confidence in the system they created. Congress has become an exercise of raw power with no principles — and in that environment corruption has flourished. The Republicans in Congress decided from the outset that their future would be inextricably tied to George Bush and his policies. It has become this sad session of members sitting down and drinking Kool-Aid delivered by Karl Rove. Congress became a mere extension of the White House.”
There are a slew of great anecdotes in here, but like Pandagon, I thought this one summed up quite a bit about how the GOP-led Congress operates:
One of the most depressing examples of one-party rule is the Patriot Act. The measure was originally crafted in classic bipartisan fashion in the Judiciary Committee, where it passed by a vote of thirty-six to zero, with famed liberals like Barney Frank and Jerrold Nadler saying aye. But when the bill was sent to the Rules Committee, the Republicans simply chucked the approved bill and replaced it with a new, far more repressive version, apparently written at the direction of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft.
“They just rewrote the whole bill,” says Rep. James McGovern, a minority member of the Rules Committee. “All that committee work was just for show.”
Of course it was. That’s how this gang operates.
Just to add to the fun, Taibbi also ranked “The 10 Worst Congressmen,” though he stuck only to the House:
1. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.)
2. James Sensenbrenner jr. (R-Wis.)
3. Don Young (R-Alaska)
4. William Jefferson (D-La.)
5. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.)
6. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.)
7. Dick Pombo (R-Calif.)
8. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.)
9. Hal Rogers (R-Ken.)
10. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.)
It’s hard to argue with this, though Reps. Steve King (R-Iowa) and Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) certainly belong on the list somewhere, at least as dishonorable mentions.
Did he miss any of your personal favorites?