I must say, Republicans are a lot less offensive when they’re out of power.  I’d almost have to admit “they have their uses”, which, after the last 7+ years of unrestrained bed-shitting, is as fulsome a piece of praise as they are ever likely to get from me.  It takes one back to the golden days of the Clinton administration, when Republicans would reflexively oppose anything Clinton did on whatever rubbish foundation they could cobble together.  Yes, their reasoning was cynical at best; yes, they eventually moved from Devil’s Advocates to Satan’s Assholes; and, yes, there was always the suspicion – since confirmed a few billion times over – that, were they actually put in charge of things, they’d fuck it all up just for the hell of it.  But, while annoying, there can be a certain value to being the asshole who responds with a dismissive “O RLY?” to everything you say.  I generally valuate this in inverse proportion to my ability to understand the assertion being made; in the case of throwing $700 billion dollars at some kind of fancy Wall Street clusterfuck, for example, I actually value it pretty highly.

For their part, the Democrats never really got the hang of the whole “opposition party” thing.  It was always sad seeing them try to work constructively with people whose only core political value was “fuck you, you fucking Democrats”.  It was sad, and it didn’t do anybody any good, except for making David Broder moist with bipartisan joy.  Leaving motivations and fancy-shmancy policy analysis aside, how much better off we would be as a country – and how much better off the Democrats would be as a party – if every policy proposal of the Bush administration was met with a hearty “fuck you, just because” and no bill could come out of committee without $5 billion dollars for the George W. Bush Eats A Fucking Dumpster Full Of Dicks Every Day Foundation, dedicated to exploring how President George W. Bush manages to perform his duties with his mouth quite full of a motley assortment of dicks.  Childish, cynical, petty, yes; but imagine the result!  No Iraq War. No shitty appointments. Hearings every time Dick Cheney farted without explicit Congressional authorization. Every state would have 14 Democratic Senators.  Barack Obama would be ahead by 78% in every poll.  And – perhaps most importantly – we might have an answer to the question which has vexed poets and philosophers for centuries, to whit: just how much dick does George W. Bush really eat? (SPOILER: a metric fuckload.)

But now, with the Republican Congress on the wane, and the President having lost interest in playing Emperor, we see the natural order return. Democrats do what they enjoy: have serious chin-rubbing discussions about what must be done. Republicans do what they enjoy: throw wrenches at Democrats and remind everyone that they are insane, unserious, amoral, and unfit to govern. And George W. Bush does what he does best: eat dicks and fuck off. It’s not a perfect world by any means, but it’s a fair sight better than the alternative.  And perhaps we’ll get an answer to that puzzling question underlying all possible bailout proposals: