[N]one of his staff, no member of his administration, and almost no…official seems to want to hold the president truly accountable for his actions.
[A]re there no honorable men around him? Can his staff and cabinet be lied to without consequence? Is there nothing that will impel them to depart? They need not become vociferous critics of the president. They need not denounce him. A quiet, principled leave-taking would suffice. But it would be refreshing if one of them refused to be complicit any longer in the ongoing lie that is the … White House. Apparently, not one of them is willing to do that.
Personal loyalty is an admirable trait, and so is political loyalty. Up to a point. Government officials work for the nation, not simply for the president. They swear an oath to the Constitution, not to the president. To remain loyal to a president who lies is to make oneself complicit in his lies. To remain loyal to a man who has brought shame to his office is to make oneself complicit in that shame. At some point, blind loyalty must yield to principled honor. When?
The quotes are from the Weekly Standard editorial “Where Are the Resignations?” of August 31, 1998, written by the chief editor Bill Kristol.
I have to credit the Rude Pundit for this research. As he says, politics is criminalized when criminals get into politics.
As they pounce on Fitzgerald and whine about the indictments and carry on sooo, can we use this kind of stuff to refer to all of them as…Flip-Floppers? Dammed right we can!
Will Olbermann run with this?
the humble editor of the Weekly Standard, was on The Daily Show last night. Jon really handed it to him. I have to admit, Stewart has gotten better with the confrontational.
Knowing him as a chief PNAC player put it in a far differnt light. He agitated for continued holy war against the broad Middle East and said Bush would be exonerated and that “taking Saddam out” was absolutely the right thing to do.
Of course Bill Kristol basically helped plan the entire fucking thing almost a decade ago.
Kristol is Satan’s Spawn. I can’t believe he is actually referred to as a “mainstream conservative” by the MSM. Oh wait…I can believe it, and it saddens me deeply.
we still see Kissinger interviewed in public. So there’s precedent for inviting the devil into your livingroom. And politely, too–Jon Stewart treated him just like Kurt Vonnegut, for fuck’s sake.
In a just world, the studio audience would have dismembered someone like Henry Kissinger. Which would leave an extra 20 minutes for the Colbert Report.
That’s what sickens me about JonStew. The act of bringing wretched humans like Kristol, Lott, O’Reilly, & Hitchens on the program…allows them to soften their public image. An audience w/ JonStew, especially when he treats them favorably with a platter full of softball questions, enhances their credibility/reach. Ill-informed fans of the show may think, “JonStew had him on…he can’t be that bad.”
I know it’s a comedy show and that Stewart does not have absolute control of the guest line-up and that Comedy Central wants to try and appear as balanced as possible (in order to earn ad revenue), but WTF??? Please Jon, light into one of these bastards one-time. Please?
Note:
The one time Stewart took someone to task was on “Crossfire” when he outed Tucker Carlson as a real “Prick.” Why was he able to do it then? He was an
independent operator, not beholden to Comedy Central’s agenda.
Unfortunately, the unintended consequence of his “free agent” candor is the paucity of invites from other nonsensical talking head programs.
Send it to Pat Buchanon. He’ll get on his ass, at least. Pathetic to have to rely on Buchanon to take on the NeoClowns.