2007-01-03 - 3:11 p.m.
A Happy New Year to You! And does it not seem as though the funeral for Gerald Ford has gone on longer than the wretched man was in office? No, I am serious: They seem to have been dragging the old doofus’s coffin from Capitol Building to White House to Palm Springs to Michigan on a Grande Promenade that seems to be taking more time than the 36 hours of the actual Ford Administration.
It has not been a particular treat to watch the TV bores, all of them asshol-ier than thou, jabber about Ford’s so-called accomplishments and his decency – as though he did a single damn thing that was even mildly important or compelling. Part of the problem is that Gerald Ford’s death was utterly eclipsed by old Ronald Reagan’s death a few years back. Any attempt to honor the completely inconsequential Ford just come across as being ludicrous to the point of surreality.
It’s been decidedly jarring to watch the parade of evil old men appearing on our televisions, all talking about how wonderful Ford was and how the wonderful times we enjoy today are a direct result of his Administration. My goodness – Ford is the man who gave us Donald Rumsfeld, Alexander Haig, and Dick Cheyney! All those brilliant and terrible men. He was the only president who was not elected to the job! He almost lost the nomination of his own party to Ronald Reagan, whose attempt to steal his thunder was, I vividly remember, decidedly ungentlemanly and rather selfish.
There has been this old croaker on Hardball, yammering about how Ford embodied “that old kind of partisanship in which people from other parties would fight each other during the day, but would share a drink together after work.” Then there is that creaky old phlegmbag, wheeled out from the Freaky Party Hack’s Home, who babbles about how Ford would fly out to Washington every year to attend a reunion of Ford Administration Former Employees – what a kegger that must have been, eh?
I mean, I am sad to say that I am absolutely old enough to remember Ford. At the time he was ridiculed for being a nitwit and a dope – and that was even before he pardoned Nixon, an act which earned him the wrath of most of the country, I seem to recall.
Mind you, at the time, I actually thought pardoning Nixon was the right thing to do: The man had lost everything already, and everyone knew that he was guilty of some horrible crimes, so the only reason to prosecute him would be to undermine the dignity of the Presidency.
Anyway, how dreary it all is! I mean, I’ve been laughing as I’ve watched the various newspeople stifling their yawns as they try to convince us that they’re interested in whatever it is Ford did. And the platitudes about how Ford was “loved” and how he was “decent”. Good lord, who is writing this ghastly stuff? And who the heck cares about this utter inconsequentiality? He was a nothing president who watched himself become extinct and who faded into a well deserved oblivion. Good for him.
More intriguing by far has been the execution of Saddam Hussein, which I have to tell you, was clearly a lynching. I don’t care what they say – the death penalty is a barbaric and disgusting custom. Unless, of course, it’s someone who dares to use the word “discrete” in his Craigslist hook up ad. For someone like that, the sentence of Death By A Thousand Knitting Needle Pokes is too good for him.
I do not know if you have watched any of the videos of the execution on Youtube – and it is fascinating in itself that the execution has been uploaded to the web for all and sundry to watch – but there is a creepy lack of professionality about the whole thing. The executioners are just goons wearing leather jackets, like the insurgents whom we are supposed to be fighting.
There are none of the expected uniforms, no solemn ceremony, no addresses from the warden – it’s just a group of guys, milling about and muttering as they drag some old guy out of a room and hang him. If we didn’t know the backstory, we’d think it was totally a mob of people murdering someone without due process.
And in the video, you see Saddam being rushed up the stairs to the gibbet, looking like he hasn’t even finished his last supper. He stands at the gibbet, shuddering in terror, as folks in the audience yowl insults at him, like it’s some kind of a spectacle in the Dark Ages.
Then the thugs in leather jackets, who have the body shape of the killer of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies, drape Hussein in a noose that looks like it’s right out of a comic book. I mean, it’s one of those goofy, super large nooses with the big thick rope that you see in Gilbert and Sullivan Operettas – all very “you shall be haaaanged by the neeeeck until you are dead, dead, dead!”
And as Saddam is standing there, people are shrieking at him, yowling, “Allah Akhbar! Allah Akhbar!” and various other revolting things. Then Saddam suddenly lurches through a hole in the floor – and the camera shows his corpse, hanging there, his tongue bloated and purple, his head twisted at a ghastly twisted angle.
Now, look: I know that Saddam Hussein is some kind of a hateful villain – no one is arguing this. But so rushed was his execution, and so amateurish was the way it was handled, there’s no way that you can say this was any kind of justice – just a petty malice and revenge. No one is voicing the unspoken fear – that this is just an atrocity!
But, hey, the Iraqi government is right on top of it. Have you read this? They’re going after the guys who taped the execution on their cell phone cameras. THOSE are the people they’re going to punish. Not the people who lynched an admittedly horrible man – but the folks who brought the news to the public in a way that the corrupt Iraqi government could not control it. It’s a mad, mad world, my masters, and that’s the truth!
