1 vs. 100
The weekend is upon us. Finally, we can put aside all the hype and nonsense we've had to endure in these last few weeks of posturing and wheel-spinning and finally get down to settling things where they should be settled, down on the ground, in the trenches, nose to nose, man on man.

Some of you won't care. Some of you will indulge your inner communist and eschew the Big Game altogether, nimbly sidestepping the colossal battle for world supremacy in your penny loafers and lace-fringed socks so you can go to see a movie about the triumph of the goddamn human spirit, probably starring Diane Keaton or possibly Drew Barrymore.

You enjoy that, Nancy. Meanwhile, I've been assured that a few of you who don't care will be tuning if only for the commercials. That I don't understand at all. I mean, it's C-SPAN2. What kind of commercials do they run? Supplementary life insurance and those ones with Wilford Brimley about "diabeetis"? I don't understand the attraction.

Come this Sunday, I will be planted in front of my TV to watch the Showdown. It's been six years in the making: Executive vs. Legislative. And this time it's personal.

One lone (former puppet figurehead owner of the Texas professional baseball team nicknamed the) Ranger(s) against one hundred men with designs on tearing him to shreds in order to buck up reputations ravaged by what has been now the better part of the decade kissing his ass so that they can run away from him, giving them a sliver of credibility when they try to replace him in his job in '08. Never have the lines of battle been drawn more clearly.

Well, most of them are men. White men, in point of fact. But there are a few non-white faces, more than I ever thought I'd see in one Senate. Hell, there is even a smattering of prominent Vagina-Americans in the mix. And they're SPEAKING! This is the kind of lawlessness your local Daughters of the American Revolution auxilliary warned us about.

We've officially entered Bizarro World. Not three months ago the entire Legislative Branch of the United States was heading down the path so artfully blazed for it by the sober and now-self-abnegated legislature of the great nation of Venezuela. You know. Venezuela? Come on, they have the drug cartels and the... wait, that's Colombia. They had that Japanese dude for president back in the... no, that was Peru. OK, it's the one that sometimes sends us baseball players, but is NEITHER Cuba nor Mexico. That one. Ah, fuck it, CNN will clue you in after we invade.

Now, out of the blue, someone has collectively tapped the entire Congress on the shoulder and slipped them a copy of the US Constitution that hasn't had Article I, Section 8 Sharpie'd over by military censors.

Seriously, read it. It will blow your mind. They actually can do something besides fuck pages or call emergency sessions to save individual people in vegetative states or vote themselves pay raises. Turns out all we had to do was get rid of both Tom Daschle and Bill Frist and, what do you know, the gears start spinning. Dissent is so faddishly catchy, even Republicans are doing it, and you know they're the last ones to latch on to a trend, much to the delight of your local wingtip retailer.

I don't know what will actually happen, but I do know I'm tired of the build-up and I'm ready to go. No more pre-game show--and that means you, Wolf Blitzer. There are no more Cheneys left to bait with your subtle challenges to Supreme Executive Power in your sneaky pinko questions. The pump, she is primed. Somebody cue Hank Williams, Jr. I am ready for some strongly-worded non-binding resolution(s)!

Labels: vestibule

- posted by Pops @ 8:25 AM