Mitchell Reid stood before the horn, transfixed. The odors of key oil, tobacco smoke, Carmex, brass and booze oozed out of the saxophone case. He picked up the various parts of the instrument, strap, body, neck, mouthpiece, and assembled it, a vintage Selmer Mark VI tenor, with speed and sensitivity, the result of decades of practice, getting each section positioned just so. He put the horn to his mouth and drew in a deep breath and just as he was about to play something reminded him of the primacy of humanity and art. Mitch took the horn from his mouth and let out a deep, roaring laugh.

A rare seed from the joint he was smoking caught fire and popped flaming onto the crotch of Christ Fletcher’s pink, three-piece suit, the one with the black piping that he had picked up brand new in a vintage clothing stall at the Tennessee State Fairgrounds Flea Market. As he squirmed in the van seat to dislodge it, Christ thought about the strangeness that triggers such an association. For some reason, looking at that tiny smoldering hole hit him like the smell of a freshly plowed cornfield after a rain. He realized he missed Grepsieg. He thought, of all people, Grepsieg should be here for the band’s last gig. Wayne Grepsieg was The Revue’s former artistic advisor/manager/sound tech/roadie/bon vivant and pot connoisseur. They had met when Grepsieg had sold Christ a dime bag of some of the best pot around and it was at Grepsieg’s apartment with Susan Nightengale and Eric Radiant, listening to a Rhasaan Roland Kirk album, that the name of the band flew by. If a thing truly exists, it has an identity and that identity can be named. Christ and Eric snatched that name as it flew by and thus was born The Revue.

Even within the context of The Revue Grepsieg was not without his quirks. The large, broad man with olive skin and dark penetrating eyes had moved to Springfield from the Chicago area to attend university and was in the process of getting his masters in communications when he first met Fletcher, Nightengale and Radiant. The communications degree, it seemed, was just a side project while he pursued his art as painter. Grepsieg was at that time heavily influenced by Salvador Dalí and like Dalí also had a keen interest in natural science and mathematics. For Dalí, this manifested in several of his paintings, notably in the 1950s, in which he painted his subjects composed of rhinoceros horns. For Grepsieg, he too obsessed on rhino horns, if obliquely. Dalí linked the rhinoceros to themes of chastity and to the Virgin Mary, another topic on which Grepsieg doted. Grepsieg’s famous euphemism “Kurnats!” was translated from some weird Carpathian dialect to English as “Mary’s tits!” and was a particularly fond expression of his, but Grepsieg’s connections, unlike Dalí, were much more carnal.

And also for Grepsieg it meant having a keen eye for just about everything from the nodules of stickiness on a marijuana bud to the scintillating form of a co-ed on campus. He used his unique constitution, supple brain and lightning wit to immediately set him apart from most of his colleagues at Lincoln State University and that is just what Christ and Eric liked about him; that and his excellent and discreet connections for superior pot and extremely clean and powerful LSD.

Prior to meeting Grepsieg, Christ Fletcher and Eric Radiant had spent time together in Nashville in the late 60s before forming The Revue. Their first Nashville excursion wasn’t like a prison sentence or anything. No, they went there because they wanted to be. Nashville was closer to Springfield than New York or Los Angeles… and after all it was Music City. They experienced other versions of eccentricity. Chris and Eric would regale their chums with stories of life in Nashville, prompted usually by Christ’s paramour Susan Nightengale, The Revue’s keyboard player and vocalist. Tales of how they had met industry people and seen things and done things that were of a different… flavor… far from what residents of a small, Midwestern town were currently experiencing in their little hamlet were relished by the rest of the band. On a good day, a plethora of yarns poured forth. Like how Eric and Christ had placed bets on what color the highest hairstyle to walk in the door of the local greasy spoon would be or of being picked up while hitch hiking by the country music star with a recent big hit. (The first thing the guy bought was a big Cadillac with Texas longhorns mounted to the front and a sunroof that his cowboy hat could fit through: stereotypic trailer flash from a middle class Ohio songwriter). Christ lived with a songwriter who wore the same chenille bathrobe, indoors and out, for the entire year that Christ was in the house.

So when the time came to seek out professional contacts for their band, Nashville was the place Eric and Christ looked to first. After a few preliminary calls and re-establishing a few contacts, Christ, Eric and Grepsieg packed into Susan’s battered Citroen and headed off to Music City, band photos, demo tapes and back story in hand.

The band had formed with multi-instrumentalist Mitch Reid and had made a couple of pretty fair recordings of their best numbers. Among the half-dozen or so tunes on the tape were The Revue’s assorted versions of the Andrews Sisters, Frank Zappa, some Van Morrison and classic Beach Boys. Also on the bands live set list were Beatles B-sides and some obscure early American popular music like Ukulele Lady and The Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives to Me with a Motown gem and Dan Hicks numbers folded in for fun. The instrumentals were sharp and inventive but it was the vocal harmonies on the songs that gave the band its identity.

Yet a tape alone would not suffice to introduce this band to its audience. The fellows went to Nashville to pitch the entire concept of the band, something that couldn’t be captured on tape. The band… and Grepsieg… had to be experienced in person. They weren’t aiming to take Music City by storm; no, this would be a subtle, insidious guerilla invasion.

Back in Springfield Susan, Mitch and the band’s drummer, Grandpa, were giving a lot of thought about this new direction. Would the change prove advantageous or would they get sucked into the ‘star-maker machinery behind the popular song?’ Or worse, would they languish like so many cover bands in a stream of gigs from one smoky, smelly bar to the next, lost in someone else’s identity? The Revue were trusting their fate to an entirely unknown organism.

That organism materialized in the form of a booking agent, one Tony Luna of Luna Rising Talent in the famous Music City, who had heard The Revue’s tape, and was intrigued by the boy’s pitch and wanted very much to see the band live. Luna, so it seemed, would be coming to The Revue’s home base in person to check out the band. And the band hoped to god it wouldn’t be a Waiting for Guffman moment. The Revue had been making large local waves as the de facto house band at a little place run by a Greek club owner, Pete Desafinoupolopolous and this was their opportunity to jump to the next level. It was at Pete’s where The Revue first honed their stage act, made a fair amount of money and learned to drink ouzo. One of the rituals, among many, was at the end of gigs, when the gear had been packed and loaded and the crowds had all gone home, Pete himself would pay the band and do toasts of ouzo. The entire Revue gathered at the end of the bar in the empty club and Pete would bring out a large wad of cash and a bottle of ouzo.

“Pay day, my boys! I make money, you make money! First we drink.”

Grepsieg, who had been serving the band as a business manager as well as creative advisor and sound mixer, represented the band in matters like these but the entire cast and crew lined up at the bar for the ouzo and the show. Pete had taken a shine to the dusky Grepsieg, perhaps thinking him part Greek, and for other, unrelated odd reasons, only known to Grepsieg; he constantly tried to get Pete to address him as ‘Generalissimo.’

“Lay the greenbacks down, my brother.” Grepsieg said, initiating the proceedings.

Pete grinned his warm Greek grin and poured the entire entourage a shot of the licorice flavored jet fuel to offer a toast.

“Yassou!” Pete shouted, holding his glass high.

“Yassou!” Everyone replied in unison, squinting as the fiery ouzo galloped down their bong holes.

“GodDEMMit that’s good stuff,” Pete said under his breath. Then turning to the band he said: “I make money, YOU make money. You my boys.” Pete started counting out the bills.

“Wayne, let’s do this!” yelled Pete, enthusiastically looking around for the band’s swarthy manager.

Grepsieg hissed through pursed lips: “Kurnats! Please address me as Generalissimo.”

“OK Wayne,” Pete said, continuing to count the money. “Goddemmit, you right. Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, ONE hundred. Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, TWO hundred… Drink! Ahh! Get it in ya, get it workin’ never hurt ya!”

Pete pointed at the rows and files of twenties on the bar. “Goddemmit (the Greek’s favorite euphemism) look at that! You my boys. I make money, YOU make money.”

And they did make money. The band would pack Pete’s place Friday and Saturday nights once or sometimes twice a month. For Pete, the liquor take alone from one night was enough to keep the place afloat for the rest of the month.

“GodDEMMit let’s drink. Yassou file!” Another shot. “Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, FOUR hundred…” Pete counted.

“THREE hundred, brother.” Grepsieg replied calmly.

Christ Fletcher soughed out a plume of cigarette smoke and rolled his eyes towards the ceiling.

“God dem right Wayne. Sunuvabeetch. This is YOUR money. You my BOYS.” said Pete, banging his hand on the bar for emphasis.

“What about her?” Eric said, jerking his thumb towards Nightengale.

“She my boys TOO!” said Pete.

With that the short Greek laughed a big belly laugh and continued to count: “Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, FOUR hundred… Right, Wayne?”
“Kurnats…”

Grepsieg counted the dough. “Solid, my brother.” said Grepsieg, his eyes widening at the piles of cash.

In unison the rest of the band responded:
“Sunuva beetch”

“Damn right it is.”

“Well fuck me runnin’.”

“Hey, listen, don’t listen to me.”

“Goddemmit!”

Over the course of a year and a half this is the way it went, once or twice a month, for The Revue, for Pete, for their fans, and this was the kind of environment that Tony Luna walked into Saturday night. The Nashville agent-toad was on The Revue’s turf now. For this gig the band had papered the house with friends, relatives, college students, drug dealers, college professors, groupies, college drop-outs, hangers-on and a whole host of people to cheer on the band and for this extravaganza, Luna had a ringside seat.

2

Eric Radiant adjusted his tie in the mirror of the motel bathroom. The screaming red bow perfectly complimented his scarlet suit: pegged red pants, white cummerbund and a set of red tails (showing red and white striped lapels and lining) which, it just so happened, Eric
had designed and sewn himself to compliment his jet black curly head of hair, goatee and quixotic personality. It was the joint that Mitch Reid passed to him through the bathroom door that was even a better fit with Eric’s gap-toothed grin. This was the last night of the last gig of the last incarnation of The Revue, a project that had begun over eight years ago in Grepsieg’s steamy living room apartment that summer in Springfield and had gone through several reincarnations since.

Here and now, especially for The Revue’s last performance, the aroma of the pot had triggered memories of a gig not so long ago where Eric’s world was a bit less fervid. That memory continued to drift in and out of his mind even as Mitch’s hand shot through the bathroom door, demanding the joint.

“Unh!” Mitch grunted insistently, waving his empty hand at Eric.

“Well, fuck me runnin’.” Radiant said, out loud this time. “This is the same kinda attitude you had that night in Montana.”

Mitchell Reid was known to intentionally provoke people at times. As a seasoned performer, Mitch knew that he could press people’s buttons, especially amongst a crowd of ignorant redneck crackers. He also knew what NOT to do when there was one of him and hundreds of others. Far from it. Tonight Mitch was loose, focused, ready to deliver a good show to a crowded house. Mitch was feeling randy, most likely to overcompensate for his feelings of the impending band break up. On that particular night in Montana, at least Eric’s memory of it, Mitch was saddling up his high horse.

Mitch was a bit of a malapert and dealing with Mitch was one of the many push and pull sacrifices Eric made for his art. Eric’s thoughts dissolved back to Bozeman and the finished first set in the disco-themed club where the natives were getting restless. Eric knew the audience wasn’t hearing the music they were accustomed to that evening and if the first set was any indication, they weren’t going to hear it the rest of the night. It was Saturday night, the locals were hell-bent on drinking themselves into a stupor and they didn’t want anything interfering with their good time, especially some pansy-ass band from ‘back east.’ Eric knew that Mitch immediately sensed this and had begun to look for a way to blend it into the show.

During the break between sets, Mitch had surreptitiously slipped into a dark place, both literally and figuratively. When the band hit the stage for the second show, Mitch had transformed into his rarely seen but much talked about sizeable punk rocker alter-ego, Willie
Scumbag.

At his first opportunity, he addressed the audience:
“You!” Mitch screeched at the audience during the silence after the first tune.

It came again: “You out there!” thrusting his finger and pointing to them all.

“You’ve never done anything…!”

“You’ve never been anywhere…!”

“All you do is sit around all day with one thumb up your ass and the other one in your mouth, playing switch!”

Mitch continued to rage at the agrestic audience, slobbering and staggering his way to the foot of the stage, spewing venom and epithets. Perhaps it was the stress of being on the road or the forward progress that the band hadn’t been making lately. Mitch, as if no one could tell by now, was pissed off. He continued to taunt the crowd:

“Look at all the… fucking rednecks!” Mitch said mockingly, giving the audience a sneering once-over.

“LOOK, I say!”

His delivery picked up its pace.

“For god’s sake look at yourselves. What a clichéd bunch of shitkickers you are!”

At Mitch’s first words the crowd was stunned. They had barely caught the gist of the band’s opening set or the bumptious rantings of the saxophone player… but they were paying attention now. They didn’t exactly get what was going on, but everyone was looking at the band wanting to see what this guy would do next. Was he serious? If so, about what?

As if singing some demented schoolyard round, the audience started to get angry by degrees. Anyone in the room could feel it like a wave slowly rolling over an overwhelmed surfer. Mitch felt it. Eric too. In whatever capacity huge crowd’s sense, they seemed to finally understand the concept: “Hey, he’s making FUN of us.” And they were right. It was as if the entire audience of 450 or so Montanans, cooped up inside this small club, with the disco ball swirling cascades of faceted light on every Budweiser can, were gradually absorbing the rage that Mitch had neatly packaged up and brought out of the dressing room for the second show and were currently sending it back towards Willie Scumbag.

Mitch’s fulminations were cathartic… for Mitch… and only for a second. As soon as he took one satisfied breath an empty beer can bounced off his chest and brought him back to the present moment.

Eric looked at Willie/Mitch then into the audience and knew what was up. Another beer can flew by, this time unopened and heavy with brew. Mitch watched as the can bounced past the drum kit, spraying its contents all over the back wall. Then he looked at Eric as if to say “What? Me?” The crowd surged towards the stage. With the band vamping behind him, Eric stepped to the mic, put up his hands as if he were Moses parting the Red Sea and began improvising a monologue.

“Ladies and Gentlemen… what we have here (gesturing towards Willie/Mitch) is a perfect example of what happens to a drug addict when he doesn’t get a fix.”

Oompa DOOMPa, Oompa DOOMPa, Grandpa’s drums vamped behind Eric.

“On the road for 23 days straight, without a break, deprived of all the comforts of home, Willie Scumbag, our erstwhile multi-instrumentalist, is beginning to get a bit weird.” Like Willie/Mitch, Eric was bent on bringing a little bit of big city savvy to the provinces, even if he had to pull it straight out of his ass. Willie/Mitch was willing to play along.

“That’s what life in the city does to a person, Ladies and Gentlemen. What we have here is a talented and sensitive artist who has been removed from the comfort of his surroundings and thrust into a life that only a… a… drug addict… could cope with.”

Christ joined in on guitar as the vamp gathered a head of steam behind him, Radiant continued: “This is a perfect example of what the entertainment industry does to people, Ladies and Gentlemen and it’s exactly what it did to… Elvis Presley.”

Oompa DOOMPa, Oompa DOOMPa. Susan’s synthbass joined the vamp at the very bottom of things. The crowd seemed taken aback at the mention of The King’s name. There was a serious and immediate disconnect. How could this raging ape on stage have anything in common with our Elvis? Eric was just about to explain to them what that connection was.

“What could turn a shy, rural Mississippi boy into a bloated caricature of his former self in just 20 years? The entertainment industry, Ladies and Gentlemen. Just like our Willie Scumbag over here, (still on his haunches, Willie/Mitch at this point had retreated upstage, nervously scanning the crowd for more projectiles) the entertainment industry prodded and pushed Elvis to wrack and ruin. It was Colonel Tom Parker , Ladies and Gentlemen, Elvis’ personal manager, who kept The King occupied with gig after gig for years on end, fueled by so-called ‘prescription’ drugs and fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches to the point where Elvis’ only diversions were his devoted fans, those very drugs… and underagedgirlswearingwhitecottonpanties… (Eric spoke this last bit quickly and almost under his breath, with a hint of an Elvis drawl) all the while the Colonel is asking his cronies if they’d rather have sherry on the porch or port on the ferry.”

On top of Susan’s pumping synth bass the crowd was hanging on every one of Radiant’s words even though they had no idea what he was talking about. They were also unconsciously bopping up and down in time with Grandpa’s infectious back beat. Oompa DOOMPa, Oompa DOOMPa! Where was this all going?

Then Eric fanned out a dozen or so bubble gum cards with pictures of Elvis Presley that he had purchased at a truck stop in Little America, Wyoming. Susan had ringed the images in gold glitter so that all anyone could see from the audience was a tiny image of Elvis and a flash of golden light reflecting off the cards. These classic photos of The King, with a little help from Eric’s extemporaneous onstage wordsmithing, had been transformed into The Cards of Elvis, a super-psychic indicator of all things rock ‘n’ roll.

Holding the cards above his head, Eric continued: “Dear friends, if you just look at Elvis now, a grossly inflated facsimile of the man we all know and love, it doesn’t take a psychic to see that he is not long for this world. And Colonel Tom Parker, that bastion of the entertainment industry…what about him? Is he really a nice guy or does he just smile a lot? Yes! See for yourselves! We in The Revue have done the research so you don’t have to… and have consulted our venerable and all-seeing Cards of Elvis… (Eric held the cards still higher) and they have revealed to us the sad, sad truth: Elvis will not be with us for much longer.

“Love him while you can.”

It was like hypnotizing chickens. Pointing into the crowd, Eric finished his monologue, saying “Remember… every man, woman… and child in this room has contributed to Elvis’ demise. Ladies and Gentlemen… don’t let this (again he pointed to a still-shrinking Mitch who had also fully bought in to Eric’s seductive fable) happen to YOU. (To make his point Eric thrust the Admonishing Finger directly at the heart of the audience when he shouted YOU.) Don’t let it happen to your friends… or your children…or your friend’s children.

“Don’t get caught up in this (Eric made a sweeping gesture across the bandstand) ersatz whirlwind that is music, art, culture and entertainment… stay on the ranch.”

With that final, searing punctuation the entire band launched into a stellar rendition of Return to Sender. The crowd that only a few minutes before was ready to murder the entire band (or at least the saxophone player) was now dancing with abandon to Grandpa’s galloping backbeat and mouthing the words along with Eric’s soaring, mellifluous baritone.

“Return to sender
Address unknown
No such numbah
A-no such zone…”

This Montana crowd had been smacked down, hauled up and smacked down once more for good measure. Struggling to remain erect, all they knew now was that they were finally having fun. At least for tonight, Elvis was once again in the building.

also, i thought the sunnis were the bad guys in iraq. are they still the bad guys, but only part of the time?

i thought it might be possible to get through this without a single in again out again larry craig joke, but i guess not.

oh well.

.

Swamibill: I feel like I have to participate in the political process and at the same time it disgusts me to no end. There are parallel realities that have been developing for a long time, most recently since the Info Revolution. How in the world would someone say that things are better in Iraq? Why doesn’t the press play up the US economy story? Why does business feel the need for double digit profits at the expense of their workers? Why is the US morally bankrupt (even the religious right) and why don’t they see that? Why do so many people watch television? Why is the food in the US so expensive and so bad? Why can’t people trust women to deal with their own health issues? Whassup with Britney Spears? Has the country lost sight of something or did we not see it to begin with? Why do we ignore poor people? Why couldn’t a team of high priced and supposedly intelligent prosecutors convict O.J? Why is our interest focused on just ourselves?

.

Z: as CTR observed, “lying defeats the purpose of speech as a form of communication” which is a somewhat glib way of saying that, when trust is gone, it ain’t likely to come back. hence, “how can you tell if alberto gonzales is lying? his lips are moving.”

mendactiy is the little corruption that corrupts everything. right now, there’s really nobody to be believed. not the new york times, not the washington post. not the democratic leadership. i hope leahy is ok, but even there, you have to wonder. and it continues to go without saying that the repubs and the military leadership will lie whenever it suits them.

and in the end, that’s just the political aspect. there’s a lot more to human life. but, like it or not, one significant feature of a nation is its national government. ours is corrupt. so, lots of problems flow from that. the ground is significantly weakend. in the pursuit of what?

.

Swamibill: Trouble is, and I believe this sincerely, they don’t think they are lying.

.

Z: sometimes yes, sometimes, no:

“i don’t recall” is a lie.

“i did not have sexual relations with that woman.”

“i am not gay” — now, i suppose the guy is so screwed up that he thinks that what he does with other men does not ultimately mean he’s homosexual, or bi-sexual or whatever. but nobody else does.

‘and let me be clear, what we’re doing does not include spying on americans–we don’t spy on americans’ was a lie. about senior govt. officials conspiring to commit multiple felonies.

all the lying about what was happening militarily in vietnam: body counts, bombing targets, secret bases off the mainland where people would be taken to be tortured. lies, all lies.

“the surge is working”–maybe mccain believes that. maybe even bush believes it. cheney? patraeus? who knows? but you can’t possibly go very far down the totem pole before you find people with significant levels of repsonsibility who know better. where are they? is every single republican member of congress really in denial about iraq? even the dems are willing to cut a deal with gopers to get a veto-proof majority. to what–bring 300 troops home by may day? the contract governing active duty service personnel in iraq mandates that the vast majority of personnel associated with ‘the surge’ must be rotated out by april. any troop reduction that falls short of that is just white-wash.

iran? what if those nukes were going to alabama because that’s where that category of munition gets staged to go to the middle east, and we want a clever way of communicating that to iran? far-fetched? let’s invade cuba, we’ll send some cuban looking guys into the bay of pigs, and enough will get through that they can …

these guys are wack-os, and our fraidy-dems are more than willing to play ball with ‘em.

yes, they lie, but only because they love america and want to protect her so much, that they will lie, spy, waive habeus corpus, and torture. is it still america when they’re done?

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Swamibill: Wack-o’s, yes. That is why I think that all those folks you mentioned believe what they said. Belief is a weird thing, ask any religious person. If we can worship snakes in the US then we can believe that it’s not sex, am not gay, and we really don’t remember. really. don’t. remember. Perpetual failures like GWB have talked themselves into believing and have been enabled in that regard by their parents, grand parents and their bank accounts.

America, or the definition of America that includes vast amounts of freedom, is gone. We have had way more freedom in the US than has France, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Thailand, Uganda, Egypt, Russia, China and others. Try putting additives in Italian wine, goomerage in French cheese, or lead in child’s toys paint. People kill themselves over it. That would never happen in the US. A failed corporate executive, who has run the company, its employees and their pensions into the ground will resign only to be hired by another equally idiotic corporation for more money to do the very thing all over again. Wack-o’s, yes.

 ”Q This seems to be — at least Senator Leahy seems to be suggesting now this is a credibility issue; that the explanations coming out of the White House don’t pass some sort of sniff test for him.

“MS. PERINO: I don’t know how you could possibly say that when what we have done is endeavor to be very forthcoming and honest in talking about a policy that we’ve had. Now, it would be different if we hadn’t said anything at all. But we didn’t. . . .

“Q But what you’ve said has shifted even over the last couple of weeks.

“MS. PERINO: Give me an example of that.

“Q Fifty, 22, handful.

“MS. PERINO: Look — and I explained that. You have to admit that when I said a handful, I was asked based on something that I didn’t know.”

 h/t Froomkin

Photo by Cromacom

Musicians, by and large, are not my favorite gang to hang with. They possess certain endearing qualities such as self-centeredness, false sincerity, emotional immaturity and intolerance for personal eccentricities. And these are the ones that come to mind immediately. I guess with a little exploration I could conjure up a few more adjectives but I’ve spent the better part of my two non-playing years working at erasing them from my psyche if not my vocabulary.

Still, there are others who would suggest that I’m reflecting my own negative qualities on to the situation. Sort of a brainiacs version of the schoolyard chant “I’m rubber; you’re glue, what you say bounces off me and sticks to you.” And maybe so… but this is the river in which we all sink or swim. As above, so below, Bob. But it is remarkable in other ways.

The best reason that I can come up with for not playing music, not hanging with musicians and not re-entering the demimonde of music is that it is freaking hard. It’s hard when you’re away from your family, its hard when you realize that the life of an entertainer is more important than your family, and besides, the pay is crap. But the best reasons that I can come up with for playing music, for hanging with creative people and for decending into the depths is that it is good for the soul. Mine, the other musicians and the audiences.

I’ve been led to believe that the soul we’re born with is a grain of… something… that must be cultivated, nurtured and worked on by conscious adults in order to blossom into something bigger, something inclusive. Maybe even to the point that when we die there’s something left over, at least for a little while. It is the opportunity to work on this that brings me back to music which supplies the conditions for this work. And it’s freaking hard.  

The quick answer is, yes–it happened with Nixon: after he left office he admitted that public opposition was so great, he couldn’t continue.  So, theoretically, it could happen again.  Only it would appear that Nixon was more reasonable than Bush (that is, Nixon had the capacity for reason, Bush does not), so maybe the quick answer is no. 

Another possibility, instead of millions taking to the streets (which seems more than a little doubtful) congress could simply refuse to pay, and could in effect block the operation of the executive branch until we pull out (with the exception of court ordered FEMA payments to Katrina victims, of course).

How likely is that?

My point is that without massive, sustained public pressure of the ‘really scary to elected officials and mainstream media’ variety, we’re there for at least 2 more years.  And if we elect McCain on a “I can do Iraq right” platform, we’re there for still longer.

Al Gore, in a GQ interview of all places, pretty well blew his top (if GQ is to believed and we all agree on just what “practically screaming now” means) about the corruption and incompetence of the Bushies, and really, he was just spot on.  That is, if we’re not going to rise as one and smite them for what they’ve done so far, what will it take?

Update:

Marc Sandalow reminds us, in the SF Chronicle (h/t Froomkin), that Bush lies when it suits his purposes: phased redeployment is just around the corner?  I can’t wait to hear Barlett spin that …

The president matters. But whether or not we want to have a beer with him or whether or not we approve of his private life is not what matters about him or her. These are false hueristics and they don’t add up to leadership any more than years of political experience translates into great political skills. Citizens need to think a little bit harder about this choice, look a little deeper, ask some serious questions.

This is taken from a post about Mark Danner’s essay “Iraq: The War of the Imagination” published in The New York Review of Books, which discusses the Bush Administration exposés by Ron Suskind, James Risen, and the last (well hopefully the last) Bob Woodward.

The point being, yes there’s a problem, and if we all don’t start paying attention, it’s going to get worse, not better.  Yes, obvious, but given the national track-record of the past 6 years, one can’t be too careful nowadays.

I’ll be back the middle of next week. Buenos noches!

It’s going to be a long winter.

The thing is, if the main problem is that Bush is in denial, and has been for rather some time (his whole life?), then even if he wakes up and smells coffee (I am so not betting the farm), to what an extent can he really change the situation, given the people he’s put in place over there?  The rampant corruption, the croynism–hell the Iraqi Interior Ministry–that stuff cannot be readily changed.   It’s not like, Dems go to Congress, hold a few hearings, Bush has a meeting or two with JBIII , and presto, confetti in March.

Not gonna happen.