passing the torch

in time-honored fashion, after having abolished the republic and crippled the empire, george bush and karl rove prepare to pass the torch ... to nero:

mccain may still be grateful for the fact that the bush-flunky rove disciples he has running his campaign have rescued it from oblivion and brought him within striking distance of the prize he's sold his soul for, but i doubt he'll feel the same way after the election. because win or lose, make no mistake about it, brand mccain has been destroyed. and therein we see the long arm of george bush and the hand of karl rove. it may well be that a scorched earth campaign was his only shot, but consider how every attack and every lie, while they serve to smear obama, also serve to undermine he [sic] credibility, honor and self-image of john mccain. i can hear george cackling as karl explained how cool it would be: we might just pull out a win for the folks who own the country, but at the same time we totally fuck over mccain by getting him to destroy the only thing he really had going for him. and how does the notoriously short-tempered mccain really feel about the fact that he had to crawl to the religious extremists now vying with the neo-cons for control of the party and employ the very bushies who smeared him eight years ago and are now using him as a tool to do the same to obama? i don't think it's much of a stretch to assume that these two petulant narcissists absolutely hate and despise each other. and who is writing about the devastating effects these personal and political wars may have on our future? from where i'm sitting, it looks like bush has gotten the best of it — and as a bonus he gets to say f.u. to the country as well by using his slime machine to ensure his dreadful policies will be continued. it can be useful to look at what happened to he [sic] succession of power once ancient rome made the transition from republic to empire under julius caesar. i think of it as the tiberius gambit. each emperor did his best to ensure that the one who followed him could never rival his achievements. and it was a short step indeed for tiberius to inflict he [sic] egregious caligula on the empire, secure in the knowledge that he would make the populace yearn for the comparatively golden days of his own rule. so augustus gave us tiberius, tiberius gave us caligula and the accidental claudius gave us nero. nero almost destroyed the roman economy by his personal greed and burned part of rome intending, perhaps, to remove the blight of a quarter congested with the urban poor. when it got way out of hand and he began to feel universal public opprobrium, he blamed it on a fringe group of alien terrorists, the early christians. so bush would give us mccain and mccain would give us palin and palin will ignite the fire and fiddle while the planet burns. the joke is on us. hail!

the joke is on everyone. who could forget after all, tiberius' july farewell to his counterparts from around the globe:

the american leader, who has been condemned throughout his presidency for failing to tackle climate change, ended a private meeting with the words: "goodbye from the world's biggest polluter." he then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including gordon brown and nicolas sarkozy looked on in shock. president bush made the private joke in the summit's closing session, senior sources said yesterday. his remarks were taken as a two-fingered salute from the president from texas who is wedded to the oil industry.

"hail!" indeed.