It's Not just about Chutzpah

Could it be that there is more to the report of Representative Pete Stark's apology on the House floor than the mainstream media (with their shock troops of pundits) want us to believe? Yesterday I tried to address this story in terms of whether or not Stark's Chutzpah of the Week award needed to be recalled; but this has always just been my own strategy for using ridicule, rather than indignation, as a way to cope with horrors that are too depressing to confront by any other means. Nevertheless, I started to sidle up to those horrors when I suggested that the text of Stark's apology could be read as an act of resistance (in the postmodern sense of this word) against a Congress whose normative practices undermine the democratic foundation that the Constitution tried to lay down for it. Today I feel a need for an even bolder confrontation with how bad things may be.

After doing some more background reading yesterday, it occurred to me that the Executive thugs could care less about Stark. Their real target is Pelosi, and nothing pleases them more than finding the weak spots in her leadership and going after them with long and sharp knives. The point is that they can attack Pelosi by denying her access to contact with the Executive branch, just the same way that they deny dissenting journalists access to the White House Press Room. Every now and then they need to remind Pelosi who is really in charge to keep her in line, and she is then discredited in public opinion when she dances to their tune. I suspect that my charge yesterday against the Congress was too specific. The undermining that is taking place is hardly restricted to the Congress. The corruption that grew within the Executive has now metabolized in the other two branches; and the whole “body politic” may never make it out of Intensive Care.