Thursday, October 05, 2006

"Yeah, yeah, I take full responsibility, whatever."


I apologize for spending so much time following the Mark Foley sex scandal making news down south, but it's not that specific case itself that's so interesting. Rather, it's that every sordid, seedy, immoral and unethical aspect of the conservative mind is on such glorious display here.

From a total indifference to the welfare of other people, to hypocrisy, dishonesty and duplicitous back-stabbing, the Foley fiasco is a veritable smorgasbord of right-wing evil, all gift-wrapped in one delicious package, which makes it such a terrific subject of observation. And one of those topics that's worth digging into is the aspect of accountability or, as right-wing hacks like to blather on about endlessly, personal responsibility.

By way of introduction, regular readers will know that I've linked to this piece before -- Idealistic Pragmatist's "When an apology is not an apology." But just as sleazy as IP's fake apology is the concept of fake accountability.

As an example, note here where CNN's Dana Bash writes of serial liar, moral failure and spineless coward House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ugly Fat Bastard):

We understand that there was actually a meeting here on Capitol Hill just a short while ago with Republican press secretaries where the Speaker’s staff told the Republican press secretaries that they’re going to try very hard to change the mood, change the atmosphere, go on the offense. And that, we understand, will include at least the speaker making it clear he does take full responsibility for this.

Really? Wow. "Full responsibility." That's pretty fucking impressive. Except for the fact that it's utterly meaningless since Hastert has, over the course of the last few days, made it clear that no one ever told him anything and that he has absolutely no intention of resigning. So where is this "responsibility," one might ask.

How exactly does one stand up and take "full responsibility," while simultaneously stating that one has no intention whatsoever of being held accountable in even the smallest way? What we have here is faux accountability to go along with IP's faux apology. Which is all delightfully ironic, since all of it emanates from people whose "compassion" is as faux as it gets.

No matter what else you think of them, you have to give conservatives credit for consistency -- they are 100 per cent fake from beginning to end.

WHOOPS, HOW DID I MISS THAT ONE?
Sorry ... while presenting my list of lamentable right-wing personality deficiencies, I completely overlooked their irrepressible tendency to meticulously track down the victims of serial, sexual predators and expose them to the world. My bad. It won't happen again.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

George Jr. couldn’t remember anyone telling him, the day before Katrina hit, that the levies were about to cave; Condi couldn’t remember anyone telling her, two months before September 11, that al Quaida was about to attack the United States; how can anyone expect Denny to remember someone telling him one of the majority whips was hitting on pages?

Anonymous said...

The Pope was sorry if Muslims felt offended, Bush took full responsibility for botched Katrina, and if a ten year old brat apologises like that, we know they are full of shite immediately because when you say "so what are you going to do about it" the ten year old says "hey, back off, man, I apologised already, give me a break".
So WTF is wrong that no one hardly seems to notice how full of shite Bush, Pope, Haster, et al are, let alone say "SO WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?" to them!!!

It drives me nuts how stunned MSM and r-wing, or anyone for that matter, can even pretend those people are taking responsibility, let alone defend them, FFS!!!